Mr.lapsang - Your comment clearly shows that you are based in a "wealthy" country.
You may not have any idea about the situations of miser privation in which many
people in underdeveloped countries are stuck!! If you LIVE in such a country
everything is slow, delayed, things are much harder to get - even when you have
the money for it - commerce (if working!) is pretty limited to the main goods for living.
Connections and roads are in a poor state, lack of maintenance, the Internet is unstable
if ever available. It's expensive, a luxury!

The whole software talk of "wealthy" people becomes a scorn.
Plug-Ins, Software, DAWS, Internet etc… if you have access to these you BELONG to a wealthy country!
And over 99 % of the folks @ KVR-audio come from "rich" countries.

 

Dear Kook
almost nothing is free in real work.
You are an exception always putting free and fast links.
Posters that only put Ul RG, especially with big libs, obly us to buy an account.
We cannot forget that kvr have a lot of goodies as large info, free presets and software that I dig with their letters.
As I said before the fact of listening and speaking is great "per si", its what make us more human, and only fully understand the point of view of others that we can grow up
You and Urs make good things and I like both in yours own way
Hugs from Brazil!

 

Coming from a "wealthy" country doesn't mean I'm wealthy. Instead of saying that "others" are in poorer countries, where do you live? Wealthy or poor country?
Does it really justify you to do what you do? No.
When I was a student I wanted a fast computer, a good master keyboard, monitors, mixer etc..etc... I couldn't afford any.
I was working with an old laptop with Ableton Live lite (thanks to my cheap m-audio keyboard) and that's it.
I couldn't find a job so I wasn't even earning those €200. So no internet, no better equipment, nothing. Do you think that's wealthy?
I still live with my parents (I'm almost 27), no jobs for me here in this great wealthy country, so I'm going to steal because fuck the rich people. Are you for real??

How much you "poor" people are paying for an internet connection? How much did you pay for your computer? How much did you pay for your monitors? Etc...etc...

But you probably don't even want to reply to those questions in your head. And the worst is that I never said piracy is wrong and you shouldn't do it.
What I'm saying is that using stupid excuses doesn't really give you permissions/good karma/clean consciousness, whatever you want to call it and even blame developers.
Give proper names to things: you can't pay or don't want to pay hence you steal. If you can't pay for a Ferrari (only rich people can drive a Ferrari), are you going to steal one?? Why don't you buy an used Ford for less than €500?
There are plenty of alternatives, free, demo, limited, whatever you want. You can see from my previous post that buying more than enough software (and using free stuff) is cheaper than buying a computer + hardware stuff.

Again, I repeat, I'm not against piracy at all, just give real names to what you do. If you can't afford to pay for a luxury restaurant, go to McDonald's. If you go to the luxury restaurant and don't pay you are stealing. If you go to a recording studio and don't pay for the session you are stealing. It's not that difficult.

Also, saying that only rich people can afford VSTs and stuff like that is an insult to all the guys I know that save everything they can in order to pay for what they use. I even know guys that opened loans to build their studios buying both hardware and software.

 

Thank you dear ovalf!
On purpose I always posted free links because I know why.
I myself have lived in the Caribbean area for a time, so I know
the situation of some "poorer" country very well. Every now and
then i think about our black brothers there, most can't afford
all the goodies and facilities that the richer parts of the world enjoy.
It's a useless injustice.

Sharing in the eyes of wealthy persons looks maybe related to piracy, copyright infringement etc…
But it can be a first step to help people develop, free their spirit, breaking down the walls between them.

 

Well, I'm sorry if my way of saying bothered you. Once again, I have nothing against piracy, warez, cracks. Nothing at all.
I just can't stand when people try to defend it with stupid and silly excuses. That's it.

Insulting developers is also another really stupid thing to my eyes.

 

Obviously you are locked in your world and you think that if someone has a fairly powerful computer can buy software.
In my case, because my economic situation i can only buy things with my local currency, so if bought a vst U-he would cost me an astronomical figure!
So I prefer to buy a computer which equals the price to pay for u-he zebra
I'm from Argentina the dollar is worth ten times more than the Argentina currency, all because of the great inflation that my country is suffering.
The only option for me is to use software warez.

Hey, Mr. Heckmann:
Would not it be good to add the bitcoin as another method of payment to your products?

 

Man, you are really out of reality and you must do the same that I, do social service to know people that eat garbage.
I can tell about me, and many others have their own problems
I studied 10-12 hours per day for a 15 ears, invested everything in music because I believed in may capacity of work (never use one crack at the time).
I came of a family that treated me as a slave, hate music and done everything to make my life difficult.
When I became sick, I lost almost every friend, and my family think that I was blackmail then. So I live in my little studio for 10 years until my beloved girlfriend stole about 25.000 usd for my own place. At this time I ate only one time in a day because I have noisia all the time.
Luckily after 20 years I discovered my disease that progressively incapacitate me.
Now I have to apply a 2000 usd injection per day (the state pays) but I have to use another 20 medicines that I have to pay.
Do I said that I always work helping people for free? When I cannot seat to study pianos I go againt to university (I have almost 2 degrees in music) to do social service (always standing up literally).
Did I say that A product that you buy in Europe I pay about 150% more here in Brazil.
How pretentious you are judging people?
27 years? Tomorrow I will make 48, I live with my parents, I am sick, and study music more than you can imagine.
Also here have a lot of people that are no professionals, that buy and never use the software's.
With my disease I study a lot of politics, real history, health, psicology and you must do the same before speaking with a moral of newbe (surprise: you are!)
The history teach a lot and I am proud because so many mates here really understand how POWER rules the world. Sometimes music alienate, but here we all look for info, and we really read and reflect a lot.
Read all the political posts, and see how many links our friend Catalist post to help a mate with a hard disease.
I am waiting for my retirement but I need expensive chairs, beds, massage, pool, medicines and my future is not that good.
If you wanna I think that will have a long list of mates that wanna exchange places with you.
EDIT
I forget to tell about the big entreprises... Apple, Facebook and Microsoft do not have a preatty history...If the big ones steal software (and there are plenty law actions in the news) why care about the little ones? To make an example, because they can or weak must obey the law and the strongs only made the law?

 

We live in a society that if you do not have nothing to eat and steal, you go to prision.
I am not against the capitalism as practical exgenge of money, but I am against the money/power as a majot value in our society.
The hidden information, the affirmation of lies are an object of study fo many sciences, and a reality is that The world is not beauty as they show in mexican soup operas.
The only way to change something is share power, software, information, example, critic, love, time...
I ask the non thefs ones if they payed for all the mp3 that they have, if they never lie, if they are 100% honest?
There is no one 100% honest in our society right?
So what we are?
Teaching about alienation dont pay the bill, but should...

 

I agree with Xsze, I shouldn't consider everything black and white, you are right.

But still, trying to find all kind of excuses for piracy, to my eyes, is wrong. Once again, I don't think piracy is bad, I don't think is wrong, I just think that using those excuses is lame.

You want to work and teach for free, help others with your work? Fantastic, I'm happy for you, but don't expect developers to do the same.
Don't expect them to give stuff for free because you can't afford them or because you live in a poorer country. Again, nobody forced you to drive a Ferrari, you can drive a bike almost for free, but if you steal a Ferrari don't tell others "oh yeah I'm poor and I can't afford it so I'm gonna use it anyway" that's wrong to me. Just use cracks, use pirated software, make great music, share whatever you want, but don't use silly excuses.

I do lots of stuff for free and help others (I don't have to explain to anybody this), but this doesn't mean I have the right to use cracks and pirated software. It doesn't matter if I do or not, it's not an excuse.

I'm deeply sorry to hear that many are in a really bad situation, but again, there's enough free stuff to do music now, more than ever.
Becoming a paid user after using cracks is great as well, but I don't care about that, I care about the way of reacting to this phenomenon.
I know very well that cracks can lead to a lot of publicity and new users etc...that's not what I'm talking about

Peace.

 

Well, I see, everyone has it's point of view. I was just pointing out mine, I know it's not popular but that's it.

To me comparisons are necessary because with something intangible like software many (not all) think that it is ok to do whatever they want.
I don't judge the act of stealing, piracy, cracks...I just feel really bad when I see excuses. There are no excuses but at the same time nobody should feel ashamed of anything because I or anyone else say something about it.
Deep inside yourself you know if you can afford it or simply you don't want to afford it. That's the only real important thing. Whatever excuse you find to justify your acts doesn't change reality. Whatever good or bad it is.

That being said, do some great music with pirated or legit copies of software. That's all it is about right?

 

And that is complete bullshit as there is so much good freeware stuff around, even from U-he. Or is downloading freeware ten times more expensive in your country?

 

Sorry for being off-topic, but i personally lost interest in discussing things like that, because i have to deal with more essential things right now......

My deep respect goes to Urs. He seems to be not only a sophisticated developer but also a likeable guy.
The only synth i actually own and use from his company is the old „Sophistry“.
Yes, i must confess: i am somehow „behind the moon“, but i am still in love with this tool.

But i just digged in for another reason:
i want to congratulate great member ovalf to his birthday.
Have a good day and really all my best wishes for best possible health to you from the bottom of my heart!

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/31/1235333/--Hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner-is-a-crock#

I'm not having a hard time at all. I understand your point. I just don't agree with everything you said
I judge the sinner when the sinner give silly excuses. You may have all the reasons in the world to do what you do, even killing or steal for food (I'm not comparing that to piracy). I'm not judging that. But it will remain killing, stealing, etc...
I judge the excuses. Killing to save your child is perfectly fine to me. As is using pirated software to compose music if you can't afford it.
But as you said, there's no need to repeat ourselves

As a side note, it would be nice to see group buys of software for people living in poorer countries. That could be a nice idea for developers.

 

That is hardly bullet-proof, you're a smart guy so I'm sure I don't need to tell you the million ways in which that data could be skewed due to the presence of a million different variables. Therefore you can't say anything generally especially considering this isn't an in-depth impartial study and you're making a ton of assumptions already. I never said that piracy doesn't affect anyone or has a positive financial effect on society in general, you assumed that those were my views. You see you couldn't even imagine that I could agree with you because you're so locked in your point of view and you're so sure you know about ours. As Xsze quite eloquently pointed out: this isn't a one size fits all scenario so let's stop insulting each other's intelligence and make it out to be that way. Not all developers have abused their customers or overcharged and not every pirate is a freeloading parasite. The sad thing is that you want to convert these people into future customers yet you don't understand them. Do you respect them?...probably not. Perhaps if you stopped talking at us or about us you could finally start talking to us. There are many positive sides to piracy too such as the fact that it's fueling the growth of high speed internet, storage, etc. and those are just a couple of examples.

I'll be brutally honest here Urs: I don't need an excuse to commit a crime and neither does my government. Just some light hearted humor and a jab at the meaning of the word which changes based on who's in power at a given moment in time. For example on KVR you get banished for talking about warez (or even questioning whether a plug-in is worth it??? ) yet here we sit freely talking about it. With so many new laws being created daily that will never be repealed it's likely most of us have broken at least 20 before breakfast. A lot of government is made up beliefs that are reiterated over and over until everyone within that belief system takes it for a truth. Those beliefs, such as "it is necessary to spy on the planet to ensure our security" and "marijuana is detrimental to society" however are not based on any fundamental evidence. They are bogus memes that help people clean their conscience when the United States for example chooses to house the equivalent of 1/4th of the people in prison on the entire planet yet they have a tiny percent of the population. You see what I did there? I don't need a conscience cleaning (I'm honest with myself) or psychoanalysis particularly from someone that I've never spoken to until today and you can't ever know us by looking at a statistic or reading a book. There is no good and bad...there just is. We're not discussing should we have warez or not because that is irrelevant since the cat is out of the bag and there just ain't no getting it back in there. We have them and they're here to stay. We're trying to have an open-minded discussion with you and we can't do that if you keep lumping us all in one category and naming it freeloader. If you knew me you would realize really quickly that the last thing I am is a freeloader. I put in a lot of work here posting about all of your companies. I go around convincing people to support the devs and trying to get them to realize that they don't need all that shit, that they should pick their favorites of whatever they've tried and buy the fucking things then invest the time to learn them. I reiterate over and over that more often than not it is a hindrance having too much choice and completely counterproductive to the goal which is making music. I download very very little, I have heaps of legit software and a lot of it I have to tell you I would never know about had it not been for warez. I also think that a certain level of piracy is even good for quality. There was a study done last year on this topic: The upside of digital piracy: greater investment in quality

You talk about Kook but you don't want me to start talking about the hypocrites from your camp let me tell you man. I also have comments and screenshots so what do you want to say about any of us when your own colleagues partake, make money on it and then send takedown notices to sites everywhere when their shit is released. And here lies the problem: you believe that piracy is such an evil that you've stopped trying to understand it, it just boils down to a number to you or an analysis in a book. The United States government just settled a large sum for making use of pirated software, the IRS has also been accused, the prison system, there are famous artists and DJs in tutorials getting caught red-handed, developers are using it too. We design your GUIs, we fight for your countries, we work in your control rooms, we develop your software, we create your music, we are your customers. It is ingrained in the very fabric of culture and it's going to really shake the world up in the future. I'm sure you've read about 3D printing right? Well what's going to happen when people can make the things that really matter such as food and medicine? Would you still think that piracy is so black and white? You can't have it both ways, either you have a revolution or you don't.

People comparing this to a Rolls Royce...I'm sorry but this is a product for a market where 99% of the people don't make any money...I don't know how it can be any clearer than that? And this is at a time when people have no money to begin with. This isn't a luxury car for rich assholes where the target audience are rich assholes. We are working in the arts but unfortunately not many devs charge like it and the market is so over-saturated with crap that it would take hundreds of thousands of dollars to even wade through it all. I've tried product after product after product through warez that went in my recycle bin. They weren't even worth the space they were taking up on my hard drive for free. Those that were I advertise all the time, ask anyone here. Developers are living in reaction now, just like we were living in reaction many years ago. The problems of the 21st century require that we keep an open mind, an open heart and an open dialogue and we have to get creative in solving them. A good example is what I always try to reiterate: find a way to add value to your product that can't be had with a download. However nothing gets solved when people align themselves into camps like Democrats and Republicans or developers and pirates. Usually I'm the one standing on the sidelines looking in dismay wondering when everyone will stop talking and start communicating. The problem is that the only things that end up getting done in this kind of polarized environment is everyone is making a grab for their best interests and nobody else's and we usher in a world that we don't want to live in. I'm sure you know that the music, movie and software industry are actually partially responsible for the surveillance state. So when people wonder what's been going on let's not discount how much of that lobbying money is being put in all the wrong places. I'm sure that pretty soon there will be a harsh crackdown and when the rubble clears we will have wished that piracy was our biggest problem. Companies can't just switch gears? Sure they can and they do it every day. How do you think the music industry is thriving like it is? They haven't stopped making all those shitty movies either though everyone streams these days. They also haven't learned that they should stop making shitty music and movies but that's another story. Every time I turn around I see another boring sample pack, preset library, Kontakt library or VST being sold for way too much money too so let's not start putting everyone in the poor house just yet.

Have you ever tried designing a synth and charging a low price for it then measured the statistics of how many people bought that compared to how many people buy now. Like if you designed a quality synth like you are now and included your protection code but charged a pay what you want model but there was a floor on how little you could pay. Is it not possible that enough people would buy it and you might even make some serious money? I know you might say that you can't afford such an experiment but perhaps a coalition of developers could, maybe you could make it a side project as an investment in the future...your future...our future. I know that I would buy it in an instant, I'm sure ArticStorm would too, DokX would snap it up, SineWave would. Xsze would no doubt do it even if he had to cut back on eating for a little. There isn't a person in this thread that wouldn't. I'd even advertise it for you everywhere on the internet or in the real world. Maybe this idea won't work but maybe someone will put forth one that will. Urs the game has changed...for all of us. Our future depends on adapting to these changes because the world we want is never the world we think it should be. By no means is this discounting the very real problems we face, perhaps you think we're all robots that simply don't care but that's you trying to paint us in that context and as I've hopefully already made clear: we aren't one big faceless mass, we are all different. I am of the belief that piracy should have stayed underground for many different reasons including the situation that the developer world faces but it didn't happen that way and now we're all along for the ride.

 

So it's ok to steal, crack, pirate everything that doesn't generate income?
Again, that's a stupid excuse.

I like when you say "I don't need an excuse to commit a crime and neither does my government" that's what I'm trying to say in this topic. You don't need excuses. Finally someone admitted it.
I think it will make a huge difference for us users and for developers if we start avoiding those excuses and just do it with the awareness of what we are doing.

 

No it's not okay (I never said that), that's just your assumption that this is what I meant. You also can't discount that developers have to be mindful of their target audience, that's why companies do research of who that target audience is and how much they make. You wouldn't for example start marketing Rolls Royce's to people living in third world countries now would you? It's also not okay to treat customers like crap but a lot of the developers had no problem doing that for as long as I can remember. It doesn't justify anything but it indicates that there is more than one side to everything and they all have to be looked at.

 

Here's my thoughts guys, and I'll be honest

I've been a musician for 25 years

Over them 25 years i've bought lots of guitars, samplers, 4 tracks, 8 tracks, 16 tracks, sequencers, amps, fx, synths, accessories, whatever

Most of the kit that I bought has been second hand as the prices of the kind of kit I bought was out of my budget brand new, so I'd always have to wait for a year or two before I bought something, especially with stuff like samplers, synths & fx as I could never afford to shell out £1200.00 on the brand new 64mb ram yamaha A3000 sampler

Then, powerful pc's & broadband internet came along, I could now download all of the above in software form in one simple torrent without having to spend one penny

And, that's what I done, I downloaded a lot of warez and started to learn how to use them since about 20002

How much money have I earned from warez? £0.00, how much money have I earned from the time before warez when I was buying my equipment 2nd hand? £0.00

99.9% of musicians don't make any money, that's a fact, same with artists

To me, warez the equivalent of a friend lending me CD, the only difference is that this warez friend could be a guy i've never met who lives on the other side of the world and instead of exchanging cd's, we're exchanging software

The fact is, 95% of the warez on my hard drive I never use, it just sits there dormant never getting used, if warez never existed, I'd never go out and buy any of it, except the essentials i 'd need to make the music i wanted to make, I'd have a DAW, some basic effects, a drum machine and some vst synths

Whether anyone agrees with my belief system or not isn't going to change anything, that's who I am

I've recently discovered Reaper, and believe you me, when I get the money, (I'm flat broke at the moment)I'm going to buy the $69 licence because it's worth it, and the company has a great philosophy, no junkware, A1 aftercare service and a great community

But, how did I come across reaper, how did I hear about it? Through discussion on Audiosex, so without audiosex, I'd never of heard of it, I'd imagine there's a lot of people who feel the same way and want to support a company like cockos

No matter what you do, you can't stop piracy, you have to change your business model and adapt to the times, whether you like it or not

I do feel sorry for anyone as a dev and they should be paid well for all their hard work and effort, but so should everyone, the manual labourers, the doctors, the nurses, the firefighters, the teachers, but the fact is, in this world, most people don't get paid well, they get shit on and paid shit

Welcome to life, it's a bitch

 

Then it's not really clear to me why you said that. What's so important of saying that 99% of the people don't make any money?
If it's not an excuse, and doesn't justify piracy, why did you say that? What's the point?

 

I already explained it in the text that you quoted.