It's good that this question is posed here, thank you Toni Aguirre, gracias.

I've been thinking too about this, and really, I cant see another solution than people changing their mentality so they feedback teams like R2R.
I'm confident that if they came to a point speaking about it publicly, it's because there is no other option, they even created a tool to communicate with them which is a premiere in this world, so instead of looking for the 6 leg sheep, let's use the obvious solution: we have to provide them back.
The actual situation was predictable and have been predicted, we have been warned several times, but we didn't do anything so it happened.

Another question is about very soon public releases, about this I think we have to let developers time to sell and get money from their work. I remember not so long ago, we knew that using cracked soft means having it almost one year later after their release, and it's ok like that.
As someone pointed: Do we really need the last version of a synth or effect to compose our music? I don't think so.

About the quantity thing, do we need 200 synth and 500 effects? How many reverb types do we use really?
Collectionitis is an infection many of us should get cured, including me.

Ask yourself: when did you share something, no matter what?

 

man I have to say I still miss radium's installers. What a beauty, considered the times.

I hear you. And I realize supplying like a decade ago is no longer possible, since most distribution happens digitally and you just can't snatch a disc from the bulk.
But even then, if you wanted a certain software c*cked you had to pony up the cash and supply it yourself.
Actually, with warez ≠ money I meant the not making money from warez paradigm, which is, as you say, no longer the predominant phenomenon.
Thanks for clearing up

 

The problem is just, if scene becomes totally nonpublic, then what's the point, then nobody will ever get any releases. Then it mght just aswell not exist at all.

The knowledge that "somewhere up there in Nirvana, there are 4 guys who are using all VST in the world, but they won't share it to anyone else" is not that exciting.

 

The spirit of cracking is not getting fresh 0dayz stuff to the public but proving that it can be done, thus earning respect.
We are but mere benefactors.
At least, that's how I see it.

 

Respect by whom? Other members of a closed scene?
To what purpose? So that they can go out for a beer with each other and brag about who cracked something first or has thought of a certain trick quicker?
What's the point of that, if not just a petty ego game?
It's not like these achievements get registered in some kind of portfolio which can then be used to get a high profile IT job or anything!
It all sounds like a dick measuring contest to me, by people who (I feel ) don't even know each other IRL.
And even if that's the case (which it seems to be) whose respect do R2R aspire for if they're not members of the actual scene?
We all know they have *our* respect, to a maximum degree!
I feel they shouldn't allow themselves to be discouraged by comments from a bunch of newbies; there's always gonna be leachers and newbies.
Who cares!?
Such is life.
Just keep doing what you love doing, free tools for all creators!
It's not like many of us earn money with making music anyway...

 

By the time of my arrival upon this post, the responses to it have ricocheted in different directions, so I hope that mine finds some relevance.

So, "Why own the cow, when you can milk it through the fence?" Why pay for software/samples, when you can download warez? Rhetorical questions answered on moral grounds if taken literally. The answer to either can be also a matter of affluence (or of poverty). When one has money for something, one can, so one potentially will (and/or ought to), pay for it. It could also be said that, if one doesn't have the money to pay for it, one shouldn't take it when it's presented for free.

Some would say that software crackers are the "problem," and if they weren't distributing warez, there would be no illicit supply for illicit acquisition; there wouldn't be for-free, "liberated" software leaking all over the Internet. Pay the crackers for their work, but not the developers? Cracking software is long, hard, highly-skilled work - but so is original development of that same software, no? Who, therefore, "should" be getting money in exchange, or in reward, for the software?

Would a limited release of warez within a "walled garden" of Audioz members be any less a moral infraction, just because the number of persons intended to receive them would be fewer?

Moral issues aside, there are inestimable benefits to warez. Warez not only give people opportunity to "try before they buy," they also get people hooked on the stuff - say, on Native Instruments products - who are thereby likelier to purchase further products by that developer (with the benefits of updates, integrity of the sofware, customer support, and so forth). A third benefit goes unspoken: "All boats rise with the water." That is, warez enable people to keep up with this stuff and to develop their skills which make them into the customers that music-software companies are looking for; software companies have a broader potential market because of the educational influence of warez. So, the "moral issue" of warez isn't so cut-and-dried, after all.

Here, I shift focus: Why do I use warez?

1) Because I'm curious about how the stuff works and sounds.
2) I "need" it to expand my musical, sonic and technical gamut.
3) I am broke. I mean, I have no money to spare. I have paid for software, plug-ins, and libraries - but rarely, and never for expensive ones. I have a nice computer, but it's the only thing of real value that I own; if it were to really break-down, I would not be able to repair nor replace it. I mean, I'm rent-poor. I mean, I "harvest" food from dumpsters in order to stock my pantry. If people were to pay for my music, as I have it so affordably-priced for download, I might not be hurtin', but the market forces of the Internet have led the public to expect not to have to pay for music, or to pass on paid downloads in favor of free downloads, since musicians have had to give-away their music in download form due to these market forces of the Internet. It gets hard to justify, or even to relate to, paying for something that one can't really see and touch. Sure, people who download my music for free, or who rip crappy-quality streams of it from Soundcloud, or share it with their friends, "should" compenstate me for that and also for enjoying it – but they don't. Some of them joke about striking it rich and purchasing all of my music at once, but at a gradual pace of $5 a week, or per month, they could acquire full-quality audio files, and gradually everything I've released, and they wouldn't feel it. They're either not into it enough to pay for it, or just not into paying for it. I mean, why should they? Is that a rhetorical question? I can't tell, anymore.

Maybe when a lot of people pay to download all my music, I'll purchase Komplete and the NI hardware controllers, all the Soundiron libraries, the whole set of Waves plug-ins, the new version of Stuido One (I couldn't get the keygen-crack to work for me; the instructions had been flung-out with such embittered indifference that they were incoherent), and so on, and so on. Until then, I'll learn by using warez, which will enable me to pass along advice on how to use and troubleshoot the software to people who have paid for it.

 

This is kind of hypocritical though, isn't it? Nothing against you. But what you're saying is - I can't/don't pay for the software I use to make my music, but people should pay for my music. And if you are as poor as you say, then your first music income would not go to software developers, since you are can get almost everything for free, thanks to the teams.

Look, I'm broke too, but I'm not making excuses. And I'm not asking to sustain the condition that allows me to make music while bemoaning the 'unfair marketplace' that makes people hesitant to pay for music. I'd rather be able to make music without paying a fortune. If you/I am good enough, there will be a way to earn from it. And then we can live up to all those lofty ideals about giving back. Or get a better job -- that would do the trick too.

 

Other thing about the broke/cantpay is tha people forgot tha broke in USA or Europe is different of broke in Latin America or Africa.
I do even start to talk about broke and have bad health like me and some friends.
I recorded and playied with a lot of people but I think that many of letchers have a concience like a boy that saíd that music is the most important thing in his life. But q had a 100usd guitar, 300usd snikers , 3 girlfriends, make the law school but make medicine, work for his father but cant contribute with his share in studio. Usually in most do the bands only one pay for all... So its a hard war with the predators wanna all and eco ones that are idealistcs that die on the beach.

@frafikmushi made a good point and we can see here. The teams decide to take a break but Dynamics couldnt resistir to show that they can like amigo that needs to pi in all the trees of the world.

As I said before I worked a lot with ONGs but someday I discover that good intentions are not enough. At the I cannot sit and play piano, só I done social Sevice. Its a beatifull subject that do not echoes in the practic (sadly). The world is something like that.: social workers wants to make social things with art, artists wanna make social with their art. So i have both diplomas and somenos think that I get respect for that?
The only thing that I can think is education to change the culture of the predator... Wolf must eat wolf?

 

See, yes, it's a closed scene. And people know each other on a personal level, one way or another.
In the 80s/90s, making information, or software, available freely was a part of the scene's ethics.
I'm not so sure if that is still the case today. I think the main motivation is about the technical challenge, do crack or hack the uncrackable.
Another important part is the social aspect. Likeminded people get together to conquer the challenge. Other people beat sudoku, they beat code.

And yes, a high profile job in IT security is fairly common for former crackers. There are a lot of jobs where a reputation of being someone who can get things done that others can't will get you much further than any degree or cv.

Your knowledge about hacking, cracking, the people and the culture around it seems to be very limited.
Where does all your condescension come from?

 

The key word being "seems".
What you have perceived as "condescending" in my post was just a part of the point I was making.

With all due respect, after several decades of being a part of this scene, the whole elitism part is getting a bit old.
Makes me irritable lately.

 

I don't get it. You still refer to the scene as "they" after all those decades of being a part of it?
After such a long time you don't know enough successfull scene-rl career transitions to falsify your statement about the lack of transferable merrit?
Why do you ask about the motives and state assumptions of that kind if you're an insider?
And if you're part of the scene for decades (!!!), why don't you backchannel your thoughts about your fellows' attitude instead of posting them online to the public? I mean, isn't that what buddies would do?
Would be great if you enlighten me.

 

Look, man, enlightening you is the least of my concerns and I have no intention to do that.
I have expressed my point of view concisely and everyone can understand it.
You deconstructing my post and trying to figure out my background and motivations is basically derailing this thread.
Don't try and make this about me because it's obviously not.
It's about the state of the scene and I said what I had to say.

 

Well I guess there is nothing wrong with feeling indifferent about what all these people do to get the software cracked for everyone else to download.

Alot of the audience of pirating are mostly leechers, who really don't give a crap about the scene or even know what it is, which is of course what pisses the scene off...

The real annoying assholes are the ones that complain for more, not really the ones that just download for free. Most people acknowledge what they are doing is wrong from
the moral/legal point of view and they also consider that they are getting it for free... so they don't complain, but at the same time, they don't wish to really be apart
of the way it all works... hence they are indifferent...

Most people do this cuz the oppurtunity exists... and if it goes, most people would say 'ahhh well it never really was legal anyway... it was eventually going to get to this
point where it would all end... I'm not complaining and arguing...'

Cav amp mentioned how this is hypocritical, but it's not... Being hypocritical in this case would be saying you should buy software, but in secret you pirate and don't really
care or agree with buying software, i.e you are a true enemy to the developers and don't really want to pay them a cent... but most people admit they are doing something illegal and they agree that they should buy it, but it's an easy oppurtunity to utilize pirating, and so people do it in that regard...

 

Toni, pat yousrself on the back for giving something a bit of thought.
Too often people are overconfident in their assessment of a situation they believe the result is foregone conclusion.
You can usually tell these people by an abundance of these in their replies.
This is when I stop reading.

What kind of a person laughs at someone for having an original thought? Would you do that in person? Probably, and in my book that makes you a dick.

There's nothing wrong with not replying.

As for the subject of the original post, I don't see why this couldn't work. You have some good ideas.

Keep it up and stay involved,
There's far more good users on this site than aforementioned dicks.

 

Not being argumentative, but what I was calling hypocritical was the guy I quoted. He makes his music with warez yet says it's unfair that people don't buy his music because they can rip it from a soundcloud stream.

Different product, same principle. If you're okay with warez, you should understand people ripping your music. At the very least a light bulb should should go on that says "I deserve this".

Edit: and just to be fair, @Stevitch I have nothing against you. I've run into you a few times in the forums and you seem like a fine guy. I'm sorry about your hardship and I hope things improve for you.

 

ahhh right right, my bad, misread the post :D

In that case you are completely right. It IS hypocritical to expect people to pay for your music when u are a pirate urself... 100% true!

 

A week ago actually. But I don't usually buy CDs as they put the artist at disadvantage. Most of the time it's better to buy tracks right from the artist than supporting labels, which takes 99% of the cost (really, it's 99%)

 

P2P has always traditionally meant Peer to Peer, No big deal if the circle has gotten smaller. It will work itself out, Enjoy what you have and go make some music