Re: MS 7.0 EOD Upgrade Screen. New Features?, MetaStock Email Archive

From:Raymond Hodge To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2000 7:23 PM Subject: Re: MS 7.0 EOD Upgrade Screen. New Features? Yes thank you, I remember the copy protection schemes of the 80s. They were totally useless in stopping dishonest people from making illegal copies. As I recall, apps, which were only useful for getting around those schemes, were as hot a business back then as virus apps and security apps appear to be now. Remember CopyIIPC? They even had a special board you could put in your machine to run the protected disks through to undo the protection scheme. The whole thing was a bad joke. All those silly schemes did was manage to inconvenience and anger those of us foolish enough to be honest and buy and run the copy protected versions. Dishonest people are going to get around what ever scheme they apply to this problem - other than continual and vigorous law enforcement. That's why we have Cops (God bless them). To prosecute people who break the law. Don't make your customers angry because people in Asia (as you say) are stealing from you. Get our politicians to negotiate the Asian politicians into passing laws that stops those activities, and then get them to enforce them. Isn't that why we pay and put up with politicians? IMO, CD verification is another dumb idea that wastes the users time, the programmers time (which would be much better spent cleaning out bugs and making this app more robust) and in the end likely won't even do what it is intended to do. MetaStock has been a source of much income for me. I want only the best for them. I've always bought every upgrade - whatever - even if I didn't need it - just to try and contribute to their profits. I just don't want to see them continuing down the CompuTrac road (ignoring customers, know it all, ever more corporate) to oblivion. IMO, they improved the Reuters download thing considerably. That proves that they have it in them. But they won't fix a broken wheel that doesn't squeak. And it doesn't help to pretend that the emperor has a lovely suite of clothes on when he's actually buck naked (and ugly). Thanks for reminding me, Ray *I think Equis is doing this to prevent people, who didn't buy v6.52 EOD, from receiving the upgrade price. I assume this is also why they require you verify you have the MetaStock CD. Apparently, Equis (or Reuters) is concerned about illegal copying. I can't really blame them. There's a LOT of illegal copying taking place in the Eastern European block nations, in Russia, and particularly in Asia. MicroSoft recently sued a company in China but the Chinese court ruled in favor of the company saying there was "no proof" any copying occurred. Right. If this activity continues, expect American software companies to take more drastic measures to protect themselves. This will include setting up "regions" similar to the DVD video market. They may even revive the copy protection schemes which were used during the 80's. D.M.