Copy Protection:  A Necessary Evil?
                              by Bencion Calica


    The  winding  path  that  the  industry  has  followed concerning copy
    protection  has come to a sharp fork.  Down  one  path  lies  complete
    removal  of  copy-protection;   the other leads towards very nasty new
    forms of copy-protection.  It is difficult at this point to know which
    road the industry will choose.

    With  hard  disks  clearly  coming within everyone's reach, publishers
    will have no choice but to make it safe and easy to run their programs
    on  such devices, at the very least by way of a "key disk" system.  It
    is bad to have a floppy disk trash itself because of  copy-protection;
    it  is  unacceptable  to have a portion of a hard disk destroyed.  The
    single copy to a  hard  disk  and  never  again  schemes  are  equally
    unacceptable  because gremlins live in every system and who knows when
    you will have to rebuild your hard disk.

    Macintosh programs are designed to work in harmony  with  each  other.
    The  standardization that makes the Mac unique allows one to build his
    own "customized" workstation.  That means the  combination  of  fonts,
    desk  accessories,  and programs that work best for a given situation.
    A copy protected program, on the other hand, tries  to  force  you  to
    play  by  its rules.  If you can't put the program on a hard disk or a
    RAM disk, or if you are asked repeatedly to insert  the  original  key
    disk,  it may be impossible for you to construct the set-up that makes
    sense for you.  And copy protection by its nature is  nonstandard,  so
    it's  no  surprise when you run into strange gremlins.  In short, copy
    protection is a pain.

    On the other side, if the indstry seems to  be  screaming,  it  has  a
    right  to.  Developers who work long and hard to produce good software
    deserve to be compensated, and companies that bring these products  to
    the  market are entitled to a fair return on the investment they make.
    When their programs are pirated, they can't even  cover  their  costs.
    Software piracy is breaking many good companies.  Others are forced to
    pass the burden on to their paying customers, in the  form  of  higher
    prices and annoying protection schemes.

    What should be done?

    I  don't  think you can keep the kids out of the cookie jar by putting
    it on higher and higher shelves -- especially  with  people  who  make
    their  living  building  ladders.  You need to add enough value to the
    package so that it is worth owning, rather than stealing.

    To do that the software folks need to produce a triad:

    1.  A good program.

    2.  Complete documentation.

    3.  Enough follow-up support to make you want to be a registered user.

    1.  A good Program.  No one  want  to  spend  good  money  for  a  bad
    program,  or even for a mediocre one.  For producers of such software,
    quality ought to be a more pressing concern than protection.

    2.  Complete documentation.  At minimum, the manual should be a  clear
    and  complete  reference  (not  just  a guide) to the program.  But it
    should go beyond that.  There is no reason why  a  manual  should  not
    include a section on tricks and techniques for getting the most out of
    the program.  And there ought to be background material on the kind of
    work  to  be  done,  not just that particular program.  The VideoWorks
    manual has a fantastic section on  animation  history  and  technique.
    More  power  to them.  Every database package should have a section on
    general database theory.  And, for God's sake, don't put all the  help
    online.   That's  asking  for  trouble.   I'll  live  with having good
    reference material on my desk.

    3.  Enough follow-up support to make you want to be a registered user.
    First  and  foremost  is  a  well  staffed, accessible, and preferably
    toll-free support  line  for  legal  owners.   Second  is  timely  and
    inexpensive   (if  not  free)  updates  of  both  the  software  an  d
    information about the the software.  And finally, some set of  special
    deals  or  offers to registered owners (for example, Microsoft's offer
    to Multiplan owners of Excel at a reduced price).

    Instead of devoting themselves to the vain struggle  to  stay  half  a
    step ahead of the hackers and copy-crackers, software companies should
    focus their energies on enchancing the real value of  their  products.
    An  approach  like  this  will  do  what  no  amount  of  preaching or
    protection can accomplish:  give users a positive incentive to pay for
    the  programs  they want to use.  In the end the industry would surely
    come out ahead.

    And so would the rest of us.

    Copyright (c) 1985 by The Boston Computer Society.