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From: noeler@xanth.CS.ORST.EDU (Eric Richard Noel)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,alt.msdos.programmer,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: How to the disks copy protected.
Message-ID: <1r76sbINNkap@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU>
Date: 22 Apr 93 22:40:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: flop.1r76sbINNkap
References: <1993Apr21.085848.12704W@lumina.edb.tih.no> <1993Apr21.141137.863@imag.fr> <1993Apr22.180747.21756@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Organization: Oregon State University
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>
>>Hey, now will you stop encouraging him? Copy protection only serves one pur-
>>pose: to keep the honest buyer from making (legal) backup copies. It will
>>definitely not stop any pirates. If you want to protect you soft, supply a
>>good documentation and support. This is IMHO the *only* way of effectively pro
>>tecting software.
>>Best Regards,
>>Arno

I strongly disagree. I think most pirating is done by amateurs, who won't
copy the program if "diskcopy" can't do it.
If you're talking a 20% max goal of pirated copies, I bet that anything that
will beat diskcopy, and can't be easily copied from a hard drive, will
suffice.
I hate hard copy manuals, and would rather have all docs online - *not*
because I want to copy the program, but because its usually faster and
and convenient than sifting through an old book I can't find.

Off deeper end-> Why does everyone think they need to be able to make a 
backup copy? Almost all new software must be installed to the hard disk,
so you are left with the originals as your backups. I think its a waste
of time, space, and money, as well as it makes it to tempting to "lend"
out the backups. 


No flames intended - just my thoughts.

Eric