Episode 92 - Copy Protection

It's Spook Month 2022! To kick things off we are diving into the frustrating depth of copy protection, piracy, and the origins of commercial software. In 1969 the Great Unbundling made the software market viable for the first time. Ever since then pirates and software vendors have been locked in a battle over bits. This episode traces the early days of copy protection, and how spite played an important role. Selected Sources: fadden.com/app... - In depth analysis of Apple II copy protection www.princeton.... - The crypto-microprocessor sci-hub.se/10.... - A personal recollection of the Unbundling

[@sunnohh]

My two favorite topics, early computer history and upper level economics

[@JosephRawsonWorks]

1985-1986 top floor of camp Foster USO on Friday nights. Before the berne convention. I came back to the states with hundreds of copied floppies with my c128................many military xerox machines contributed in the task of copying big books that focused on defeating copy. Protection.

[@dhpbear2]

So, as The Internet started with government and universities, so did the availability of 'end-user' programs ' :)

[@JosephRawsonWorks]

The distinction between copy protection and access control seems blurry in this episode.

[@CARLiCON]

Gates didn't own or write BASIC, it was created by Kemeny & Kurtz who never copyrighted it. MS-BASIC was a stripped down bare-bones variation so that it could run in 4k RAM on the earliest 8 bit micro "computers." The fact that it was illegally pirated is what caused it to become a de facto standard. When it then started going viral in popularity, Gates then tried to jump on the bandwagon & get people to pay. He had no clue that home microcomputers were going to be a big fad. Later it was legitimately distributed by the big micro makers in ROM as this was still before OSs/ floppies.

[@jeffburrell7648]

The tenor of this podcast is unwarranted. Calling copy protection "spiteful monomania" is a judgemental statement that ignores the early microcomputer landscape. It is easy to fire at Microsoft, especially given their later behavior, but at one time even Microsoft was a small, struggling business in a nondescript New Mexico business park. They and many other companies were operating on small margins and the loss of sales - even a few sales - could spell financial trouble for them. Bill Gates' letter was long on overheated rhetoric, but his basic point that a workman deserves to be paid for his labor is on point.
I could just as easily call the pirates selfish, "spiteful monomaniacs" who wanted what they wanted and did not give a fig about who may have been harmed in the process.

[@sunnohh]

Dude Billy had a freaking porsche 911 turbo at this point, they were already pissing money away way before they left arizona