Avast, ye IP pirates

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_...>
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 10:40:09 -0700 (PDT)


David Short:

> I'm not sure what the answer is to the
> IP question, but experience has shown
> that relying on technology to solve
> this type of problem either doesn't
> work well, or it doesn't work long.

I've only ever hear four answers to this question (and lot of adapttions and further complexification of them). In order of efficacy:

  1. Rely on a culture of honesty and the technical difficulty for most users to illegally copy (regardless of security barriers). Think about it: most Americans pay, regardless of whether we'd ever get caught. One of the reasons that Napster was so egregious was that it made piracy cool and easy.
  2. Create technical security barriers to copying. As a lawyer, I always tell my clients to do this, because they don't want to pay to do the next item.
  3. Rely on the law. This does not work well for small value products -- there needs to be at least $50,000 on the table to bring us lawyers in.
  4. Finally, as you put it:

> Particularly for software, a better model
> would be for developers to provide enough
> support and content that it is worth the time
> and effort of customers to purchase the product.

I've never actually seen this work well, though I'm not familiar with the example you cite. For most gaming products in particular, the you want the product for what it does the moment you bought it untried, not what its makes says mught be coming out in the months ahead. For example, as nice as it has been to get fixed to KoDP, I liked it when I got it and I like it that much now. The difference between them is not enough to discourage a pirate from not paying for the initial copy. A further point is that, once a gaming product is substantially complete, the developers have to recoup sunk costs before they can really start making add-ons. (And then the add-ons can get pirated, too.) Or do I misunderstand your point?


Chris Lemens

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