Re: Cracked Software

[modus-dejanews@pr.es.to (Patrick Michael Kane)]

On 28 Jul 1998 07:34:12 EDT, Gabriel Morales <Togega@concentric.net> wrote:
>Supertimer wrote:
>>  
>> I get the picture, but there is still no need to put "pirate badges" on
>> the programs.
>> 
>> I cracked SongWriter, a IIe music program, in order to remove the
>> copy protection (I actually owned the program, though) but I did not
>> put "cracked by so and so" screens!
> 
>> Have you noticed there seems to be quite a few programs that
>> have no business being cracked....they were not originally
>> copy protected, but the cracking groups break into them
>> and add "pirate badges" just for the heck of it....sucks!
>
>    This is exactly my concern. "Cracking" a program for the sake of removing
>troublesome protection no longer needed is all right, but doing so "just for
>the heck of it", as Supertimer puts it, is absolutely not.
>
>    Now what if the original code becomes unavailable or the "cracked" version
>more popular than the original? Since it seems that no one in particular is in
e of preserving these titles intact, it seems plausible that this COULD happen.

We are having this debate in the present tense, but there is not much more
software being cracked with crack screens any more .... the days of Apple ][
cracking groups is long gone.  So:

The question is not "How do we stop people from cracking programs and putting
their name all over them?".  Instead, the question is "How do we make sure
we are either preserving the original disk images or at least cleaning up
the intro screens from disk images that have already been cracked?".

Answers to either question are welcome!
-- 
Patrick Michael Kane
<modus-dejanews@pr.es.to>