| From: | Ross Whiteford |
| Date: | 16 Aug 2000 at 11:23:15 |
| Subject: | Re: Amiga Piracy |
Hi,
>Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 17:21:01 -0700
> From: Gary Peake <gary@amiga.com>
>Subject: Re: Re: Amiga Piracy
>On Wed, 16 Aug 2000 01:09:53 +0100, Gerald Mellor
><egroups@utumno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>Hi Andy, on 16-Aug-00, you wrote:
>>
>>> Like AmIRC and its "/me is a lame software pirate" message.
>>> Although I think the Shapeshifter thing is more stylish :)
>>
>> So when your harddrive has a funny turn and corrupts your keyfile,
>> and then you get strange error messages, or made to look like a
>> complete **** on IRC or your harddrive gets formatted
>> unexpectedly...?
>
>I am curious as to what people think would be the appropriate approach to
>piracy (theft)?
Prosecuting the pirates would be a good start. Of course, to do that you
have to catch them first.
If the Government could be encouraged to fund an Anti-Piracy "squad" that
would investigate any/all cases of piracy, regardless of platform, and aim
to prosecute the "commercial" (ie. ripping-off hundreds of copies of games
at a time) pirates, that would probably help. Unfortunately, the Government
seems more interested in pursuing their RIP bill ATM. What happened to the
FAST? Haven't heard of a successfull prosecution on their part for years.
Since the Gov'mt probably can't or won't help, that leaves it up to the
industry. When the Amiga becomes a commercially viable and successfull
platform once agin, perhaps Amiga Inc. could look into starting some sort of
anti-piracy cartel with other major application providers? With the money
and the manpower, tighter controls could be placed on Registration
procedures so individual owners could be given their own key - tied to
them - to make tracking pirate keys easier.
Of course, the problem lies in tracking the pirated keys/cracked copies of
software. Many people dislike the scenario in which the program quietly
e-mails the developer when it detects a blacklisted keyfile, but it may be
the most powerful option.
>Gary Peake
All the best!
Ross Whiteford
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