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to take every possible step to protect their property?
  
Suggesting any other course of action is disingenuous in the extreme.
  
Suggesting (as others have), that 'theft will always be with us',
'it goes on so 'ya might as well live with it', 'developers should
be forced to periodically re-register their stuff and demonstrate
support', is not a cogent enough rationale on which to base a
business philosophy. Those who make such judgements are historically
doomed to business failure - there are thousands of examples. And
against whom should TOS/GEM developers not protect themselves? While
you may be an exception to the rule Rodney, I know of few people
indeed, who haven't 'shared' or 'borrowed' software - commercial
software and registered shareware. In a market where even the loss
of 5 - 10 sales can mean the difference between going on or throwing
in the towel, every single theft (characterize the activity however
you like!), is deeply and abidingly hurtful.
   
The most disgraceful act is that typical of the one committed by a
TOS/GEM user with whom I've recently become familiar. His big mouth
got him into deep trouble. He phoned me about product support, after
making some disparaging comments about one of the products I sell
through ABC Solutions. The comments he made were very public, and
very nasty. Needlessly nasty. In the course of the phone
conversation, I managed to ascertain that the copy of the software
he was using had been (he claimed), borrowed from a 'friend'. What
he had (in actual fact) was a pirated version of the software
containing a serial number which vastly overestimated the sales of
the product(!). The situation revealed a couple of important things:
  
First, those who are not in the TOS/GEM business haven't the
faintest clue about real retail sales levels.
  
Second, there are far too many situations in which thieves not only
steal software (which is devastating to sales), but also have the
unmitigated gall to make disparaging, inaccurate public comments
about the software (damaging sales and potential support even more).
  
We live in precarious times, where TOS/GEM computing is concerned.
*Anyone* who tolerates even the slightest breach of legal and
ethical conduct is doing tremendous damage. That individual can only
be characterized as thoughtless, vicious, vituperative, and
arrogant. Those among us who provide an atmosphere in which such
behavior can flourish, will have the best seats in the house when
the TOS/GEM market collapses from all this self-serving nonsense.


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