From: mmwang@adobe.com (Michael Wang)
Subject: Re: Most Wanted Cracks List
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 01:06:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.154934.22641@engage.pko.dec.com>
marshall@tfh.enet.dec.com (Hunting the Snark) writes:
>No, that is not what I'm saying. Consider this scenario:
>
>User A buys game Z for $40 finishes the game and sells to user B.
>User B buys game Z for $30 (from A), finishes the game and sells to user C.
>User C buys game Z for $20 (from B), finishes the game and sells to user D.
>User D buys game Z for $10 (from C), finishes the game and throws it away.
>
>According to all the "Software Avatars", this is perfectly legal and ethical.
>
>Consider this scenario:
>
>Users A,B,C,D chip in $10 apiece to buy game Z for $40.
>they make 3 copies, play the game simultaneously and when finished, throw
>their copy away.
>
>According to all the Avatars, this is perfectly illegal, immoral and promotes
>tooth decay.
>
>I just don't see the difference. In both cases, the producer makes 1 sale and
>gets $40, 4 people play the game for a net cost to each of $10.
>
>For the moment ignore the legality issue. Seems to me that both scenarios
>should be ethically equivalent, either both are ok or both are bad.

There is a difference, though it is subtle and is not exactly apparent
in your above example. The difference is, the time it takes for all
four users to "complete" the game is different in scenario 1 (serial
method) compared to scenario 2 (parallel method).

For example, it took me about a month of regular playing on weekends and
irregular playing on weekdays to finish Ultima 7. Setting Z = Ultima 7 we
see that User D would have to wait 3 months before he got a chance to play
the game. Maybe he won't want to wait that long and therefore decides to buy
it himself. With the parallel method, all four users could finish in a
month and therefore nobody would want to buy it for themselves because 
they didn't have to wait for it.

In conjuction with this time differential, there is also the question of
how many users could play the game given that we allow unlimited copying,
vs. that we only allow loaning selling, trading, loaning, etc. To give an
example of this, let us transfer these scenarios to books.

Suppose there is a really popular book at the library that everybody wants
to read. Assuming our library is open 24 hours a day (unlikely, I know),
how many people could read the book assuming it takes 3 hours to read it,
and no copying is allowed? Only 8 people in this case. However, let us
assume that we can make unlimited copies and that the first master copy
takes 20 minutes to make the "master copy" and 5 minutes to make the
subsequent copies. The minimum number of readers that could read this book
using this method (assuming a single copy machine) would be 248. The
number assumes that copies are made for 21 hours and then all the copies
are distributed at once. Obviously, we could get a lot more readers if
some are reading while copies are made, and then pass on their copies,
etc. We could reach even more readers if we had multiple copy machines.

Obviously publishers would like to eliminate this kind of unrestricting
copying, but many people don't like to spend lots of money buying books.
Therefore, a sort of compromise was reached were books could be loaned
out, but couldn't be copied. If you were really impatient, you would go
out and buy the book.

Going back to our software example, though the end effect of scenario 2
is the same as 1, if you allow scenario 2 to be legal, you run into the
problem that distribution would become unrestrained, and, in effect, one
person could buy a copy to service 10's, 100's, 1000's or even millions
of users. Each person, of course would contribute their share (fractions
of a penny?) but that is no consolation to the publishers. This is, in
effect, what is happening in places like Hong Kong. You might think, "Well,
I'll just copy it for my friends and that will be the end of the chain,"
but it usually doesn't end that way. One of your friends will copy it for
his or her friends, and eventually everybody has it. This, in fact, seems
to be the general distribution pattern in college campuses.

With scenario 1, there is an inherent mechanism to slow down the
distribution and though the software publishers would probably like it
if programs could not even be resold, traded, etc., that is unlikely
to hold up in court. Therefore we end up with the same situation as
we have with books.


>What seems to get overlooked is that important step of "throw it away" when
>the game is done. This is why the argument above does not apply to "boring"
>business applications; they generally are not used for a couple weeks and
>thrown away.

Do you think that if the software eventually is going to be thrown away,
it is okay to make unlimited copies? If you believe this, you could apply
this to business software since most software gets upgraded so the previous
versions are more or less useless. E.g., if I use Microsoft Excel, I
know that in roughly a year I will be done with it because a new version
will be out, therefore it is okay for me to make copies for my friends,
etc. (assuming they pay their share, of course).


-- 
Michael Wang
mmwang@adobe.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games