Emulation Good Guys / Bad Guys

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Sat Dec 4 19:58:27 1999

At 01:28 PM 12/3/99 -0800, Mike Ford wrote:
>>I see where this is going, though - it's similar to a shrink-wrap
>>license. When I buy a Nintendo cart, am I in effect signing a
>>contract that says I won't run it on an emulator?
>
>How is this different from buying a CD and making a cassette for your
>walkman from it? This is familiar ground the courts have ruled in favor of
>the consumers on.

Well, I agree. It would be like buying a Sony music CD that had a shrink
wrap license restricting it from being played on anything but Sony
equipment,and certainly not on an MP3 player. Sounds like Divx.
I haven't paid any attention to the fine print on a Playstation CD,
does it actually contain language that restricts its use?

>The wet dream of software companies is "pay per use", ie you actually don't
>get ANYTHING tangible for your money just permission for a specific use.
>Linux looks better and better every day.

Microsoft has come to close to this in the past two years. I think
2000 will be the year they actually start charging by subscription
(time-period licenses) and I can easily see the industry migrating
to a license scheme that requires periodic communication with
the Internet to fetch new keys.

- John
Received on Sat Dec 04 1999 - 19:58:27 GMT