but seriously, has any producer (famous or otherwise) ever been sued, fined or prosecuted for warez-ed audio soft or samples ? only for distro ? I have seen other threads on this but never seemed to be conclusive. thoughts.. ?

 

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There were times when Waves ran "stings" in the early 00's, at larger studios.... they would book sessions, asking if they had certain plugins etc, and then would uncover the fact the studio's didn't "own" them etc, and basically knock them with a pretty big fine.. as far as "samples", of course we know that, best examples being Verve's"Bittersweet Symphony" and Vanilla Ice "Ice Ice Baby" and the list goes on...

but in terms of using say, u-he's zebra or a Kontakt spitfire library etc, I haven't heard of any... but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened....

 

There is really no merit in suing people who pirate software from a business standpoint.

1. Lawsuits are expensive!
2. You usually don't win any money from them.
3. If you do win a settlement people often cannot pay it.
4. The PR gained from suing customers isn't the greatest.
5. Lawsuits don't deter other pirates, even if you sue celebrities.

If a big name producer was caught using a pirated version of a product a better business move would be to get the press to cover it and get free publicity.

I remember there were a bunch of articles a year or so ago where a famous producer posted a screenshot of his DAW and one of his plugins loaded happened to be a pirated version. That was in the news for weeks/months and probably resulted in better marketing/new sales than their entire marketing budget would have for the life of their company.

If they decided to sue the person, especially if people liked that producer, it would have likely resulted in a negative view of the company, people very much dislike corporate greed, and may have even resulted in lost sales. This likely wouldn't have been negated by any small settlement they received in the lawsuit and the damage to their brand would be irreparable. The MPAA and RCA learned this the hard way back when they were suing 12 year old kids for tens of thousands of dollars for sharing a song/movie.

The only lawsuits you will likely see are people trying to keep other companies from blatantly stealing their designs and reselling them. You don't see too many of those in this industry though.

 

I was not clear.. I meant samples as in sample "libraries" Omnisphere, Keyscape , Spitfire, 8dio

Do artists always have to ask permission to use sampled portions in their music,
or does "fair use" apply to commercial releases...? it does seem to apply in Youtube


I know these all do regular DMCA.. but that's about the extent, and you did answer that as well.. thanks

 

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https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/03/sony-bmgs-hypocrisy-company-busted-for-using-warez/

http://newsmiths.blogspot.com.es/2007/06/microsoft-used-pirated-version-of-sound.html

http://www.chinatopix.com/articles/84585/20160427/google.htm

 

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gotcha, I know Eric Persing sued a sample dev for putting out a Kontakt Library which contained his D-50 presets etc.... So there is some precedent for that amongst devs and whatnot.... but christ, I can't imagine how Vengeance would be in business if they were sued for every damn kick and whatnot they just lifted from someone else's library...

There are some weird EULA's I remember reading.... maybe East/West? Where it reads in confusing fashion as to whether or not you can even use single shots or whatnot in released commercial work... I get how some companies (like say a Big Fish Audio library), don't want some asshole just re-releasing their essentially completed tracks and getting paid by licensing libraries etc... and they have some language about that in their EULA's.... but I haven't heard of any lawsuits by Spitfire or something against some composer who clearly used their library and doesn't have a paid license for it that they know of. If anyone else knows, I would love to hear about it... as I'm certainly not saying it HASNT happened...

but Roland could probably make a lot of money shutting down people putting out 808/909 etc libraries... or at least cease and desist them or whatnot... but I'm not sure what the clear laws on that are. They are "musical" instruments, how they are repurposed can be a complicated affair.

Some of those one note "Omnisphere" wonders we all here on multiple tv shows/ads etc.... I bet a lot of those were played on unpurchases copies...

Whenever I have produced stuff for labels in the past etc, I have had to sign documents that state if there "is" any problem that arises from this kinda thing... (say I sampled some beats off the end of "strawberry fields alt take" etc....), that I was the one on the hook for it, not the label etc. So THEY protect themselves, .... but haven't heard about anything with sample library presets. I imagine 8dio would get sued by Spitfire if they used their samples etc... but interesting topic...

 

aymat: I find the http://newsmiths.blogspot.com.es/2007/06/microsoft-used-pirated-version-of-sound.html article interesting... as I have done installations before, and perhaps have created content with them on a k'd version of something, but I would never dream of using a K'd version in the install... Say I did something in Ableton, and ran out of licenses and created some content on a tertiary system like a laptop in a hotel room somewhere... but in the installation itself, I have a FULL PAID LICENSED version running it. Would my .wav files perhaps created in this scenario have some kind of watermark or metadata? never looked... But when I deal with companies or whatnot, I do not take any chances with this, and if the budget isn't there, for say another version of Kontakt or something, I'll find another way to do it with something else.

 

this disscussion should be ended, its a bad idea talking about this, dont give bad ideeas to bad peopple ...

 

Quite ironic considering your avatar.

 

don't worry.. it will die a quiet death of ignominy

some enlightening answers came of it at the very least.. on the state
of the industry in this regard...

thanks @aymat and @sisyphus ,@C7 and all who provided some interesting/useful input

@aymat comes in with an enduring fact.. no one is really capable of following all their own
rules, at all times... therefore judge not.

 

I guess I don't know what you mean... seems like a reasonable question posited by Herr Durr, and certainly an interesting one. There are plenty of huge artists who started with a cracked version of FL or whatnot and a k'd Sylenth, and some "downloaded" Vengeance packs etc.... a lot of them then purchased said products when attained success, a lot that didn't. I'm sure a lot of the "hits" or songs we hear are populated to hell with inappropriately gained plugins, samples etc. The question was whether anyone was known to have been called out or was legal action taken. We all know the (was it Kanye?) story with his video interview clearly showing a team ASSIGN version of Sylenth or whatever on his work rig on his tour bus or whatever... and I think it was Deadmau5 or someone who jokingly put together a fund to purchase him a legit copy.

We see behringer every day it seems announcing some product which is clearly the design of someone else's hard work and innovation, regardless if the patents have expired or whatnot. How many 303/909/808 hardware clones have been made etc in hardware form and software form? sure, patents expire, and a good idea is a good idea, and whatnot...

But has some middling composer for some cable show been busted for using a clear spitfire mural patch without a license? Or how many times have we heard Heavyocity's Damage on things from trailers to cooking shows to whatever... I'm pretty certain all those weren't paid for... and I doubt the respective developers have either the resources to try and track this stuff down, and in some cases, some devs have viewed it as good advertising for their products. Skrillabeez see Sonny using Ableton and Massive, perhaps buy it, perhaps get a copy elsewhere.... and then it becomes some kind of "standard" in that "genre", and ultimately a lot of people end up buying it. Ableton isn't making money on the sales of Push's alone.

But I'm not sure what "bad ideas this is giving to bad people"... I'm not saying you are wrong, I guess perhaps I just don't know what you mean by that statement, so if perhaps you could explain a little more....that's all.

But this has been mentioned over the years on this forum before, not perhaps the way our friend Herr Durr posed it, and he certainly didn't post it in any incendiary way, or draw undue attention... and I find the question and resulting answers pretty interesting myself... So I vote NOT to end this thread.

 

suing a homeless, good luck with that (sorry for the caricature)

 

I imagine they would have to bust most non-million dollar facilities and probably all project studio producers, because I'm pretty certain they all do it. Especially the "analog or die" guys who are only using software at all under protest because so many of their clients are asking for Pro Tools or Ableton (those racks of vintage Pultecs get reaaaaal expensive).

 

If I ever develop a high profile plugin, first thing i would do is put it on AudioZ, to get the best advertisement possible, and save on tons of money to advertise. they dont lose anything by cracked software or music or pirated anything is advertising like radio is for songs.

i would put my music on torrents if i got a big record deal id put my program on torrentz if i had a big shot graphics plugin etc.
i dont see why people have a different opinion on the matter , maybe they misinformed?

pirating used to be robbing a large ship raping the women killing the men stealing the goods.

nowadays pirating is the LITERAL duplication of zeros and ones, with zero alteration of the source.

funny thing.

 

a dev may work had for a year, then for updates and compatibility then, dev can make infinite copy of original work and sell ... when we have COPY/PASTE function on computer, why would i be charged 200$ for a vst? ...i really believe if Sonnox would charge 40$ max for every plugin they have they would be bilionares, if they arent... at that price i would buy even with iLok