[luau] the end user price for lousy copy protection schemes
I have seen numbers thrown around of how much buggy software costs end users. But one number I have never seen is how much copyright protection schemes costs end users? For example, you legally buy some commercial software package and the key number is ether lost, stolen, or is burned on a fire. Or the key number has problems, or a bug requires you to re-enter the key number every time you use the package, or the 'original disk' is in 5.24" floppies, or the lisense management sheme is difficult to set up. How much does it costs the end user to have to deal with with all the crap associated with copy protection? I bet that's an good selling point for OpenSource, because if there is one thing that pisses me off is not being able to run a software I paid for because of some chessy copy protection scheme. Luis. _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
Re: [luau] the end user price for lousy copy protection schemes
> I have seen numbers thrown around of how much buggy software costs end > users. But one number I have never seen is how much copyright protection > schemes costs end users? For example, you legally buy some commercial > software package and the key number is ether lost, stolen, or is burned on a > fire. Or the key number has problems, or a bug requires you to re-enter the > key number every time you use the package, or the 'original disk' is in > 5.24" floppies, or the lisense management sheme is difficult to set up. Same thing with music. I don't know how many copies of Back in Black I have bought since I was 13. Two cassette tapes, 3 LP's and I'm on my second CD. I know why the music industry fat cats are so scared of peer to peer. I'm never buying another copy, I already own it, I'll be burning copies for my next 60 years. I have not bought a main stream CD in over 3 years, that was when I saw my first VH1 "Behind the Music". Why should I support that? They all have the same story: 1-Hungry young band trying hard to make it 2-They make it big, lots of drugs, lots of women, lots of excess 2a-The record label execs are making a fortune for doing nothing 3-Someone dies in the band 4-They sober up and most of the money is gone -M
Re: [luau] the end user price for lousy copy protection schemes
Luis aka Rigpa wrote: I have seen numbers thrown around of how much buggy software costs end users. But one number I have never seen is how much copyright protection schemes costs end users? For example, you legally buy some commercial software package and the key number is ether lost, stolen, or is burned on a fire. Or the key number has problems, or a bug requires you to re-enter the key number every time you use the package, or the 'original disk' is in 5.24" floppies, or the lisense management sheme is difficult to set up. How much does it costs the end user to have to deal with with all the crap associated with copy protection? I bet that's an good selling point for OpenSource, because if there is one thing that pisses me off is not being able to run a software I paid for because of some chessy copy protection scheme. Luis. I can personally say that I've lost a CD-ROM drive to the copy protection on SimCity 4 (Safedisc II?). A gear was physically stripped as the drive was obviously asked to do something it couldn't actually do (the drive should ahve refused, but needless to say obviously a spec was being violated). In terms of being required to use original disks...I've had a couple disks become unusable after being scratched. The problem is twofold: 1) Copy protection generally reduces the scratch tolerances of a disk by doing ugly things with CRCs, and 2) If I had been able to make and use a copy, I would ahve done so, saving the original and allowing me to make another copy. --MonMotha
