Tom Scales wrote:
> Let's face it, if you made a product and somebody was stealing billions of
> dollars a year from you, wouldn't you do something about it?
Absolutely, particularly if I were as insecure as Microsoft in their ability
to innovate. Outside of specialized vertical market software, a rabid focus
on stopping piracy is usually a sign of an inferiority complex. To everybody
else looking for mind share for a new product, piracy is a distribution tool
and an indicator of whether the software is desirable.
Just Systems, developer of the Ichitaro word processor that used to dominate
the Japanese market, used piracy to grow their market share in the '80s.
They'd release a version with no protection, everybody would copy it, and
then the next version would have copy protection causing a spike in sales
from all their newfound fans. They would then go back to no protection on
the following version, etc.
Apple copy protects their software with a gigantic dongle called Macintosh.
Microsoft should do the same thing and come out with an AM/FM radio on a
keychain USB flash drive that you have to plug in to log on--of course it
would only tune in MSN content and the first two versions would be the size
of a VHS tape. The third version would be the size of a passport...
Joel Ingulsrud
joel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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