I'd imagine it is just as illegal to use cracked, but discontinued, software as it is with current cracked software.

Would the developers be bothered though? If so, why?

Cheers,
Peter

--------------------
Composer, Producer, Sound Designer
www.universal-sound-design.com

Typically software is only discontinued for a few reasons:

• Company philospophy (eg Logic after the Apple buyout)
• Superseeded by another product or technology
• Developer out of business
• Income from sales/support insufficient
  

It's always illegal, and morally wrong, but there are moral shades of dark grey. At the end of the day, the developers want to be paid for thier effort. If they're not providing any suport (not even a website or forum with old questions), then they might not be so bothered, but they would rather you brought a newer product (if available). If they're no longer in business then it's showing why - if people who use the product paid for it, they might have been able to stay around.

The only clear way would be if the liscence agreement stated that it could be used with a crack or without registration under certain circumstances, and that's rare. In the commercial software world non-existant. However in the FOSS camp you don't need the crack in the first place. Companies who have superseeded a commercial product aren't likley to open it up for anybody to use, even if they offered a support contract.

--------------------
and it's a widescreen world around me

The thing is still under copyright though so it will still be not legal.

Things like (just an example) Amiga roms, now pretty much all of the games you can get for an Amiga have no copyright now because, well you cant buy the games anymore because your talking about games that are like 15-20 years old, they just dont sell them anymore.

However the actual "Thing" that makes the Amiga work (like the OS), cant remeber the name for it, but thats still selling online for people to obviously run games on.

Basically until the manufacturers say its "freeware" then it will still need to have a valid license to be "legal". Even if you cant buy it in the shops anymore.

--------------------
There is nothing Grim about this Reaper
We Fell From The Sky

Credit to Propellerhead and their generous now-free-for-download ReBirth.

I did once see a crack of a VST synth called Junglist that I though sounded good and was ridiculously simple. It used very little cpu and IIRC was only about 2Mb for the app. It was no longer sold, though. I emailed the developers saying could I pay them a licence fee and use a crack. They said no - use Hydra, which is similar but more modern. I did in the end, but it did seem a bit dumb to me to turn down money for quite literally nothing. Hydra is of course a bit more complicated than Junglist ... being newer and all. Some people think more functions = better software.

BTW - I run a software company in real life, and we do have one downloadable product that is no doubt crackable. I would be delighted to take someone's money for an out-of-date version that they didn't want us to support.

--------------------
Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Thanks for the response guys.

I used to have Steinberg LM-4 mkII at my previuos company and would like to use it again, primarily to load up older projects. It's no longer available and Steinberg don't supply anything similar.

I did see a used copy, however, selling for £99. I might consider this, but if I let it slip and never see another copy, I'd be stuffed really.

Cheers,
Peter

Quote:

---

now pretty much all of the games you can get for an Amiga have no copyright now because

---

while you can't buy them any more, the copyright is still valid. Thus, it's illegal to copy them. Most Amiga game developers (and many other legacy platforms) close an eye on the whole thing and don't actively pursue their copyright. Basically when you want to play the original frogger, you're out of luck unless you can find the original setup.. heck, even the flash clones of the old classic games available on the web are copyright violations.

A lot of music has the same issue (not being available on the market, yet protected by copyright, so you are not allowed to download a copy either.), or books, movies, ... basically anything that's not older then 50 years.

Old software falls into the same category, and it's illegal unless otherwise stated by the copyright holders. sometimes code get released or the product gets distributed for free (opcode, propellorheads) when a manufacturer goes out of business or support for a piece of software stops, but, sadly this seldom happens and it's IMHO one of the biggest problems with software today, as it places users sometimes in a position where there is simple NO legal way of handling.

--------------------
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to eat nuclear warheads?

Why use cracks ?
Old software has such little value, you can often buy it for pennies !

Cracks are not only illeagal but plain daft as they mess up your computer making it very unstable.
Better to search the ads for old titles and buy the real thing.

Check out eBay!!

I found that I quite liked the idea of Waldorf's Assualt (analogue drum synth) and found a copy for thirty quid. So I'm (mostly) legal.

--------------------
Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Quote Dave B:

---

Check out eBay!!

I found that I quite liked the idea of Waldorf's Assualt (analogue drum synth) and found a copy for thirty quid. So I'm (mostly) legal.

---

That's where I found a used copy of LM-4 mkII for £99 (mentioned above)

Cheers,
Peter

ino, yes they still have a copyright but its pretty much useless.

Nobody who made an Amiga game could actually seek "compensation" from a site offering its rom for download. I personally think most developers and (even know 1) who thinks that its incredible people "still want to play a game I helped make" and personally think it flattering for people to still see their work being appreciated.

But it is crazy when software companies know their products are still used and dont offer them at a reduced cost instead
choose to "discontinue it". Makes no sense to me

--------------------
There is nothing Grim about this Reaper
We Fell From The Sky

Quote Dave B:

---

I found that I quite liked the idea of Waldorf's Assualt (analogue drum synth)

---

You probably mean Waldorf's "Attack"...

Didn't Amigas use a slightly more advanced version of basic,Similar to the bios on a pc?Are they really 15-20 years old?Man I'm getting past it,I've still got an acorn electron knocking around somewhere.

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Whack some chorus on it,it'll sound fine (this doesn't apply to vocals)

Quote:

---

But it is crazy when software companies know their products are still used and dont offer them at a reduced cost instead
choose to "discontinue it". Makes no sense to me

---

well, software needs to maintained (bug fixes, etc..), but even when development totally stops there needs to be some kind of customer support. If people pay for it, they do want some support for it, which means support engineers, registration, etc . Probably not worth all the money it costs for many software companies.

--------------------
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to eat nuclear warheads?

Quote inocybe:

---

Quote:

---

But it is crazy when software companies know their products are still used and dont offer them at a reduced cost instead
choose to "discontinue it". Makes no sense to me

---

well, software needs to maintained (bug fixes, etc..), but even when development totally stops there needs to be some kind of customer support. If people pay for it, they do want some support for it, which means support engineers, registration, etc . Probably not worth all the money it costs for many software companies.

---

I think he was referring to selling it in its final state, maybe even just as a download (so no need to finance packaging, etc), but with the understanding it's sold as is and no further support will be granted.

Cheers,
Peter

--------------------
Composer, Producer, Sound Designer
www.universal-sound-design.com

Quote desmond:

---

Quote Dave B:

---

I found that I quite liked the idea of Waldorf's Assualt (analogue drum synth)

---

You probably mean Waldorf's "Attack"...

---

I thought that's what he meant. Had me baffled for a second!

You can still get Attack, as part of a package with PPG, Pole and Attack

Cheers,
Peter

I'm just going to begin by saying I disagree with the fact that using cracked software is "morally wrong," since there are all kinds of systems of morality in this world.

With that said, the Amiga roms are an interesting example. However, consider Nintendo. The approval of the employee who made the software and the company that sold it are very different. Roms of Nintendo games are downloaded, played and sold just like those of Amiga games. However, Nintendo is still milking those games for all they're worth --- gameboy advance, nintendo DS, gamecube all have versions of Original Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, which are usually sold to customers, or included as "easter eggs" in retail games (see Animal Crossing for Gamecube). So is it 'wrong' to download Nintendo games, but ok to download Amiga games?

I'm not drawing any conclusions here. Just wanna raise questions. I think cracked software's great, personally, because I don't believe in the concept of property. But that's just me.

--------------------
Nobukazu Takemura = God.

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

---

I think cracked software's great, personally, because I don't believe in the concept of property. But that's just me.

---

That's sad to read, and of course, pretty ludicrous.

I wonder how you would feel if it was YOUR property being abused.

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote Henry-S:

---

The thing is still under copyright though so it will still be not legal.

...

Basically until the manufacturers say its "freeware" then it will still need to have a valid license to be "legal". Even if you cant buy it in the shops anymore.

---

This is true. However, there will very likely be a change in the law to enable people to use so-called "dead-media". This would be expressed as an exception in copyright law. However, it wouldn't go so far as to say the code was public domain... the exception (if it is enacted) would be limited to enabling the use of otherwise redundant resources.

Quote Henry-S:

---

Nobody who made an Amiga game could actually seek "compensation" from a site offering its rom for download.

---

You'd be surprised what IP lurketh in old stuff. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet there is Newton IP in the iPhone. The story of current technology is as much about patent-pooling and IP history as it is about the developers.

--------------------
www.bemuso.com

Quote fxfreakoid:

---

Didn't Amigas use a slightly more advanced version of basic,Similar to the bios on a pc?Are they really 15-20 years old?Man I'm getting past it,I've still got an acorn electron knocking around somewhere.

---

!!!!!
Okay you have stirred up a crazy wild eyed Amiga fanatic!
The OS is still in current development, even though Commodore nosedived in 1991-ish.
Amazingly, there is a large number of users still relying on the A1200/4000 series to sequence and record music.
I use it because the Amiga never ever crashes.
FWIW the OS is still ahead of Windoze in many key areas and always will be. But then there are so many other OS`s that eclipse Windoze, it makes you realise that Bill Gates`s marketing department are the real reason for Microsoft`s success, certainly not his coders, who are still saddled with backwards compatibility issues stemming all the way back to the inadeqaucies of the original MSDos.

Whew! That feels better.

--------------------
Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

You go to Amiga conventions don't you Ivan...... .huh huh?

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote IvanSC:

---

Quote fxfreakoid:

---

Didn't Amigas use a slightly more advanced version of basic,Similar to the bios on a pc?Are they really 15-20 years old?Man I'm getting past it,I've still got an acorn electron knocking around somewhere.

---

!!!!!
Okay you have stirred up a crazy wild eyed Amiga fanatic!
The OS is still in current development, even though Commodore nosedived in 1991-ish.
Amazingly, there is a large number of users still relying on the A1200/4000 series to sequence and record music.
I use it because the Amiga never ever crashes.
FWIW the OS is still ahead of Windoze in many key areas and always will be. But then there are so many other OS`s that eclipse Windoze, it makes you realise that Bill Gates`s marketing department are the real reason for Microsoft`s success, certainly not his coders, who are still saddled with backwards compatibility issues stemming all the way back to the inadeqaucies of the original MSDos.

Whew! That feels better.

---

I still used Music-X on my A500 up until 1997

I booted it up last year and loaded up sequences, some from 1989, and 99% of them still loaded

P

Hasn't been booted for a couple of years now, but last time I checked my Atari it was when re-booting a 1990 tune for a last and final remix- and everything came up perfect, including the samples running on an old Akai S1100. I was dumbfounded ! (Not least because I'd actually found all the data, buried in the attic...)

--------------------
http://anotherfineday.bandcamp.com/ http://anotherfineday.co.uk http://apollomusic.co.uk

Quote SecretSam:

---

I did once see a crack of a VST synth called Junglist that I though sounded good and was ridiculously simple. It used very little cpu and IIRC was only about 2Mb for the app. It was no longer sold, though. I emailed the developers saying could I pay them a licence fee and use a crack. They said no - use Hydra, which is similar but more modern. I did in the end, but it did seem a bit dumb to me to turn down money for quite literally nothing.

---

thing is with software is that it costs no money to make a copy and sell it anyway, and them selling you hydra instead of junglist just makes them more money, as it's probably built on the same engine so less man hours on programming, similar GUI, and i suspect you bought it via a download, so no packaging. so they probably made a lot more out of refusing to sell you junglist!

Quote Zukan:

---

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

---

I think cracked software's great, personally, because I don't believe in the concept of property. But that's just me.

---

That's sad to read, and of course, pretty ludicrous.

I wonder how you would feel if it was YOUR property being abused.

---

I think all forums should take stronger stance against people who openly steal other peoples work.
How about they are blocked from the forum.

I would certainly take action against any theft of my work.

Quote Oldhippy:

---

I would certainly take action against any theft of my work.

---

And rightly so.

Hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

---

I'm just going to begin by saying I disagree with the fact that using cracked software is "morally wrong," since there are all kinds of systems of morality in this world. I think cracked software's great, personally, because I don't believe in the concept of property. But that's just me.

---

I think you're living in the wrong part of China if you still think there's anyone on the planet who believes that sort of proto-Marxist gibberish. No doubt you never seek payment for your own music and are happy that the world makes such use as it wishes of it without any payment to you. That's fine by me too.

What is not fine is your breach of the rules you signed up to when joining this forum:

"Requests for links to, or support for , pirated/cracked software are expressly forbidden. Offending posts are liable to be removed and persistent offenders risk being banned from the forums. SOS reserves the right to report the IP address of persistent offenders to copyright owners."

--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...

With respect, Mr Moderator, I think you may have misread the rules.

"Requests for links to, or support for , pirated/cracked software are expressly forbidden," seems to mean: you can't ask for support (ie advice and fault-finding) about your cracked software.

I don't think the rules are intended to prevent someone expressing support for an unpopular idea. Even CNN have not gone quite that far.

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Quote SecretSam:

---

With respect, Mr Moderator, I think you may have misread the rules.

"Requests for links to, or support for , pirated/cracked software are expressly forbidden," seems to mean: you can't ask for support (ie advice and fault-finding) about your cracked software.

I don't think the rules are intended to prevent someone expressing support for an unpopular idea. Even CNN have not gone quite that far.

---

Ah, but forums don't actually have to support free speech or democracy. They're not that kind of animal. Different to CNN.
Now, that person that doesn't believe in property. Can I have yours? And the rights to your songs?

--------------------
Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

It actually seems this needs to be debated properly (and endlessly) rather than people throwing their weight around simply because it's an issue they don't agree on - I don't think issuing threats is very fair, seeing as the chap was only expressing an opinion - I would hate to see this forum become only for those who agree with the majority.

I think the statement about property and ownership was naive, but then I also think it's naive not to ackowledge its exsistence, and to simply refuse to mention such software, for fear of being attacked.

failure to communicate is where it all starts to go horribly wrong.

--------------------
I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over
Twitter

Quote SecretSam:

---

With respect, Mr Moderator, I think you may have misread the rules.

"Requests for links to, or support for , pirated/cracked software are expressly forbidden," seems to mean: you can't ask for support (ie advice and fault-finding) about your cracked software.

---

The rules which the moderators collectively redrafted only weeks ago mean what the moderators say they mean! OK, there's an ambiguity. But we have a long and distinguished position of being opposed to cracked software (and illegal use of music copyright etc).

Theft is theft. We choose not to debate whether it might be a good thing in some peoples' opinions. We choose not to tolerate people who advocate it, just as we cheerily wave goodbye on a permanent, no-appeals-will-be-tolerated basis to anyone who wilfully disregards that position after a fair warning.

You would expect us to do the same with overtly racist, sexist or homophobic posts. Why should advocating crime be treated differently?

This is not, in our view, an issue for honest debate in the name of free speech.

This thread does raise an interesting question about rights to software which is no longer made or supported (which is why the thread is still here). It is not intended to become a free-for-all about let's all use cracked software all the time.

--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote geefunk:

---

It actually seems this needs to be debated properly (and endlessly) rather than people throwing their weight around simply because it's an issue they don't agree on - I don't think issuing threats is very fair, seeing as the chap was only expressing an opinion - I would hate to see this forum become only for those who agree with the majority.

I think the statement about property and ownership was naive, but then I also think it's naive not to ackowledge its exsistence, and to simply refuse to mention such software, for fear of being attacked.

failure to communicate is where it all starts to go horribly wrong.

---

seconded, and eloquently put.

tachikoma's post was naive and OT, possibly against forum rules, but in fairness to him he was rebuked and didn't reply after that. just stick with the topic

Quote Steve Hill:

---

The rules which the moderators collectively redrafted only weeks ago mean what the moderators say they mean! OK, there's an ambiguity.

---

Unless you guys just plan on coming off as autocrats, that may not be such a good thing: if you can't respect your OWN standards or rules, then why should anyone else respect (much less trust the expertise of) SOS?

FWIW, you wouldn't have been inspired to "borrow" that philosophy from the current U.S. President, would you?

Quote Steve Hill:

---

But we have a long and distinguished position of being opposed to cracked software (and illegal use of music copyright etc).

---

A position I happen to agree with, BTW.

Just remember, the door swings both ways: there's alot of "illegal use of music copyright" AKA copyfraud, going on, where people claim copyright over material they have no right to claim. For example, many synth programmers (AKA voicers) or others claim copyright over data that is fundamentally NOT 'copyright protectable', and they are demanding ownership of that which is not "ownable" (at least, not by anyone who didn't write the code for the synth). Nonsense.

Similarly, you have organizations (like RIAA/MPAA) acting as if Congress never granted U.S. citizens certain rights (e.g. Right of First Sale) IN EXCHANGE for granting IP rights to creators of works. Ask the RIAA if you're allowed to sell a recording you purchased, and see how honest THEY are.

So it's all about a balance between rights of the consumer and producer, and some people tend to forget about the balance. So copyright fraud/infringement works BOTH ways: it's not all about consumers ripping off the creators, but sometimes shrewd and unethical types screwing consumers out of what they don't even 'own'.

Quote Steve Hill:

---

Theft is theft.

---

Yes, it is. And copyright infringement is copyright infringement, a separate tort from theft. I'm so relieved you DIDN'T say "copyright infringement is theft", as that's nonsense (while an analogous concept, they don't equate). For example, try prosecuting a property theft as a copyright infringement case, and see how far that goes in the judicial system....

Quote Steve Hill:

---

We choose not to debate whether it might be a good thing in some peoples' opinions. We choose not to tolerate people who advocate it, just as we cheerily wave goodbye on a permanent, no-appeals-will-be-tolerated basis to anyone who wilfully disregards that position after a fair warning. You would expect us to do the same with overtly racist, sexist or homophobic posts. Why should advocating crime be treated differently?

---

Uh, who's advocating crime? Sorry, just don't see it.

There's one good reason to "tolerate" such discussions: there's gray areas in law, including IP law (e.g. abandonware, right of First Sale, etc, etc).

If people can't discuss what IS accepted practices, them how does anyone know where the boundaries are? Are we supposed to simply accept what someone tells us as the gospel truth? Didn't we learn anything from that whole "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" thing? My gosh: might some so-called 'experts' have hidden agendas?

Quote Steve Hill:

---

This thread does raise an interesting question about rights to software which is no longer made or supported (which is why the thread is still here). It is not intended to become a free-for-all about let's all use cracked software all the time.

---

I agree. HOWEVER, I don't see anything close to that happening here (unless the mods have pre-cognitive capabilities, ALA 'Minority Report'). So maybe a bit premature with the whip-cracking.

@@@

As an aside, I remember a thread a few months ago about how the 'Rhodes' trademark holder was protecting his IP, insisting other companies stop using the name in their unlicensed products. Many people here insisted the name had perhaps been abandoned, and therefore could be used without regard for the IP owner.

It's interesting to note how the Rhodes Piano WAS reintroduced at WNAMM 2007:

http://www.rhodespiano.com/

Just goes to show: you never know when IP is still protected, and it's safer to not assume that it's somehow in the public domain and available for your use without permission.

Chris

--------------------
1.5GHz Al 17" Powerbook G4 (2.0GB RAM, Hitachi 60GB 7,200 rpm drive), running Logic Pro 7 under OSX 10.4.5

This debate is quite interesting and I would like to add a few words if I may.

At first though, I should say that I in no way condone the use of cracked software and it does annoy me quite a bit when I see someone using a cracked version of something that I paid a lot of hard earned cash for (and I have paid quite a bit of money for software over the years!).
And exactly for that reason I want to echo Feefer's post above.
It is easy to pick on a few small time (non)consumers as thieves and forget the larger picture: the Software manufacturers, developers and companies.

I cant count any more the amount of problems over the years I have had with software. Software with does not meet the manufacturers own published specification, and is buggy or unstable. This is such a commonplace problem that putting it in writing seems banal. And that is my point: theft, where does one draw the line?

The hours or days I (and almost everyone I know in this business) have invested in getting (non-hardware problem) software issues resolved or find work-arounds, in effect working as a beta tester, are unpaid.

Is the consumers (or the professionals) time not worth anything?

Would you buy a software which said on the package "you might needs x days/weeks to get this working for your specific needs"?

Or would you buy a car if you knew that the breaks failed when you tried to tune in the radio, even if you knew there was a "work-around"?

My point is that there has to be debate on this issue, and Soundonsound should participate.
They owe it to their readers (and not the Software companies).

The current Cubase discussion is an example of a manufacturer seeming to let down its customers.
(I am a Nuendo user with similar issues: Non working specifications).

And why is it that moderators largely stay silent on these topics?

Has there ever been an article documenting and commenting the wayward ways of software manufacturers?

Siddho

Warning: Tangentially off topic.

It seems as through the CEOs of both Microsoft and Propellerhead Software would be banned from the Forum, due to their equivocal stance on Piracy:

Bill Gates' views on priacy in China were widely reported. (EG at http://www.msversus.org/microsoft-piracy.html):

"Then in the 90's it became well known that the majority of China's software was illegally copied. Bill Gates said, "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software... Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." (Grice, Corey and Junnarkar, Sandeep. "Gates, Buffett a bit bearish." C|Net News.com 2 July 1998)"

A similar point of view was made by Ernst Nathorst-Boos of Propellerhead Software IN THE PAGES OF Sound on Sound itself:

"No one really knows what the software issue is all about", adds Ernst. "I can illustrate with a story. I have three children; the oldest is 16. When Napster arrived, he started downloading songs like crazy. And he got to find out about so many new bands that he never heard about, which also meant that he started buying CDs like a lunatic. Then Napster disappeared, and he stopped buying as many records as he used to, because where is his source now? There's the radio, but he's not interested in the music that's played in the radio. And MTV? No! I'm saying that I can understand what the record industry is saying, but I can also show examples of the opposite. I think it's the same thing with software piracy. It is a major problem for us, but no one actually knows the mechanisms behind it. No one knows how many of these people bought the program who wouldn't actually have been your customers otherwise."

BTW - I don't have any cracked software myself. This is mostly because I have a good income but little time, so I am happy to buy what I need, and also want to be able to throw my system at the music store to sort out when it goes wrong.

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Just to clarify, I think the rules are clear on this topic.

Debating the pros and cons of cracked software on the SOS forums isn't a problem at all. How else can we encourage people to take what we consider to be the morally and legally correct position on the subject: that using cracked software is generally indefensible?

What the rules specifically do not allow -- and we will take a very strict line on this -- is discussions involving the supply of or technical support for cracked software.

Hope that helps to explain our position a little more clearly.

hugh

--------------------
Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Others may disagree but I don't think we are overreacting (or I am, if you prefer). Nobody's been banned, we've just said we don't tolerate software piracy, or advocating it, and we're trying to keep the thread on track. Frankly I don't care what Bill Gates thinks.

You will not be aware that the "moderator action" in this thread was prompted by other forum members sending PMs asking us to do something. So someone is going to be displeased whatever we do. Tough.

Chris: the UK industry body is called the Federation Against Software Theft and, under the UK Theft Act 1968, counterfeiting would qualify as an offence carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Things may well be different in the US. However, you will understand that from the persepctive of a UK website run by a reasonably respectable journal, it would not suit Sound on Sound to have its website get a reputation for condoning crime without intervening occasionally to say "enough".

(Sorry Hugh - crossed post)

--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...


Edited by Steve Hill (25/01/07 09:59 AM)

Thanks, Hugh.

Perfectly clear, and perfectly reasonable.

Cheers
Sam

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Yup, Crack use should mos def be outside the forum

Though I sometimes wonder what the mods get up to in the mod lounge ...

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote Siddho:

---

The current Cubase discussion is an example of a manufacturer seeming to let down its customers.
(I am a Nuendo user with similar issues: Non working specifications).

And why is it that moderators largely stay silent on these topics?

---

The moderators are mainly long established forum members with wide experience of music and recording technology - just like many others on the forum. It just so happens that, as far as I know, not many of them are Cubase users so they have very little to add to the debate. I learned from my experience with Steinberg many years ago and would never rely on them to produce fully functional working software for the PC - but that's just my personal opinion.

Cheers

James.

--------------------
JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

I'd just like to big up the 'free' software that comes bundled with audio gear these days. Cubase LE (which I got with my Zoom H4) is much easier to use than a cracked version of Cubase SX (what, you think I'd pay £400 for a piece of software I've never tried, and I might not like, even if it wasn't all buggy?).

If I buy a NI audio interface, I'll get NI Keyboards, Guitar Combos, and Traktor LE thrown in: that's probably all I really need... but I only know how good the NI stuff is because I've used cracked versions of the B4, Guitar Rig, and the Prophet V, plus a demo of Tracktor: so I'd have to agree with Mr Propellerhead. I'm not proud of it, and I am going legit, but really, do I need the full versions of all that stuff? Like do I need more than two virtual instument tracks in Cubase, or a 'track freeze' function, when I can easily bounce the MIDI track to audio? Do I need the flexibility of Guitar Rig 2, when I can route the amp output of Guitar Combos through the built-in (free) effects in Cubase? In the old days, a choice of three classic amps and a bunch of digital effects would have seemed heavenly... so why would I need more than that now?

I confess it, I'm not a pro. I'm not even semi-pro. I'm barely even amateur when it comes down to it, being busy with a family and so on... and I don't need much to make music, in fact the less I have, the more music I seem to make. So I don't really see the need for cracking, *or* for buying top-dollar expensive software, when there's a ton of perfectly good budget/free stuff out there.

I bet I'm not the only one, either.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Some of the posts in this topic displayed such ignorance it made me sick!

Zukan, you've sorted me out many times before, but this:

Quote:

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I wonder how you would feel if it was YOUR property being abused

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. Get real. Since you have brought up the hypothetical question. In his hypothetical land, obviously, he would have no property to be abused! it's offensive that you managed to equate an (and his) entire social philosophy and the would-be politics involved, from that one statement.

Oldhippy, how about we ban you for wanting to ban someone for stating his opinion?

Steve:

Quote:

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I think you're living in the wrong part of China if you still think there's anyone on the planet who believes that sort of proto-Marxist gibberish

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Don't bring a race into this personal matter. Infact, the entire sentence reeks of slander. I don't even need to explain it. (by the way, how bastardised your reply to his original post and the forum topic is, is amazing.)

What I've highlighted was nothing short of bullying. Regardless of the subject matter. I'm simply embarrassed to see how this forum has completely sunk* on this particular occasion and with most of the push from the moderators themselves!


*Especially as I think the forum is otherwise fantastic and I still would like to remain a part of that.

Quote James Perrett:

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The moderators are mainly long established forum members with wide experience of music and recording technology - just like many others on the forum. It just so happens that, as far as I know, not many of them are Cubase users so they have very little to add to the debate.

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Thanks for your comment James.

I, of course, did not mean to pick on the excellent SOS moderators but wanted to make a general point that whereas software piracy is universally condemned in the industry (a recent Resolution mag editorial comes to my mind for example), the not so correct practices of certain software manufacturers (and sometimes hardware too) are hardly ever commented on.

Sometimes I wonder if the audio industry journalism is really oriented towards the consumers (buyers) or does it lean to the side of the manufacturers (advertising revenue)?

I know that is quite an extreme comment to make but I would, for example, love to read a critical article about this very problem.

Any chances of that happening?

Siddho

Zukan, you've sorted me out many times before, but this:

Quote:

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I wonder how you would feel if it was YOUR property being abused

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. Get real. Since you have brought up the hypothetical question. In his hypothetical land, obviously, he would have no property to be abused! it's offensive that you managed to equate an (and his) entire social philosophy and the would-be politics involved, from that one statement.

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Ed, no disrespect m8, but you are reading this far too deep.

My question was both pertinent and in context.

To imply anything more is something you have read into the post, and certainly not something I have implied.

My question was extremely simple and implied nothing.

It did ask a very simple question, and one that I feel is crucial when addressing this subject.

It is a simple "if the shoe were on the other foot, how would you feel?" type of question.

That type of question implies no social premise.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote Siddho:

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the not so correct practices of certain software manufacturers (and sometimes hardware too) are hardly ever commented on.

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Trouble is, nobody wants to pay for software done right, and in fact for non trivial programs, nobody really understands how to do it!

What I mean is, that even moderately high reliability systems (say safety integrity level 3) tend to be proven by exhaustive testing rather then by a correctness proof, and this testing can (For something running to a few hundred K of code and 128K RAM) take days to run. That is for a situation where we have exact control over every aspect of the hardware, have no other programs running and have a fairly limited state space (by design).

Now extrapolate that to a DAW, multi megabyte code, running on unknown hardware, with unknown OS versions (supplied by a third party, with buggy documentation), and with unknown third party plugins running in its address space, It is a wonder that the things work at all, for anybody!

Sure, the exhaustively tested version is theoretically possible, wait 5 years for it, only run plugins that have been thru the same validation process, on the specific version of the (now 5 years out of date) OS that we validated against....

Meanwhile the competition is 5 years ahead, and has eaten your market.

Sorry, but the only way to improve software reliability is to stop buying buggy [ ****** ] (And tell the manufacturers why you are not buying their products)!
Ohh yea, accepting that the new version does not have ANY new features and is purely a bugfix release would help.

BTW: That little embedded PPC box I described the development of, took 3 years, with a team of 15 or so working on it (Including a few of the smartest people I have ever met), assume £50,000 each employers cost, thats £2.25M just for the development... Now add marketing and Publicity and if that had been a DAW, we would be looking at £5M or so, sales channel markup is say 50%, so we need £10M in sales, at even £1,000 a copy, that is 10,000 copies, and that is a product far simpler then any DAW.

As it happens, the production run was a few million units, so dev cost was not very significant, but what DAW at that level of simplicity would sell that well?

You begin to see why software reliability in small market products is a very hard problem?

Quote:

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Sometimes I wonder if the audio industry journalism is really oriented towards the consumers (buyers) or does it lean to the side of the manufacturers (advertising revenue)?

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A charge that some of the Hifi rags seem guilty of (And I have seen a few reviews in SOS that have raised eyebrows, Alesis 3630 beating an RNC, closely followed by a full page advert for said 3630...., chance, possibly), but short of running a mag that costs £10 and is rather thin, advertising is always going to be a driver to a greater or lesser extent.
The trick is to use the ears, and to learn to interpret reviewer speak ("This mic has a crisp top end" = "This mic screeches like my 8 year old cousin on a coke and chocolate diet")..

No easy answers I am afraid.

Regards,Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote Siddho:

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And why is it that moderators largely stay silent on these topics?

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Time is finite.

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Studio: www.kymatasound.com

Thanks a lot for your very informed reply Dan.

The difficulties of software development and production are well known and documented and your first hand experience explains that very well.

The nature of the market of course dictates the way things are produced, but that in my mind still does not excuse certain aspects of things as they are.

If I buy a product that promises to do something that it doesn't do (one of many examples for anyone interested: the unreliable clip-history option in Nuendo, which was a major reason I bought that product in the first place) and , even after a couple years of complaining about it, nothing is done to improve the situation then I think I have the right to feel hard done buy (we were originally talking about theft).

A reviewer has not the time or the means to put such products to test over long periods of time and that I understand. But the point is some of these companies have been in business for a number of years developing their product and like in any other area of manufacturing they have to be held to account for their product if faulty and at least provide an alternative or repair.

If it is the nature of the market that I get (or feel) ripped of, then I am afraid the market has to and will eventually change. It would be good though if audio journals highlighted this issue (with the same fervour with which they deride pirates) and maybe gently open a path to a change for the better. I think in the long run a reliable product satisfies a customer more than a faulty gimmicky new one every one or two years. I may be naive.

Siddho

Quote Tim Rainey:

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Quote Siddho:

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And why is it that moderators largely stay silent on these topics?

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Time is finite.

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The mods cute secretary is on holiday.

I think quite a lot comes down to the proportion of the cost to produce is a one time cost.

What I mean is, that in the software case, for small and medium markets, the cost to produce is probably dominated by the one time costs of design, program, QA (Yes, some does happen), market.... In this case the development cost is a HUGE proportion of the selling price (This is of course what makes piracy interesting, people do not tend to pirate high per unit cost to produce items).

Now consider something like a Fiat Punto (For example), here the majority of the cost is in per unit manufacturing.

Consider now the effect on unit selling price that increasing development cost by say 20% has, in the software case, your street price goes up by maybe 30-40% (Cost to produce goes up, so sales at the new price go down, pushing the price I have to sell for up further).
In the case of the car, I can buy quite a large improvement in quality for a fairly small change in the selling price (Because most of it is unchanged).

Thus, improving software is very much more expensive on a per issue basis, then improving hardware at the design stage. Going from a Punto to say a Focus is cheaper for the quality difference then the equivalent move in software would be.

You can of course buy seriously reliable and (almost) bug free music software, but it will be expensive, feature light, will probably come built into some hardware, and will probably rather out of date.

As I say, if enough people wanted to pay for a strictly bug fix only release of some product, it would happen, and if there was sufficient market for £20,000 DAW software of stellar reliability, that would happen.

In the meantime, I am going back to trying to reproduce a crash in Ardour 2, so that I can fix it.

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Excellent reply Dan. Thanks a lot.

But a pirate or a crack-software user might say in his own defence that he cant afford the product. This (poverty) is no excuse and no one accepts it as such.
However a software company can say that it is in the nature of the market that they are disingenuous, unreliable, etc. (and also arguably thieves)!!!

Siddho

The failing to fess up to bugs or unimplemented features (that engineering is often well aware of), does annoy me.

One of the nice things about the Unix world, is that there is often a section on the manual called quite simply BUGS: that describes all the known bugs at the time the man page was written. Marketings attempts to change this to LIMITATIONS: or ISSUES: have been met with almost universal scorn.

If you find a package to be unusable, just return it, the click thru cannot trump the sale of goods act.
A case under the sale of goods act (or possibly the distance selling regs if a mail order purchase) in the small claims court would be interesting.....

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Phew, so this one (in it's various forms that i've seen over several years of using this forum) still rages.

If I may add my OWN thoughts?:

Cracked software IS illegal, it's effectively using someone else's "technology" without "rewarding" them for creating it in the first place,but:

I've always wondered at the difference between obtaining a cracked piece of vintage software (and years and years ago, albeit unwittingly, I DID - tho of course it wasnt vintage then - when buying a 2nd-hand Mac at the time - since defunct, and the software was, in fact removed when i realised - previous owner sadly disappering into the ether), and vintage HARDWARE. OK, if, at the end of the day someone makes a piece of software available to all-and-sundry without EVER having paid the creator/manufacturer for it at any point, that is despicable (as is piracy in general in case anyone wonders!) but there is another issue which someone mentioned, and that is support.

Now I run a legit DP 3.11 on a G4 Mac, which is actually an old beige G3 with a G4 upgrade. As such I am NEVER, with this mac, going to even bother upgradng the OS to X (still at 9.2 incidentally!) as it just wouldnt hack it - many, many Mac experts have warned against this. So here I am, with a now well superceded version of DP, but, at the end of the day, it does exactly what I want a piece of such software to do - communicate with my MIDI gear, allow me to multitrack record, edit and mangle audio, etc etc, and yet, with the exception of a few archive help pages on www.motu.com (which as a registered user of even such outdated software I can still access, the last time I looked, and even upgrade through should the day ever arise), there are very few places I can go for help now if I have a problem -aside from wracking the brains of previous users who havent even thought about OS9 software for years. There used to be a lot of software that was compatible with it (I also use a legit Bias Peak of the time for instance), which you simply cannot get now - expect perhaps, if yo9ure lucky, and as was mentioned earlier - on ebay or similar, but not from the original manufacturer.

What Im trying to says is - if manufacturers want to protect the sanctity of their existing and recent software, then why not, as someone else mentioned re Propperllerheads Rebirth, make earlier (and perhaps un-pgradeable/incompatible with current existing computer techology) available as a free download or for a very nominal fee? This would negate the need for anyone to illegally obtain such software. While I can understand that registered users who've stuck with a particular piece of software through it's various stages of development might say "hang on a minute, I paid several hundred squids for that in 1876!", at the end of the day, it's very much yesterdays technology. I mean, dyou think if a sought-after vintage synth in good working order - I dont know - a Moog Modular system for the sake of an example - was being sold at a car boot sale for three buttons and a pickled egg, does that mean those who bought such a system for thousands when it first came onto the market should feel aggrieved, inform the company, get the item reposessed and the buyer sued?

I guess Im wondering why there is such a disparity between hardware and software in this respect, especially if the technology is effectively defunct.

That said, I DO agree that every safeguard should be employed to protect recent, current and "evolving" software (and hardware?) for all the reasons others on here have already stated, far more succinctly and eruditely that I can in my post Burns night haze! ( I blame Talisker, Lagavulin and Bruicladdich Islay malts for all the ills of the world and not least this drivel!).

I think (as someone who still owns a 1200), the Amiga issue is very interesting, and im just glad my Octamed and Octalyzer were both properly acquired at the time - had no idea the technology was stil being developed nad still subject to the same copyright Laws. Must look for links!

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"If I had all the money i'd spent on drink, i'd spend it on drink". Vivian Stanshall

I'm going to carefully respond.

Some people asked what I would do if my property was used without my permission. As I said, I don't believe I have any. I know it sounds silly, but it's a philosophical position that's been advanced before, by Proudhon (although he accepted the concept of 'possession') and the English "Diggers / True Levellers." It seems to me that a lot of the copyright and intellectual property laws in the world were created when only analog media existed, and those same concepts are now out of date in a world where digital is dominant.

I also believe that if the world had gone the route of never protecting intellectual copyright, there would still be people who coded software as "art," knowing that it would be impossible for them to collect any royalties from it. And yes, I think that some of that software would still be pretty good. When I examine human history, people have always made art, whether they were getting paid for it or not, and the amount they were paid for it (if anything) was never a guarantee that what they'd produce would be any good.

I have a Myspace page. Anyone who wants to can download some music from there. Thanks to the way digital technology works, they can do what they like with that music. Sell it, duplicate it, delete it, whatever. Whether I (or Myspace) puts up a disclaimer saying "please don't use this for anything except your personal use," the people downloading it, in fact, can do what they like with it. It's too hard to track every stolen piece of information out there. Since I knowingly uploaded it there, I know what could happen to it. If I didn't want that to happen, I could have recorded it and never uploaded it to the net. It's the reality of the digital age.

My post was criticized as naive, which I assume was at least partially because I have a low post count. But I think it's naive to believe that disclaimers like the example above are any use. If you put one on your music or software, and later, you manage to apprehend an illegal duplicator of your product and drag them to court, you'll need to prove you had that disclaimer. But the odds of that are pretty low. I think that's the reason that Gates and Nathorst-Boos are quoted saying what they're saying. Whether you disagree with them or not, they knew what they were getting into when they started coding software. It's the nature of the beast. They hope that legal purchases will outweigh illegal downloads. They both seem to have bet on the right horse.

The quote of Ernst Nathorst-Boos was particularly illuminating. His company also turned an illegal hack of ReBirth RB-338 into it's most rewarding feature --- mods. "The street finds its own use for technology," Gibson reminds us.





My sincere thanks to the moderators for allowing me to express my opinion. That's precisely the reason I frequent this site.

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

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My sincere thanks to the moderators for allowing me to express my opinion. That's precisely the reason I frequent this site.

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You're welcome. It's a laugh a minute

hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

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Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

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My sincere thanks to the moderators for allowing me to express my opinion. That's precisely the reason I frequent this site.

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You're welcome. It's a laugh a minute

hugh

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What makes me laugh is smugness.

.

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

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And yes, I think that some of that software would still be pretty good.

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Google for the "BSD license", or for a slightly different take the "GPL License", any yes, some of that software is indeed pretty good (as in giving Microsoft a serious run for its money in the server market), this is being written on a laptop running all software of this nature (Including the OS).

But licensing in this way is the choice of the author of the program, not the consumer.

Incidentally, the existence of this codebase removes one of the occasional 'justifications' you hear for software piracy, "The programs are too expensive", well, there are perfectly usable tools available for free.

Ardour (Quite a respectable PT work alike)
Rosegarden (A Midi/Audio sequencer)
Audacity for a quick edit.
Jackd for routing audio and timing between apps.
I am sure the windows side has similar available.

Quote:

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I have a Myspace page. Anyone who wants to can download some music from there. Thanks to the way digital technology works, they can do what they like with that music. Sell it, duplicate it, delete it, whatever. Whether I (or Myspace) puts up a disclaimer saying "please don't use this for anything except your personal use," the people downloading it, in fact, can do what they like with it.

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Actually, unless you specifically give permission, they are not allowed to do anything with it.... Sure, technically they can, but legally they cannot.

Quote:

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It's too hard to track every stolen piece of information out there. Since I knowingly uploaded it there, I know what could happen to it. If I didn't want that to happen, I could have recorded it and never uploaded it to the net. It's the reality of the digital age.

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Or you could sue half a dozen or so of the people infringing your IP rights, word would get around and the distribution of that file would be discouraged.

Quote:

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you manage to apprehend an illegal duplicator of your product and drag them to court, you'll need to prove you had that disclaimer. But the odds of that are pretty low.

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Err, no, under the Bourne convention, you have an automatic copyrite on anything you create, there is no need to include any text. Now if you upload a file onto a public server, the balance of probability is probably that you meant to make that file available for download, but may not be that you meant to allow further distribution of that file , or the creation of derivative works(This probably depends on the site), of course if you include a message placing that file into the public domain, you then loose all rights to control what happens to that file (as in someone else can take it, package it and sell the package under a really nasty license).
For any sort of in between route, you get into copyrite licensing. The creative commons folks have some licenses for various levels of 'do what you like', but they turn out to be remarkably difficult to write in a way that works internationally.

Quote:

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Whether you disagree with them or not, they knew what they were getting into when they started coding software.

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Actually, I don't think Gates did, back in the quickbasic days there was no consumer software market, google on his famous "letter to the hobbyists".

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

This is complicated. On the subject of property and theft, I'm reminded of a fave film of mine, The Jokers, a British caper movie, whose plot hinges on a dubious legal nicety, which is that for something to be considered to be theft, one's intention must be to 'permanently deprive' the victim of the thing stolen. If you don't 'permanently deprive' him of anything, it isn't theft.

Lets say I wrote a piece of software called 'CubAble SonaLogic 7'. If you download a cracked copy, you have not deprived me of it, unless you also erase it from my hard drive. Therefore it is not theft.

I've no idea whether this plot device is actually British law or not, but in this context (where nothing is actually taken, only reproduced) it seems reasonable. It is actually quite hard to see what harm has been done to me, *over and above you just not buying my software* (which if it cost £500 and was known to be full of bugs, you might well not have done anyway, right?). If you intended to buy it, before you illegally downloaded it, and now you don't need to buy it, then I have been deprived of earnings, and a 'theft' of sorts has taken place: but which user of cracked or pirated software actually sets out to buy some software and ends up downloading it illegally instead (maybe a few, if it's hard to come by a legally paid-for version, which in this day and age would be pretty scandalous)?

It is true that without the existence of pirated software, people would be forced to pay, and rightly so: but that is not where were are at: pirated software exists, and as things stand, nobody can be forced to pay. You could perhaps spend a lot of time and effort seeking out people who use cracked software, and punish them. Maybe an apt punishment would be to make them pay for all the software they've illegally downloaded. Maybe that would help stamp out piracy. As long as it was relatively cheap to find and prosecute offenders, it could work both as a deterrent and as a source of income for software houses. Personally I think it would be a bit draconian, but that's only because I've used pirated software in the past.

Whichever way you look at it, using an illegally downloaded Hammond B4 emulation is almost completely unlike stealing somebody's actual Hammond B4 (for one thing, it's a lot easier on your back!), and to say that one is the same as the other is just as disingenous as saying that 'all property is theft'.

Whatever the legalities, I think Sound on Sound is right to take a principled stand against the use of pirated music software. Morally speaking, software developers *deserve* to be financially rewarded for their work, and it is patently unjust that honest people who *buy* the software, should be expected to pay through the nose for something that a user of pirated software gets for free. It is natural justice too, that something which a) you find useful and b) took someone time and effort to create, is something you should pay for. It's hard moral rocket science, and no amount of self-serving pseudo-anarchistic sophistry will get you out of it! After all, if you were in a collective, and you constantly enjoyed the fruits of someone else's labours, while doing bugger-all for them in return, you would rightly be called a freeloading git, and turfed out.

Which is why, thanks mainly to the stand taken by SOS, I am replacing the cracked 'full' versions of the three or four products I have used illegally and 'can't live without', with paid-for 'lite' versions. In effect, I am paying hard-earned cash, to have more limited software than I can get for free. One day I might upgrade to the full versions, if my wallet can stretch and my 'needs' can justify it.

The 'all property is theft' people might well think what I am doing is unnecessary or even immoral (why not give the money to the Red Cross, for instance, surely they need it more than Native Instruments?). The whiter-than-white anti-piracy people may well proclaim that I am only doing what I should have done much earlier, so why do I need to make a big song and dance about it? (because I don't see anyone else posting from a similar perspective, and I'm sure there must be other people out there in a similar position, that's why!)

Sorry about the long post. Anyway, back to The Jokers. Does anyone know whether it is illegal for me to repeatedly watch it on a VHS tape, which was recorded from a TV broadcast in about 1983? I've looked for the DVD, but I can't find it.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

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Some people asked what I would do if my property was used without my permission. As I said, I don't believe I have any. I know it sounds silly, but it's a philosophical position that's been advanced before, by Proudhon (although he accepted the concept of 'possession') and the English "Diggers / True Levellers." It seems to me that a lot of the copyright and intellectual property laws in the world were created when only analog media existed, and those same concepts are now out of date in a world where digital is dominant.

---

It's a bit of a leap to make parallels between the aims of The Diggers and simple 'theft of intellectual property'. As I understand, the Diggers opposed private ownership and gain from land - and wanted to farm common land to feed people who could not afford to eat. I don't see how this equates to you helping yourself to something which someone else has created. (However I can see the distinction between property and intellectual property - and how the ease of making perfect copies of digital 'property' forces us to rethink the notion of ownership).

But I'm with dmills here - there is a very healthy movement broadly known as free and open source software (FOSS). This is surely the answer to your needs - it represents an almost ideal anarchic alternative to proprietary software production and ownership. And there are many examples of well-designed, well-implemented applications already in existence.

But to state this is my philosophical position, whether naive or informed, you still have to consider that much of the rest of the world probably does not support or respect the position - there are vested interests of the owners, and there are existing IP laws to protect them.

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TAKEN.BALL.GONE.HOME

i used some cracked hardware once... bit of superglue and it was fine

Says it all really.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote JimiQ:

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But I'm with dmills here - there is a very healthy movement broadly known as free and open source software (FOSS). This is surely the answer to your needs - it represents an almost ideal anarchic alternative to proprietary software production and ownership. And there are many examples of well-designed, well-implemented applications already in existence.

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Hear, hear! In many cases, the open source software works better than the commercially available ones!

These days, I also really like the idea of supporting smaller software developers who are doing good work, and who don't have a top-heavy corporate structure to feed at the expense of development.

Look at what's happening with REAPER these days. That is developing fast and furious, and it's getting very good, especially on the audio side of things. This, in STARK contrast to the latest (in a string of) ridiculous developments at Steinberg.

I say let the big corporate monster eat itself alive, instead of gobbling up every last crumb and making it difficult for smaller companies to thrive. Especially if the big corporate monster is going to be making people pay top dollar for beta releases.

Many people do not realise that the guy who is developing REAPER is Justin Frankel, who developed WinAmp. He's also a musician himself, and he is getting a lot of input from serious, knowledgeable audio engineers. The in-built compressor in REAPER is actually quite an interesting piece of DSP development. (Check the "Using ReaComp" tutorial video here.) His story is rather interesting, and well worth the read if you are at all interested in and/or following the development of REAPER. Justin is apparently a VERY good software coder. Wouldn't it be great if there was a very high quality audio/midi sequencer that is broadly compatible and cheap enough (and not so incredibly proprietary as the big corporate packages are) to become as ubiquitous amongst musicians and pro studios (even as a secondary application) as is WinAmp, to allow for greater flexibility in collaboration? I think this is a large part of his goal.

The developers are actually listening to the users on this one . . . and responding!!!

These days, with the amount of good, open source software available, not to mention really excellent plugins, etc. developed by companies like PSP, Voxengo and others (Zukan's Samplecraze company is another good example in the sampling part of the market) that don't charge insane prices for their software, I can't see any reason for people to use cracked software. Better to support open source developers and the lower priced competitors of these companies who are charging ridiculous prices for beta releases.

If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Not that there isn't good reason for pro studios to use high end, commercial/proprietary software -- it's just a reality that they must at this point. But I think it is wise for us all to consider how to force the industry to respond to our concerns, rather than being hyper-focused on the near-term bottom line.

I also look at word processing/document production programs like M$ Office. It used to be that all of the law firms here in NYC (and pretty much everywhere else) used WordPerfect for their documents. Then they all switched over to M$ Word, because that's what all the smaller companies (their clients) used. But M$Word is an absolutely BOLLOX program for legal, financial or any other similarly complex documents. Among other things, large legal documents have very complex formats, with multiple levels of subordinate headings and paragraphs. M$Word, even the "professional" "Legal' package, does not handle this well AT ALL! So all of the law firms had to then go out and invest in third party packages to force M$Word to handle the complex formats without the documents exploding (quite literally) into a big lump of gibberish. It's also crap at handling complex footnote setups that occur in law review articles and other similar publications.

WordPerfect has always handled all of this beautifully, and it is also much cheaper the M$Word. The operators all absolutely HATE M$Word in comparison to WordPerfect. Add to this the fact that each successive "new and improved" version tries to do things automatically for you that are often exactly the thing you do NOT want it to do.

All of these law firms spent millions and millions of dollars some years back, converting ALL of their documents (even the old ones) into M$Word format.

But imagine if all of these law firms used Open Office, and supported that project financially. I find Open Office does a beautiful job of exporting and importing documents to and from from all sorts of different formats. I'm sure it would be even better if there was more money supporting the project, with input from the power users like legal and financial firms. These firms spend millions of dollars every year having to fight with overly proprietary software that doesn't play nice with the other children, or that isn't developed with the concerns of the user as the first priority. But of course an open source project isn't going to be spending the marketing dollars that a company like M$ are, so those companies' wares are more ubiquitous by default, so we are all forced more and more into using (and paying ridiculous sums for) something that may not really be the best option for us as users, because we don't want to be caught out using software that isn't in the most common mainstream use, in order to avoid potential incompatibility or lack of easily obtainable support.

The use of cracks not only hurts the big company developers, it also hurts small companies that could actually introduce serious competition to the big guys in quality and price, and which could thereby bring quality up and prices down in the market. And, in so doing, we make it harder and harder for even exceptionally good people to make a living in this industry, which also has the knock-on effect of adding to the difficulties for we musicians to be able to support the development of our art, and to earn income from our art.



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Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Edited by Scottdru (26/01/07 05:54 PM)

Quote Conz:

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Thanks for the response guys.

I used to have Steinberg LM-4 mkII at my previuos company and would like to use it again, primarily to load up older projects. It's no longer available and Steinberg don't supply anything similar.

I did see a used copy, however, selling for £99. I might consider this, but if I let it slip and never see another copy, I'd be stuffed really.

Cheers,
Peter

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I've an original version of LM4 mk1 would sell it for next to nothing.

k

As this SOS Forum thread highlights

Theres so much superb free stuff out there that do an excellent job for a variety of purposes.

Also enough audio midi cards nowadays come with excellent free bundled software.
E-Mu is one manuf that go crazy with the amount of free stuff they supply
: lite versions of Cakewalk, Sonar, Ableton, Wavelab, Amplitube, Melodyne, BIAS Peak, SFX Machine, Proteus sound bank.

IMO its not too smart to put cracked software on your machine. You never know where its been so to speak.

Quote Scottdru:

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Quote JimiQ:

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But I'm with dmills here - there is a very healthy movement broadly known as free and open source software (FOSS). This is surely the answer to your needs - it represents an almost ideal anarchic alternative to proprietary software production and ownership. And there are many examples of well-designed, well-implemented applications already in existence.

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Hear, hear! In many cases, the open source software works better than the commercially available ones!

These days, I also really like the idea of supporting smaller software developers who are doing good work, and who don't have a top-heavy corporate structure to feed at the expense of development.

Look at what's happening with REAPER these days. That is developing fast and furious, and it's getting very good, especially on the audio side of things. This, in STARK contrast to the latest (in a string of) ridiculous developments at Steinberg.

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Steinberg invented a lot of the technology, you have to give them some credit.

Quote Scottdru:

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I say let the big corporate monster eat itself alive, instead of gobbling up every last crumb and making it difficult for smaller companies to thrive. Especially if the big corporate monster is going to be making people pay top dollar for beta releases.

Many people do not realise that the guy who is developing REAPER is Justin Frankel, who developed WinAmp.

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Winamp is owned by the corporate monster Time Warner / AOL

Quote Scottdru:

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He's also a musician himself, and he is getting a lot of input from serious, knowledgeable audio engineers. The in-built compressor in REAPER is actually quite an interesting piece of DSP development. (Check the "Using ReaComp" tutorial video here.) His story is rather interesting, and well worth the read if you are at all interested in and/or following the development of REAPER. Justin is apparently a VERY good software coder. Wouldn't it be great if there was a very high quality audio/midi sequencer that is broadly compatible and cheap enough (and not so incredibly proprietary as the big corporate packages are) to become as ubiquitous amongst musicians and pro studios (even as a secondary application) as is WinAmp, to allow for greater flexibility in collaboration? I think this is a large part of his goal.

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It would be awful if everybody used the same software. Its not even a good idea to use the same software yourself day after day, you get stuck in a rut.

Quote Scottdru:

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The developers are actually listening to the users on this one . . . and responding!!!

These days, with the amount of good, open source software available, not to mention really excellent plugins, etc. developed by companies like PSP, Voxengo and others (Zukan's Samplecraze company is another good example in the sampling part of the market) that don't charge insane prices for their software, I can't see any reason for people to use cracked software. Better to support open source developers and the lower priced competitors of these companies who are charging ridiculous prices for beta releases.

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People use cracked software because its extremely easy to get hold of and use and most people really don't care about piracy.

Quote Scottdru:

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If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Not that there isn't good reason for pro studios to use high end, commercial/proprietary software -- it's just a reality that they must at this point. But I think it is wise for us all to consider how to force the industry to respond to our concerns, rather than being hyper-focused on the near-term bottom line.

I also look at word processing/document production programs like M$ Office. It used to be that all of the law firms here in NYC (and pretty much everywhere else) used WordPerfect for their documents. Then they all switched over to M$ Word, because that's what all the smaller companies (their clients) used. But M$Word is an absolutely BOLLOX program for legal, financial or any other similarly complex documents. Among other things, large legal documents have very complex formats, with multiple levels of subordinate headings and paragraphs. M$Word, even the "professional" "Legal' package, does not handle this well AT ALL! So all of the law firms had to then go out and invest in third party packages to force M$Word to handle the complex formats without the documents exploding (quite literally) into a big lump of gibberish. It's also crap at handling complex footnote setups that occur in law review articles and other similar publications.

WordPerfect has always handled all of this beautifully, and it is also much cheaper the M$Word. The operators all absolutely HATE M$Word in comparison to WordPerfect. Add to this the fact that each successive "new and improved" version tries to do things automatically for you that are often exactly the thing you do NOT want it to do.

All of these law firms spent millions and millions of dollars some years back, converting ALL of their documents (even the old ones) into M$Word format.

But imagine if all of these law firms used Open Office, and supported that project financially. I find Open Office does a beautiful job of exporting and importing documents to and from from all sorts of different formats. I'm sure it would be even better if there was more money supporting the project, with input from the power users like legal and financial firms. These firms spend millions of dollars every year having to fight with overly proprietary software that doesn't play nice with the other children, or that isn't developed with the concerns of the user as the first priority. But of course an open source project isn't going to be spending the marketing dollars that a company like M$ are, so those companies' wares are more ubiquitous by default, so we are all forced more and more into using (and paying ridiculous sums for) something that may not really be the best option for us as users, because we don't want to be caught out using software that isn't in the most common mainstream use, in order to avoid potential incompatibility or lack of easily obtainable support.

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OpenOffice is a load of [ ****** ]. Talk about bloated. It takes ages to even open, uses loads more processing power and memory than microsoft office. Its totally overhyped. It may be open source but its owned by Sun and only their own programmers make any significant contribution to it.

Quote Scottdru:

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The use of cracks not only hurts the big company developers, it also hurts small companies that could actually introduce serious competition to the big guys in quality and price, and which could thereby bring quality up and prices down in the market. And, in so doing, we make it harder and harder for even exceptionally good people to make a living in this industry, which also has the knock-on effect of adding to the difficulties for we musicians to be able to support the development of our art, and to earn income from our art.

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I don't think you can expect people to become overly moral about not using cracked software anymore than swimming against the tide of mp3s. Its a waste of time.

The technology moves on, but music would be made regardless. A desk, hardware effects, sampler setup of the mid 90s is perfectly capable of making great music. Advances in computer software aren't reflected in any advance in the quality of music. If computers just went back to midi only and hardware synths took off again, especially cheap analogue synths, things would be far more exciting.

Quote johnny h:

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Advances in computer software aren't reflected in any advance in the quality of music.

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Why should they be? Computers do not make people into especially talented musicians any more than 8 hours violin lessons a day for 15 years does.

Computers enable an awful lot of crap to see the light of day which, once, record companies filtered out of the mainstream listening environment. So we have 3 million competing "original" (ahem....) acts on Myspace.

I genuinely welcome the democratisation of music in this way - it's enabled at least a small handful of artists to reach an audience which would hitherto have been impossible. Hooray.

But don't let's kid ourselves that the next big IT development is all we need to get ourselves a number one hit. That would be just silly.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

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Quote johnny h:

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Advances in computer software aren't reflected in any advance in the quality of music.

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Why should they be? Computers do not make people into especially talented musicians any more than 8 hours violin lessons a day for 15 years does.

Computers enable an awful lot of crap to see the light of day which, once, record companies filtered out of the mainstream listening environment. So we have 3 million competing "original" (ahem....) acts on Myspace.

I genuinely welcome the democratisation of music in this way - it's enabled at least a small handful of artists to reach an audience which would hitherto have been impossible. Hooray.

But don't let's kid ourselves that the next big IT development is all we need to get ourselves a number one hit. That would be just silly.

---

Yes that is the point I was making. Scotdru was saying that small audio software developers need encouraging and support, open source DAWs for all etc. But I don't see what huge benefit it brings in terms of end product. Just allows a lot more people to make very bad music.

The fact is somebody who knows what they're doing will make good music on any working setup - analogue, digital, cubase 2,3,4 software / hardware it doesn't matter. Too many people are sitting around waiting for the next big plugin, next big synth or even the next version of cubase which will finally give them that professional edge. They've got a long, long wait.

Quote johnny h:

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Steinberg invented a lot of the technology, you have to give them some credit.

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On the PC side of things there were existing alternatives for their technology. Cakewalk and Voyetra were building decent music apps for years before Steinberg came along. For some reason Steinberg decided to invent their own standards which, in some ways, are still more limited than what came before them.

Cheers

James.

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JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Hi all
just my 2c
it is well known that legit software companies were using hackers and crackers to promote their products(Radium Warez example.) as well as finding out ways to control piracy.go figure if someone makes a hit with a cracked version of your software you give him support and have advertizing. A lot of the peeps out there using cracked warez will turn their backs on music in a couple of years and buy cars ,settledown ....no prob.like they say all news is good news and its the gates theory ..one day we will get em. Gates has been giving the stuff away for years.make them independant and then turn off the tap:all this boo hoo we aint makin a dime bull is a little tireing cos if the software companies folded ...id go back to 2"

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I could´nt sleep till I put it down

hugh: glad i'm entertaining you.

baron_de: i agree: smugness is even more laughable

dmills: 'technically they can, but legally they cannot" is my whole point. technically, residents of the united kingdom can smoke joints. legally they cannot. yet they continue to do so... along with other members of various countries in similar positions. my point is that coding a program is like rolling a barrow full of oranges out onto the street, attaching a sign that sez "don't eat these" and walking away. you can argue all you want about what the sign sez, but eventually the oranges will be gone.... and new oranges will grow.

Richard Graham: home taping is killing music. naw, jus' kidding

JimiQ: my point with the diggers is not a direct parallel; obviously they could not have understood the apparently important implicaitons of DRM. my point is that various people in history have expressed various views on the validity of the inherited laws of property, both intellectual and physical; and in the world we live in, the legal system is evolving in the same analog, linear way it always has, whereas the digital, exponential evolution of 'software' on the internet is outpacing it --- thoroughly.

TTN: you got it. I just bought a Dx7 a month ago.... should I feel bad for using the software it came with? it has some physical crax too....

scottdru; the big/small company delusion is only temporary; eventually Cool Edit Pro become Adobe Audition. My argument is not aimed at 'cheating the big while robbing the small' --- it's that the whole concept of 'software' is a new one that's been created by the huge, the multinationals, the nations.... espcially the good old US of A. Maybe we should reward Bob Moog with the 'software concept' behind the analog synthesis model, do you agree?

Steve hill: go on defending those big major labels, lord knows they can't defend themselves.... you're not part of a viral marketing campaign are ya?

J Perrett: Steinberg invented their own standard cuz they thought it would make them money..... unlike Dave Smith and Midi, amirite?

Artbreak: you're so right. Ditto 100%!! No sarcasm!! Radium was like a 90's version of the same 'led light mooninite terrorism paranoia" that the US is going thru right now....

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Nobukazu Takemura = God.

Spite aside, I'll spell it out as clearly as I can.

McLuhan teaches us that media have an effect on morality. It's not determinist: media don't force you to do anything. But because they offer you the option to do something, and because out of all the humans in the world, there always seems to be one human who'll take that option, it means that:

If humans had never invented an atomic bomb, the issue of dropping it on others would have been a moot point.

But the fact is they did; and eventually, a human was found who, in a given political situation, did it.

Ditto (although it sounds extreme) for software duplication. If you give all the humans in the world the physical ability to do something, eventually, one of them will do it --- and the others will find themselves tossing back and forth the moral consequences of that one guy's actions. It doesnt matter what justifications they offer for or against it; all this is just rationalism. Eventually, another human, pressed hard enough, will follow in his footsteps.

Didn't UB40 use stolen drum machines to break out of the ghetto?

Didn't hiphop explode after a massive power outage in NYC in the late 80's resulted in turntables and samplers being stolen from music stores?

The street finds its own use for technology. And it always will.

Edited by Tachikoma...[taipei] (02/02/07 03:44 PM)

If you are at least happy for your music to be distributed without any royalties to you, and for people (companies) to do what they like with it (including selling copies, again with no royalties coming to you), then I suppose your argument about software is at least consistent.
Otherwise the argument breaks down in that recorded music and software are pretty much indistinguishable (Both are just sequences of bits in most common implementations).

Now, I for one like a copyright system that allows me to determine under what conditions I wish to allow my work to be duplicated (These tend to be fairly liberal, GPL in most cases). Note that independently creating something that looks the same and works in broadly the same way, is not protected by copyright, but by patent, which does not apply to software in the EU (At present).

Software actually has a far simpler copyright regime then most recorded music, in that you tend to avoid the worst of the writing/mechanical/performance divide because the equivalent all tend to belong to the same person or people and the rights transferred (in addition to those granted under copyright law) tend to be a license to use the code in ways otherwise prohibited by copyright. In particular, note that any computer must make a copy of the program in RAM in order to execute it.

There is nothing in copyright law to stop anyone from independently producing a workalike, but proving it was independent is hard unless the originating language of the original has been kept trade secret. This is generally the case in software, and may increasingly be the case in music (But music has all sorts of special case law going back to piano roll days...).

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote Tachikoma...[taipei]:

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Didn't UB40 use stolen drum machines to break out of the ghetto?

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They may not have been above a bit of petty thieving, but the Campbell brothers are the sons of Ian Campbell, a respected mainstream folk musician who has been recording for some decades and whilst he probably does not enjoy the lifestyle of a bloated plutocrat, he has always done well enough to keep his family in reasonable comfort.

The "ghetto" aspects of UB40's origins possibly owe a lot to a public relations executive's daydreams.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

I think this..........

The vast majority of people who use cracked software cannot afford to buy it anyway.
So in theory, the software company has not lost any money.
On the other hand the more users of a piece of software (cracked or not) the better.
Better because it becomes known. The more people know about it the more people use it. So the software company sells more and it's product dominants.

I believe this to be true because of the amount of growth in the software industry and taking into account how easy it is now to acquire cracked software.

It doesn't make it right but this is the industry model and you have to accept that if you choose to enter that industry.

One thing I have a problem with though is the cost of plug ins and their limited shelf life. If I buy a reverb, I want to be able to use it for more than just a few years. I bought my Alesis midi verb in 1995 and I still use it in my studio. If I purchased a plug in, no way will it be in use in 12 years time.

Quote WiredUp:

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I think this..........

The vast majority of people who use cracked software cannot afford to buy it anyway.
So in theory, the software company has not lost any money.
On the other hand the more users of a piece of software (cracked or not) the better.

---

Trouble is, this actually helps the biggest player in the market far more then it does the smaller competition, after all, if there is no price differential between PT and a low end DAW (Which is the effective case for pirated PT), that affordable low end DAW is not going to get the sales, and will vanish in short order.

Digidesign are not suffering from the piracy of PT, it is all the other companies trying to play in that market at a lower price point.....

As I say, I have few issues with professional musicians pirating my software, as long as they are collectively OK with people copying CDs and giving them away or selling their own compilations of their work (Without royalties)!

If you cannot afford the good stuff there is plenty of cheaper (or free) options that will get the job done, and these guys could really use your support. 15 years ago, I would have killed for what audacity (a free download) can do today.

Quote:

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One thing I have a problem with though is the cost of plug ins and their limited shelf life. If I buy a reverb, I want to be able to use it for more than just a few years. I bought my Alesis midi verb in 1995 and I still use it in my studio. If I purchased a plug in, no way will it be in use in 12 years time.

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I don't see why not, my Atari ST (About the same age) still booted up last time I tried. Sure the interfaces required to use that 12 year old plug with modern hardware might be an issue, but it should work fine with whatever platform it was designed for.

What really annoys is the short shelf life of the software APIs used, backward compatibility (By means of a shim if need be) is not that hard a problem.

BTW: Why in hell are you still using a MidiVerb (shudder).

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Edited by dmills (02/02/07 08:16 PM)

Quote dmills:

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Now, I for one like a copyright system that allows me to determine under what conditions I wish to allow my work to be duplicated (These tend to be fairly liberal, GPL in most cases). Note that independently creating something that looks the same and works in broadly the same way, is not protected by copyright, but by patent, which does not apply to software in the EU (At present).

---

But wouldn't you rather that everyone made music for free and that pay would exist solely in donation from other more fortunate people who paid what they thought you deserved? (a lot) Less people crowd around music to cash in on it's commercial potential - marketing people stay out of it and a more honest, meaningful industry is created?

I'd certainly prefer that.

Quote E D:

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But wouldn't you rather that everyone made music for free and that pay would exist solely in donation from other more fortunate people who paid what they thought you deserved? (a lot) Less people crowd around music to cash in on it's commercial potential - marketing people stay out of it and a more honest, meaningful industry is created?

I'd certainly prefer that.

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And at a stroke there are no professional musicians any more, and producing the next bohemian rapsody or whatever is not even remotely affordable unless you made your pile elsewhere.

Almost everyone has to have a day job outside music as there is now no profit in recording anything and unless you are gigging as your main source of income (true for how many bands?), you need an external source of funds.

Thing is all those hangers on do add value to a recorded work, you need the producer, engineer, mastering guy, cover art, session keys (Who cannot afford to do it for love)...

For a concert you have a slightly different set, now its production crew, riggers, stewards, catering, security.....

Much as it pains me to say it, while the marketing department are, almost without exception, pond scum, having them on the job does seem to increase numbers of units shipped sufficiently to offset the cost of using them.

Now loosing the focus groups and having the execs grow some balls and a spine would be a good thing, but taking all the profit (for anyone) out of the picture is IMHO a step backwards.

Regards, Dan.

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote Scope:

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Why use cracks ?
Old software has such little value, you can often buy it for pennies !

Cracks are not only illeagal but plain daft as they mess up your computer making it very unstable.
Better to search the ads for old titles and buy the real thing.

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That's not necessarily true. Not all cracks destroy a machine. Typically all a crack is is removal of the security code (sometimes the anti-piracy code can take up more space than the actual software program). Sometimes the programmers will write a malicious code that is activated once an attempt is made to alter the program code.

To the chagrin of my net worth, I buy my software for ethical and legal reasons. However, I never would have gotten into Reason had I not gotten a great crack of 2.5.

You simply can't demo a program effectively and thoroughly when many of its features are disabled. And what if I come up with something I want to keep while using that limited demo? Damn, I can't save what I'm doing?

Other software manufacturers, like Adobe for example (using THIS century progressive strategy), have demos that are fully functional for 30 days, then you either have to purchase a serial number or the program stops working and cannot be reactivated. Gee, what a novel approach!

But because of some last century brain-lock strategy (which is working really well for the record companies), they refuse to change how they let their customers demo their products. So, screw them! But I love Reason so after I played around with the cracked version, I went and bought it (it was also about to upgrade to 3.0 for $100, too).

I got hold of a crack of FL Studio 6 because their online demo for customers to download expired before you loaded it. As soon as you downloaded the demo and installed it, it gave you an error message when you opened it saying the demo expired (I had never used or loaded any software package from that company before, so there was no registry issue). That is reprehensible customer service.

So I loaded the crack and found I didn't care for FL Studio and promptly removed it and deleted the file.

So, with all due respect to those who look down their noses at those who use cracked software, please answer why Steinberg, or Propellerhead, et al, don't adapt Adobe's demo methodology? I've never obtained a crack for an Adobe product because it's not necessary. I know I speak for many people who want a fully functional demo when they try out a program for the first time, and some in the software industry don't have a problem with supplying the end users with a demo that will provide a satisfactory user experience.

The cracks I got for FL Studio and Reason both came with start-up screens which said "If you like using this software, please purchase a legal copy." And I went and purchased Reason.

Now, I know not everyone would do that, thus the piracy industry, but if I'm going to shell out £600-£1200 for a software package, I'm not buying it based on a demo with limited functionality. Who invests a substantial sum of money on a product based on a version specifically designed not to work right?

It's time to rethink this debate, really. The customer--or end user--is always right? Remember when that meant something?

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Come down and beware of the apefist.

Quote dmills:

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Quote WiredUp:

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I think this..........

The vast majority of people who use cracked software cannot afford to buy it anyway.
So in theory, the software company has not lost any money.
On the other hand the more users of a piece of software (cracked or not) the better.

---

Trouble is, this actually helps the biggest player in the market far more then it does the smaller competition, after all, if there is no price differential between PT and a low end DAW (Which is the effective case for pirated PT), that affordable low end DAW is not going to get the sales, and will vanish in short order.

Digidesign are not suffering from the piracy of PT, it is all the other companies trying to play in that market at a lower price point.....

As I say, I have few issues with professional musicians pirating my software, as long as they are collectively OK with people copying CDs and giving them away or selling their own compilations of their work (Without royalties)!

If you cannot afford the good stuff there is plenty of cheaper (or free) options that will get the job done, and these guys could really use your support. 15 years ago, I would have killed for what audacity (a free download) can do today.

Quote:

---

One thing I have a problem with though is the cost of plug ins and their limited shelf life. If I buy a reverb, I want to be able to use it for more than just a few years. I bought my Alesis midi verb in 1995 and I still use it in my studio. If I purchased a plug in, no way will it be in use in 12 years time.

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I don't see why not, my Atari ST (About the same age) still booted up last time I tried. Sure the interfaces required to use that 12 year old plug with modern hardware might be an issue, but it should work fine with whatever platform it was designed for.

What really annoys is the short shelf life of the software APIs used, backward compatibility (By means of a shim if need be) is not that hard a problem.

BTW: Why in hell are you still using a MidiVerb (shudder).

Regards, Dan.

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The reason Digidesign don't have any problems with pirates is Pro Tools wont run unless digi hardware is present.
Sydec/SSL's Soundscape DAW has a very good anti-pirate system in place that works.

Your right about old plugins but who wants to fill their studio up with a PC running win 98, a PC running XP, a PC running Vista just incase you might need that plugin?

Plug-ins retail at hardware prices. But once the development is done and the software released there are no further costs. No manufacturing and distribution costs nothing with the internet.
I'm leaning toward dedicated plugin hardware such as the Liquid channel or Duende. I can see a much longer shelf life for these and such devices get round the piracy issue too.

As for my Midiverb. I use it for my foldback/headphone mix. If client want a bit of verb while tracking I press the power on button and off she goes. No crashing, no glitches, it just works.

Nowt too wrong with an old midiverb! Unless it's cracked!
Has it's uses, and no not as a doorstop!

Guffaw!

But i have to add that i also see no reason why you couldn't use a plug in in in in in years to come.

I’ve still got my old Alesis Microverb II and I still occasionally use it on tracks… and people have commented on how they especially liked the ‘verb. Just goes to prove: it ain’t what you got, it’s the way that you use it, and that’s what get results

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Studio: www.kymatasound.com

And it's all about the end result!

Gear lust should be a crime too.

... just like software lust, right?

Imagine the software/hardware debate as it refers to the following items;

1. the compass (originally used as a divination device by chinese taoists, now used as a navigation tool)

2. the telescope (pre- and post-galileo)

3. the ionian mode (pre- and post- pythagoras)

LoL,
o-no not another cracked software debate,
i think there is only one way to look at this issue,
on one side we have people who are for it and the other side people who are against it.

1 - reasons against it, people should be paid for their work, also much time is spent in development,small software makers struggle to make money.

2 - reasons for it - it has a levelling effect and allows people without money to make music with the same tools as wealthy people, also people like to get something for free you are supposed to buy.

my thoughts on the subject are that the two side's of the argument are not possible to resolve,the person who takes the moralist stance pays for all their software and is annoyed by the others use of the tools without contribution.

The person who uses cracked software does not see it as wrong as they may have grown up swapping software and just see's it as normal and is against the person who is attacking thier views/actions.To see as wrong the behavour of maybe a whole life is not an easy thing.

Software piracy does hurt the company who produces the software this is true,but if something is there and it can be used to create music someone might enjoy is it not a crime to not create that music due to financial problems or society's view imposed ?.
But If you want to keep using the software you have to support the producers otherwise they will stop making it.

I can see both sides,You find that it is better to educate people in how they should behave,but it will allways be imposing our views on the others.

Software piracy is against the law,thats the only thing for it and against it,Do people care enough to stop doing it,do we trust the people who make the law?.

we are all musicians here ,we make music for pleasure or profit,we should concentrate on the music and our own actions rather than judging other people's.Unless of course we are the producers of software then it is our business to complain.

One way to stop people copying stuff is to have maybe a rental of software from the website where you could be in touch with the producers as people,it would be much harder to justify if the software's were a lot cheaper for rental. I bet not many people would use without paying if they could interact with the authors.

I was thinking about this the other day as a result of reading this thread - it's interesting, this whole 'try before buy' mentality of cracked software. Even if this *was* the reason most people who use cracked software *do* (very unlikely) although really when it comes down to it, it's like this. Hackers like breaking copy protection, it's how they get their kicks. Some people like using £600 worth of music software for free (not hard to see why, really, is it).

But one of the arguments that routinely gets trotted out is "I might not like it/I might be s*it at it/So why should I pay top-whack for a program that I might never use again?"

Well, same as the guitar really, isn't it. Have to take that risk, don't you. Except you can *rent* a guitar, although I have no idea how much this costs or at what point it would have been cheaper to just buy the thing outright in the first place. Can't really do that with (for example) Cubase, can you . . . . for pretty obvious reasons!!

Maybe there's a gap in the market for an enterprising someone! DAW rental . . . .

/to see the bank manager . . .

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http://www.soundclick.com/hol

I'm with Apefist and Dameo. Although my experience of buying legit software is proving frustrating.

I'm 'morally upgrading' my cracked Guitar Rig 2, FM7 and B4, by buying Guitar Combos and Xpress Keyboards. Am I mad?

So far, I've paid for the software and it has taken well over a week for half of it to be sent to me (I paid for next day delivery). The other half I will get God knows when. In the meantime I am stuck with demo versions, which I can't use for more than 30 minutes and which I can't save my presets on.

I also specified that I wanted it sent to my work address, so I didn't have to go round the houses to a delivery depot, thus eating up a good chunk of my precious free time on the weekend- or justify my purchases to her indoors ("what do you need that for? It cost how much!?"). It has been posted to my house, nobody was in, and my wife has found the delivery note. Great.

When I downloaded my illegal Warez versions I got fully-featured software delivered direct to my computer at no cost to myself or to the environment.

Proof if any was needed that it doesn't pay to be honest. I am grinding my teeth, and considering sending it back. I'm sure I can live without it after all.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

it's been awile since i've posted.....but anyways....if you are dumb enough to open your post with " i have a problem with my cracked software", then you deserve to be ban'd. not for having the cracked software, but for admitting it. thats like stealing a car and driving it straight to the police station and saying im having trouble with this stolen car. but for the people who dont like the idea of others using cracked software, and this is just my opinion. simply dont answer the post.

Quote web01169:

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it's been awile since i've posted.....but anyways....if you are dumb enough to open your post with " i have a problem with my cracked software", then you deserve to be ban'd. not for having the cracked software, but for admitting it. thats like stealing a car and driving it straight to the police station and saying im having trouble with this stolen car. but for the people who dont like the idea of others using cracked software, and this is just my opinion. simply dont answer the post.

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I think you may be missing the point of this thread! And SOS are not the police, they are more like someone's Dad. Or a priest.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Hello all, i'm new here

Just wanted to add my grain of salt :

I think this issue is often overrated. I mean, I almost never buy software, however i'm not stealing anyone.
I, as many others, do music as an entertainment. I've had in the past a directory with *lots* of $500 or more plugins, and used them on my songs. But i only did it because they were "freely available".
If pirating those things was not possible then i wouldn't use them, period. I'd use free, and probably crappy alternatives. No way i'm going to spend $500 on a software reverb plugin.
I suspect that most enthousiats are one the same line, unless they are filthy rich...

So the only difference it would do if i was obliged to pay for music software is that my songs would sound even more crappy. Nobody wins, i and lots of enthusiats lose.

The people who would pay for this stuff (studios, etc) probably already do, because they know they'll be into a huge legal [ ****** ] if they have an audit.

So my point is that morally, i don't steal anything to anyone, i just use it because it's here.

I could say the same thing about music btw, it drives me crazy when i hear majors crying because they've calculated that people downloaded $whatever worth of music, so they losed $whatever.
I download lots of music because it's free and i can test new things without fearing of having a bad surprise, there is no way i would buy even 1% of what i download. And those 1% i generally end up buying them for friends birthdays or such things. Music that i would'nt even know about if i hadn't downloaded it in the first place...

Alright Bardo, I have to agree with everything you say, but there is another side to it.

If you were a programmer, and your job was to write code for VST instruments, and your ability to pay the mortgage depended on your producing good, saleable code, and you did just that and produced a great-sounding product, and then a load of people downloaded that product for free, and used it a lot, and your company didn't sell enough copies and went bust, and you lost your job, and you couldn't pay the mortgage and lost your house because a bunch of freeloaders were too tight-fisted to actually pay for something good which they use... how would you feel?

Looked at another way, what if instead of being paid for whatever it is you do in your day job, the people who pay your wages decide that your skill and workmanship, time and labour is actually worthless, and not worth paying for, but they continue to use you anyway, all the while complaining about the odd mistake you make, and saying that if you weren't around they'd just get some cheap labour in, which wouldn't be as good, but in the end they are not really bothered about having something good after all.

Would that be 'moral'?


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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Hi,
This is a really interesting thread that's managed to reference quite a few external issues as well as a few things I'd like to pass comment on.
Firstly, unless discontinued software is released to public domain using a cracked version remains theft. Whether you use cracked software or not, deep down you know it's theft and that's that. Some discontinued software gets released as freeware and even occasionally as open source, but other than that it remains the property of the copyright holder. When the CBM Amiga died we lost a lot of good software that was never released to public domain but that's life.

Secondly was a comment about Fruityloops by Imageline and their demos. The reason that their demo versions are so short lived is that they are continually upgrading their products, they have issues with their registry keys and their installers from time to time but once you have purchased a product you get free updates or the life of that product and you don't have to pay extra for a glorified bug fix, quite a laudable business ethos.

Thirdly was a reference to Open office, I can only guess that you were running it under windows, for which it needs extra resources to allow it to run. Try it under linux and you will see an example of what open source software can be like, outstanding considering it's free.

Then finally there are the bugs in the expensive commercial software. Inexcusable but when you think of the platform its written for you can understand it. Even Microsoft can't write bug free software for its own software, there are just too many interdependencies to account for. Then they have to rely on system resources that may themselves be flawed and communicate with any number of different peripherals or interfaces and satisfy our ever increasing appetite for bells and whistles. All I can say is that if you don't like the companies attitude to customers or are unhappy with the product, DON'T BUY IT. In Europe a EULA does not override a consumers rights, or so we are told, so if your system meets the stated requirements of the package and the software does not function as stated, return it and demand your money back. In the mean time we should all start a movement against oppressive EULAs and demand that they are printed in full on the outside of all packages.

Just read my post and it sounded like I was waffling.

Why the bit about EULAs?
Well they are the part that by opening or installing the software you have effectively signed away your right to complain about any bugs, get any help with the software should it be faulty or even wreck your system and in some cases sign away the privacy and integrity of your system and all the date on it. If you read some of them you'll have a laugh!!!

Sales of software seems to be a rule unto itself, they can sell you C**P, invade your privacy and then decide that you haven't actually bought their software at all so it's not yours, its theirs and you can't sell it on. All with seemingly total impunity.

When you look at it that way, there is little wonder that there are pirates who crack and distribute software.

Both software companies and users should think about their morals and act with their own conscience.

Now I know that you've heard enough from me.

Bye!!

I don't think it's 'theft' to use cracked software, because in doing so, nobody has been 'permanently deprived' of anything, unless in the first instance you intended to buy that software, but then decided to download it instead. This is hardly ever the case, as most people using cracked software would never pay £200-£300 for something they can get for nowt!

So whatever the law says, it isn't 'theft', in the common sense of the word: in this respect,the law is an ass, as the concept of stealing is out-dated for this application. If you steal something from someone, the owner no longer has it... that's just common sense. You can't be a thief without stealing something *from* someone. If I 'stole' your telly by making a perfect copy of it in my own living room, it wouldn't be theft. It would be copying. Because you still have your telly. The fact that you worked hard to have that telly (or even built it yourself), and I just made a copy by pushing a magic button, doesn't make it theft, any more than some people having tellys they didn't work to aquire, is 'stealing' from people who had to work hard and scrimp and save to get them...

That isn't to say using cracked software isn't morally wrong: it's just that calling it 'theft' really overstates the case, and distorts the argument.

Just an opinion.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Quote bardo:

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Hello all, i'm new here

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And you ain't gonna make it past your two posts at this rate mate.

Quote bardo:

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however i'm not stealing anyone.

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You might not be stealing something 'physically' but you *are* depriving someone, somewhere of income that is rightly theirs. In doing that, you affect that person's ability to pay rent/mortgage/bills, put food on the table, whatever. Same thing! That might sound a bit melodramatic but it's the reality. In the case of software created by a larger manufacturer, the bottom line is that if they are not profitable they will fire their workers (leaving them totally unable to pay rent/mortgage/bills), they will fire support staff (meaning the legitimate owners cannot get support) and they will not invest in future products. It will also have ramifications right down the line that affects their distributors and their dealers, etc..

Quote bardo:

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I, as many others, do music as an entertainment.

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So what? People do Scuba diving "as an entertainment" but pay for their diving equipment. People enjoy DIY but don't expect a hammer and nails for free

Quote bardo:

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I've had in the past a directory with *lots* of $500 or more plugins, and used them on my songs. But i only did it because they were "freely available".

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And in doing so, perpetuated the piracy spiral.

Quote bardo:

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If pirating those things was not possible then i wouldn't use them, period. I'd use free, and probably crappy alternatives. No way i'm going to spend $500 on a software reverb plugin.

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Your choice but if the piracy situation continues, the ultimate outcome will be that the ONLY thing you will have is free crap because the serious developers will just give up!

Quote bardo:

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I suspect that most enthousiats are one the same line

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And that makes it right does it? No - it's why the industry is in a bit of mess!

Quote bardo:

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So the only difference it would do if i was obliged to pay for music software is that my songs would sound even more crappy.

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Dunno how you reach that conclusion. Your songs would be just as crappy but at least you would have legally paid for the software to record them with and developer will be able to support that product (and you if you have any problems) as well as improving the product and introducing new features.

Quote bardo:

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Nobody wins, i and lots of enthusiats lose.

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What the hell makes you think 'enthusiasts' are entitled to something for free?

Quote bardo:

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The people who would pay for this stuff (studios, etc) probably already do, because they know they'll be into a huge legal [ ****** ] if they have an audit.

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No - because it is the proper and legal way to conduct business. I dunno if you have noticed, but this whole thing of PAYING for something has been around for centuries - it's kinda the way things work. You want something, you pay for it; you can't afford it, you don't buy it. Fairly simple.

Quote bardo:

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So my point is that morally, i don't steal anything to anyone, i just use it because it's here.

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You have no morals. As I have said, you are not stealing anything 'physically' but you ar depriving someone (maybe many people) of an income.

I am sure you wouldn't be very happy if every week someone was taking money from your pay packet.

It strikes me that, like a lot of people, you are indulging in a hobby you cannot afford. Someone wanting to be a guitarist doesn't steal a guitar - he has to BUY it. If you can't afford it, tough [ ****** ]! That's life! Save up for it, take out a loan, sell something to fund the purchase, whatever - or give up the notion.

Just because you are an 'enthusiast' does NOT give you any entitlement to anything for free and does not give you the right or justification to exploit someone's work without due payment to that person.

You might think it's all harmless but as a developer currently chasing a website that is making my stuff available for free download, piracy and people like yourself are a real threat to my legitimate livelihood. I depend on sales of my products to pay my mortgage, bills, put food on the table, invest in future products, provide support for legitimate users and so on - and some little gobshite thinks it's fine to get it for free coz he can't afford it and is only an enthusiast.

If the mods are watching this, please don't delete this tosser's post - it is a testament to the attitude so prevalent in this industry... "I am just an enthusiast and can't afford to pay for software so it's morally ok to steal software". Feck right off!



Steve

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote:

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If you were a programmer, and your job was to write code for VST instruments, and your ability to pay the mortgage depended on your producing good, saleable code, and you did just that and produced a great-sounding product, and then a load of people downloaded that product for free, and used it a lot, and your company didn't sell enough copies and went bust, and you lost your job, and you couldn't pay the mortgage and lost your house because a bunch of freeloaders were too tight-fisted to actually pay for something good which they use... how would you feel?

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Stupid because i didn't take into account the realities of this market ? It's not like software piracy is a new fact, it's always been a constant in the software industry since at least the 8-bits era. And i'm a software programmer btw, i know how hard it is to make good, polished software, and how nobody understands the amount of work it takes.

What i mean is that they know from the beginning they will be pirated by amateurs, they don't target them at all anyway. They target professionals, who have the money and respect the law. I'd even venture to say that they don't mind being pirated by amateurs because such amateurs might end up as an engineer in a studio one of those days and decide which plugins the studio should buy...
It's exactly like say, Oracle. Do you seriously think that they would mind if i pirated their $3M or whatever database to make a stupid music album database at home ? No, they'd probably be happy about it because it trains me on Oracle stuff, and I might be more succeptible to chose them at work after that...

Of course that argument won't stand if you talk about $30 plugins for instances, which i'd probably pirate anyway personally if i can. But that's because i'm a totally cheap, ammoral and evil person, i admit it

Quote:

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Dunno how you reach that conclusion. Your songs would be just as crappy but at least you would have legally paid for the software to record them with and developer will be able to support that product (and you if you have any problems) as well as improving the product and introducing new features.

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You didn't understand my post... I wouldn't pay for this software if i couldn't download it. That's the whole point...



Edited by bardo (06/02/07 05:30 PM)

Quote hollowsun:

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If the mods are watching this, please don't delete this tosser's post - it is a testament to the attitude so prevalent in this industry... "I am just an enthusiast and can't afford to pay for software so it's morally ok to steal software". Feck right off!


Steve

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The really daft thing about this attitude is that there are excellent tools out there for free, you want something and cannot afford it, you got a few acceptable choices:

Save up for it.
Download a free implementation.
Download a compiler and toolchain and **write** an implementation (May require reading a few book first), hey maybe you could even sell copies of your version....
Talk your local politician into repealing copyright law as it applies to software.

As I say, 20 years ago, I would have killed for Csound, Ardour, Sox, Jamin, Bristol, Zyn, Hydrogen, Rosegarden, Audacity and the rest.

As to the big DB, IIRC, they do actually have a workstation demo available for free (IIRC limited to single processor), I never really looked into it, as Postgres is more then sufficient for my domestic DB needs.

Regards, Dan (Pissed off because FlexLM is playing silly buggers and stopping me getting any work done, this would not be necessary without freeloading slime like the poster above).

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote Richard Graham:

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I don't think it's 'theft' to use cracked software, because in doing so, nobody has been 'permanently deprived' of anything, unless in the first instance you intended to buy that software, but then decided to download it instead. This is hardly ever the case, as most people using cracked software would never pay £200-£300 for something they can get for nowt!

So whatever the law says, it isn't 'theft', in the common sense of the word: in this respect,the law is an ass, as the concept of stealing is out-dated for this application. If you steal something from someone, the owner no longer has it... that's just common sense. You can't be a thief without stealing something *from* someone. If I 'stole' your telly by making a perfect copy of it in my own living room, it wouldn't be theft. It would be copying. Because you still have your telly. The fact that you worked hard to have that telly (or even built it yourself), and I just made a copy by pushing a magic button, doesn't make it theft, any more than some people having tellys they didn't work to aquire, is 'stealing' from people who had to work hard and scrimp and save to get them...

That isn't to say using cracked software isn't morally wrong: it's just that calling it 'theft' really overstates the case, and distorts the argument.

Just an opinion.

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Richard, I understand your argument but it is highly flawed.
You are comparing theft of a single physical item from someone who owns it and makes no money from it and has contributed nothing towards the R&D of it and so on and comparing it to something that is exactly the opposite.

Let's look at this from the publishing point of view:

You take Michael Jackson's Thriller and P2P it across the net. You copy it and maybe even sell it (as I have recently found out re my products).

You have deprived Jacko of his earnings. That is quite simply theft. Even without getting into the intellectual side of the ownership argument, this still leaves the fact that Jacko has been deprived of earnings, be it actual or potential. In my book that equates to theft.
The publishers, the label and Jacko would chase you for loss of earnings.

Let's stay with your analogy about the word 'theft' being outdated and not relevant in this context.

Theft is simply a term that describes the taking of something without the owner's consent. That is what theft is, taking something without consent. In terms of DD or software, the owner has the right to create as many copies as possible. The theft of a single copy, be it real or potential, is still theft. The fact that the product is not bricks and mortar does not make it any less legitimate in qualifying it for the status of 'owned'.

Your analogy of the TV is a poor one as you have not put any criteria against it:
Did the person that the telly was stolen from invent it, did he spend acres of money in R&D, did he plan on selling it, how did you copy it etc?

Steve (Hollwsun) has made a good point and is in the same boat I am in.
I have my material continually pirated and P2P'd across torrent sites, P2P sites, Pm'd in forums etc.
I lose every single time someone downloads one of my products from these sources.
To me that is theft. Theft from my actual and potential earnings.
In the last month alone MCPS have been involved in contacting dozens of sites on my behalf to have my content removed.

Those who claim that the fact that someone's material is P2P'd across the planet makes for great advertising and these people will eventually find their way to the creator's site and buy more products are talking nonsense.

Steve, I am sure, will agree to this: we spend a great deal of money and time marketing our sites and profiles.
The people who steal outr material do not come to our sites and pay for it or buy something else. They check our product base and search for the cracked or pirated versions of it.
So, that argument is also flawed. Whether Bill gates has said it helps his cause or not makes no difference to people like Steve and I. We are not Bill Gates. We cannot afford to lose a dime let alone a market chunk of change.

I have not read a single argument on these pages that warrants me accepting any concept of it being right to take someone else's work, be it software, DD or anything else for that matter.

I also find the argument of being deprived of $500 plugins makes someone's music crappy utterly ridiculous. I know of home musicians/producers using FL and a few few plugins, working off a simple and cheap PC and making great music. So, the 'better gear makes me a better musician so I must have it for free' is both weak and insulting to those that do it by the legit method and still come up with great material.

If we then argue the fact that big multinational companies should create better software, because the cracks work better or the support or the... blah blah, and that makes it ok to steal their products, then we are only lying and trying to justify to ourselves that there exists a premise that makes it acceptable to steal, in whatever capacity and definition.
People who argue that these software should be perfect and not buggy and that is why they use the cracks (as they are receiving sub standard products) are simply lying. Don't buy from them. That's all there is to it.
You buy a car that performs poorly. You return it and get your money back and go and buy from a different manufacturer. You do not keep the car, not pay for it and continue to whinge about the manufacturer.

The next argument of 'I can't afford it'...well, I don't even think I need to rip that one apart either.

Deep down, everyone here, irrespective of which side of the fence they sit on, know full well that it is both legally wrong and ethically wrong to steal, irrespective of whether it's someone's wallet, idea, creation, TV or anything else.

Assassinating the term 'theft' is simply a way of justifying the actual act of performing it because it shows how weak an argument it is to classify and denegrade the terminology.

Call it what you like. Taking someone else's works and possible future earnings is plain wrong, on every level, and we do not need that type of destruction in this industry.

Too many good companies have gone down because of peoples' avarice and misconceptions about what is theft and what isn't.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Quote:

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So whatever the law says, it isn't 'theft', in the common sense of the word: in this respect,the law is an ass, as the concept of stealing is out-dated for this application.

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I believe most laws are now in fact quite clear on that topic :
It's generally not called theft anymore, but "copyright infrigment", which is a way better description.
Doesn't change the fact that it's illegal of course, but at least it doesn't assimilate the perpetuator as a burglar.

But U.S RIAA and others still like to call it theft because it's more shocking to be called a thief than an infriger so it makes a better DVD warning. Which as a matter of fact only the people who rent or buy legally will see, since the "copyright infrigers" will either see a divx or a DVD with this chapter removed.
And they want to add DRM on top of that, which again will only annoy their legitimate customers. Wow... Seriously, if DRM media does take off i predict a rise in piracy like never before.

Quote:

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Regards, Dan (Pissed off because FlexLM is playing silly buggers and stopping me getting any work done, this would not be necessary without freeloading slime like the poster above).

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The freeloading slime doesn't like to be judged and sumed up on 5 sentences. Look i'm a big supporter of the FSF. I've been using Free Software, helping develop it, documenting it, translating it for nearly 11 years, all on my free time.
I'd like to live in a GNU world without tools like flexml too, but i'm pragmatic enough to use the best tools I can have now.
I'd be happy to use free, copyrightless alternatives if they existed, but in my opininion they're not quite there yet.
And please don't tell me that i could download a GNU toolchain to program them myself, it's ridiculous. Audio programming is not in my area of expertize at all, and it requires very specific knowledge about acoustics, signal processing and things like that. Yeah i could probably do it after reading piles and piles of signal processing books and the like but i prefer to let those naturally interested in the subject do the work, and participate in my own specific area.

Quote Zukan:

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Steve (Hollwsun) has made a good point and is in the same boat I am in.
I have my material continually pirated and P2P'd across torrent sites, P2P sites, Pm'd in forums etc.
I lose every single time someone downloads one of my products from these sources.
To me that is theft. Theft from my actual and potential earnings.

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Yep. just because somebody didn't break into my house and physically take a CD-ROM from the premises does not mean that downloading a free copy is any different. It is theft and not just of income but intellectual property.

Quote Zukan:

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Steve, I am sure, will agree to this: we spend a great deal of money and time marketing our sites and profiles.
The people who steal outr material do not come to our sites and pay for it or buy something else. They check our product base and search for the cracked or pirated versions of it.
So, that argument is also flawed. Whether Bill gates has said it helps his cause or not makes no difference to people like Steve and I. We are not Bill Gates. We cannot afford to lose a dime let alone a market chunk of change.

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Yep!

Quote Zukan:

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Call it what you like. Taking someone else's works and possible future earnings is plain wrong, on every level, and we do not need that type of destruction in this industry.

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Absolutely. Piracy is not just dangerous to software developers but hardware too and many of the major manufacturers are having trouble selling their products as people who would once have bought an entry level product now just download shedloads of illegal software. One can argue that this democratises music making but that's a crock - it's just a thinly veiled excuse for justifying theft.

So some spotty 14-yr-old can't afford XYZ. Tough. I can't afford to keep hiring bloody solicitors to chase sites hosting my stuff illegally and quite frankly, due to piracy, I am not sure I can afford to remain in my current house so I might have to move my entire family, have my daughter change schools and 'downsize' to a smaller house in a worse area. Jeez, I know fellow developer colleagues who have lost everything - their house, their busines, sometimes their marriage because they invested everything in some sound library project or some software product only to have it ripped off a week after its release. I've also been involved in the development of other products where a company's financial projections are just destroyed overnight by some Russian hacker - three man-year's worth of work and a large financial committment down the drain in a single afternoon resulting in job losses and everything that entails.

Ultimately, unless we're very careful, we run the risk of being in a situation where developers don't develop any more and manufacturers stop manufacturing.

And that, I'm afraid, is the reality of piracy so please forgive me if I have short thrift with any freeloading arsewipe who advocates it.


Steve

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote bardo:

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The freeloading slime doesn't like to be judged and sumed up on 5 sentences.

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And hard working, innovative and clever software writers and other developers don't like having many months of their work downloaded (stolen) for free!

Quote bardo:

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Audio programming is not in my area of expertize at all, and it requires very specific knowledge about acoustics, signal processing and things like that. Yeah i could probably do it after reading piles and piles of signal processing books and the like but i prefer to let those naturally interested in the subject do the work

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What? So you can just rip off their work and knowledge and expertise and time for nothing on some P2P network?


Steve

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog