From: evans1@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (Dan Evans)
Subject: Re: A Frank Discussion on Piracy (Flames, Anyone? : -P )
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 20:15:10 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.204309.20046@cs.odu.edu> jdp@osric.cs.odu.edu (JD Powell) writes:
>
>Uhh ... looks like we have an interesting discussion going on here.
>Several people have indicated they don't condone piracy, and don't
>buy the "try it before you buy it" rationale, because of the rampant
>and lenient return policies of the vendors they deal with.  Please post 
>the names of these vendors for the rest of us.  I've had several (1 is 
>too many) situations where I was refused the right to return software within
>days of purchasing it.  While this is not reason enough for me to pirate,
>it IS sufficient reason to change vendors.  Who are the good guys?  And
>we're talking mail order here too.
>


Egghead Software is the one I mentioned in my previous post. But another thing
has also occurred to me.

Not wanting to speak for Citibank (how's that for a disclaimer :-) ), anytime
I have used their card to purchase anything from a vendor that was reluctant
to satisfy me as a customer they have been willing to look into the matter
and see that my account is credited for the purchase as long as I have first
returned the stuff to the vendor.  Since money talks in this country, the
credit card companies have considerable say as to what the vendors that
accept their cards will or won't do.  If you're worried, use a good name
credit card and the bank (if not the retailer) is usually willing to see
that you are satisfied. 

I think that's why at least a few retailers are starting to do this. They
figure that any way you look at it, refusing a return is a losing situation
for them. Unless you pay cash, you can get your money back one way or another.
The refusal just generates bad publicity for the retailer.



Also Super Dave made the comment that copying promoted the production of
demos (not an exact quote).  I think it's more a matter of:

"It's better for us to put out this demo because, if someone likes it, they
will most likely buy it regardless of price, otherwise we have to deal with
retailer complaints about high returns on one of our programs."

People will buy a program sooner instead of waiting for the price to drop
a little and make it "worth the risk" and on the other side of the coin
processing the return costs them money too.

I didn't buy Wing Commander until they dropped it to $20 bucks. I like the
game and would have payed more for it. The reason I did not was because
I tryed it on a store demo PC that happened to be running it and since I 
had nothing to refer to for flight control (aka. a demo readme file)
the game play was "unproductive". Had I used a demo with a flight control
cheat sheet I would bought it at $50 instead of $20. That is not intended to
be a rationalization for anything. But it is the truth.
-- 
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