I've always wondered why a team like R2R doesn't have someone like their own personal "Sunny/Strike" that they give the releases to directly, who can put them up on AudioZ with a no-mirror post and then that uploaded money can go directly to the team that's doing the work. How do the middlemen like Sunny end up with the scene releases and make all the money off the downloads?
R2R don't really want their stuff released publically, and that's why they are getting totally pissed off, other persons are making money off their time, effort, sweat and tears in breaking code, how do peeps get releases? that should not really be discussed here in public, but I'm guessing they probably have access to certain parts of the dark net
Solutions may appear very simple but in fact they're not at all when we delve into their practical applications, if they had been then they would've already been implemented. The first problem with a donation system is that it opens up the site and the teams to security concerns, as I'm sure you can understand. Even if the money weren't directly relayed, which it couldn't be because of the aforementioned, then we would come across the next roadblock. The second issue is that it places all of the work on one person's back. Who would manage something like this? This individual/group would have to acquire funds, inquire as to what's needed, buy products and upload them and that would be an insane amount of additional work. Plus, you're greatly overestimating the amount of donations that we'd likely get for the reasons that everyone's always waiting for the next guy to step up instead of them and also because members would be hesitant to expose themselves. Bitcoin still isn't user-friendly and PayPal would never allow such a thing. We already have a donation system set up for AudioZ and it doesn't generate that much revenue. Finally, as I made mention of above, the issue of supplies is just one of the major problems. Concerning that issue, of course it's true. The teams have been nothing but upfront with us and have no qualms about relaying their reasons. If they simply wanted to stop, then they would be upfront about that as well. Thanks to practically no supplies, the continued re-branding and exploitation of their work without even so much as credit and some of the insanely disrespectful comments that have become so commonplace since the cessation of releases, the situation is quickly snowballing to the point of no return. From the rumors that I've heard, things are looking really bad at the moment. Apparently comments such as "shove your elitist releases up your fucking ass" didn't go over as well as one might think, note the sarcasm. R2R always said: we would like to support you for free as long as you know what you are doing and what it means. It's become painfully evident that many are incapable of internalizing that concept. From their NFOs, it seemed to me like they were having fun but eventually the public transformed that into something else. Some would say that when you get to a point where what you're doing ceases being fun, then get out. It's not always so much about thinking too much because they're often faced with facts that can't be so easily ignored, such as the situation with supplies. Since going internal, it's clear that the passion for art has been restored because the relationship with the private world is vastly different and doesn't come with the level of demand, disrespect, hassle, security concerns and stress that the public world brings with it. Just good people supporting good people and enjoying the process of creating art and sharing it with other like-minded folks who appreciate and truly value it as well as the time and effort that brought it to fruition. One can clearly see that they're happy again and that makes me happy, if only for that one reason. There exists a semblance of balance there which is altogether absent on the P2P platform. Read my response to @mrfloyd as it contains a lot of the same answers that I would simply be reiterating here. Sunny is what is known as a courier who races releases between topsites and sites like AudioZ. He ends up being the primary figure because he has a ridiculously fast connection and is literally online every minute of the day. In order to replace him, someone else would have to be willing to perform the huge amount of work that he does every day and, as of yet, there haven't been any takers because most of us have other commitments, jobs and a life.
Oh well. It was good while it lasted. See it never was easy to live with a head So I kept to the back room And I lived there instead What comes to the front room Is only for "friends" I have a bay window But that's where it ends And it's here I see pictures And my madness is clear And there's no longer logic So therefore no fear I'm almost dead with uncontrollable light Sometimes when I've written a song It's alright
I guess you can only hope a minority group of vocal and misunderstanding people won't fuck up a similar situation if it may ever come along again. It's already quite noble to deal with the leechers (like me and many others) but you can't expect much more from there on out. It's like working in a soup kitchen and having some homeless people come by every single day and slap you in your face because the food isn't good enough. I guess that soup kitchen would soon be all out of volunteers to help them feed the hungry and homeless.
Oh, well. That's the only possible conclusion. @Catalyst, I respect you so much (I believe you know that) even though I not allways agree with everything you said. I'm grateful to you. I never betrayed your trust and I never will. But, if I try to follow your reasoning I'm forced to think that only a few friends will get new stuff, or people with enough money to supply SW. I have plenty of stuff to make music and learn for several years, and everyone knows where I got it. I say thanks thousands of times. The most recent SW came with Specs my machine can't handle so I'm not begging the last fruit or the last jewel. I'm trying to think together. It's hard to believe (at least for me) that this guy or 3 or 4 guys are the only ones in the world that can do this task. There must be other reasons I don't know. But I know almost nothing in this field. So, yes, It was good while it lasted.
The best first move would be: to make AudioZ a more secret site! It makes sense to restrict access. Other sites have this already and it works well. Having an open public site where everybody can see what's offered & displayed like in a showcase is literally an open invitation to trolls, spies, fools and developers! That's not good @ all. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
You know, sometimes I feel like I live in a different world when I see threads like this... Maybe I'm just old. My first console was a NES and I rented games I couldn't buy and so on. Up until the "revolution" that came with the Sony PSX and its "modchip" to load CD-R games. Nobody knew what "wares" were, and people who invested on CD burners (who were really expensive back then) sold pirated games at around 1/10th of it's price. As you can guess they made quite a lot of it, but people were SO happy to be able to play games they wouldn't be able to buy otherwise. I've been using cracked stuff (software, games, plugins, etc) all my "computer life". Simply because I couldn't have used it otherwise. There weren't any free Windows or Office alternatives back in the day. I've always felt thankful and lucky to have access to such things, and when people sold pirated CD-R games I bought what I liked as I understood the initial investment and work that those dudes did. Recording CD-Rs at 1X or 2X could take ages and very few people had internet or the knowledge to find the stuff. 20 Years later, people is so used to get everything they want for free that they've become demanding instead of thankful. When I see people insulting teams that have selflessly released thousands of releases (asking NOTHING in return) my soul hurts. People angry if a release is not out for Mac or Windows, calling teams "lazy", and so on. I just can't assimilate how people can be so greedy, ungrateful and disrespectful. The discovery of AudioZ to me was like being in a giant store where everything is free. Seriously, imagine you could visit Amazon, Musiciansfriend or Thomann and take everything in there for free. Would you insult those people and call them lazy because they don't have the stuff you want? . That may seem unthinkable, yet I see this behaviour ALL THE GODDAMN TIME in AudioZ. Although I don't post much, I'm a long time lurker and it boggles me what I've been able to get thanks to this site and the teams. When I started learning audio, the school I went had a Waves 5 pack and the Pro Tools native plugins. We learnt how to do things with those plugins, and lots of friends are still working with them, because they lgot used to them and got great sounds out of them. I have my own plugins selection that I use and rarely download more of their category as I'm used to them. But some people just demands more, wants THE BEST, wants it FREE and wants it NOW. Without caring how much work is involved in the process. Like teams were their slaves. I'm sorry for the rant, but this stuff just pisses me off. My best wishes and respect to the people who runs these sites and to the teams that release for free the awesome stuff we can have these days. You know who you are! Last edited: Sep 22, 2015
Radium did release stuff publicly. While they first uploaded everything to Top Sites.. they also made sure the releases found their way out to the General Public after a couple of weeks or so too... Once they had been fully tested and 'okay'd' by other members of the scene. Of course, things were very different back then and the means of spreading warez really relied on IRC Chan bots, small public FTP servers, word of mouth and NNTP later on and was on a very small scale to say the least, but as Sandor said in that interview, they also had to protect their privacy and that began getting very difficult as their releases spread 'far and wide'. The only reason Radium dropped out of the scene was.. It simply was getting 'too hot' and so after much discussion Sandor, Deepz' and Zenta decided enough was enough... and so they 'closed up shop'. Shortly after that, one of their closest "group friends' got raided...as part of the lead up to Op Buc... so their timing was right, with hindsight. As for what's going on currently with R2R and so on.. Hey, that's their choice... and if they wish to release to a closed group then that's what they want to do. No one is owed anything by the various warez groups .. but some people seem to think they are and thats plainly crazy and very indicative of the 'entitled generation' that is around these days. However, I don't think there should be an issue if someone uses part of or RE's another group's crack to release an updated version of a plugin so long as full credit is given to the original work. and the original group is given time to release it themselves. Thats something that has gone on for years... Radium's cracks were often used later on for updates that Radium themselves never released publicly... Cubase VST24 v3.71R2 Update for PC was a good example of that and the 'person' that released it gave full credit to Radium for the original work. Later on a Radium NFO was added to that cracked update but the truth is, it had nothing to do with the Radium except it used their crack which still worked with the later updates. As for public opinions, Radium never cared one way or the other. They didn't release stuff for public fame. They just did it because it was fun and it really was a challenge back then to be the first to crack something. So long as the crack worked, that was it and they moved onto the next challenge. Just my 2 pennyworth.. Z..... Last edited: Sep 22, 2015
I've been saying the same thing for as long as I can remember but it's falling on deaf ears. Not only is it more detrimental for developers but it also brings in a large proportion of people that are not good for the site including all the groups that you mentioned and this in effect also creates more work for the staff. Showcase is a perfect word to describe it, like waving a flag that says: get your warez here. Just the fact that AudioZ comes up when you search for a product is unnerving enough but now with that godforsaken supplier tool back on the site, it's become seriously disconcerting. You just summed up the exact disgust that I feel in relation to this recurring infantile sickness but the saddest part is that these aren't just teenagers and college kids with these views but there are plenty of grown men that ascribe to this insanity. It must be like what visiting another planet feels like and it irks me to my core. Being a team in the P2P has many similarities to being an indentured servant these days. I look at every release as a gift that I'm lucky to get and consider myself lucky that I do with no expectations for the future. This is the way it should be. Thanks for the kind words mate, you're certainly cut from a different cloth. I always thought that things leaked out because of couriers and not Radium themselves. Wasn't it forbidden for a team to leak scene works to the public even if they were their own or was that a later addition? My problem is specifically that people use other team's methods and don't credit them. Or even worse, their own tools are repackaged against a team's wishes and, to add insult to injury, without so much as a mention. Practically everything released since R2R's departure right up until the present day, for both platforms (with the exception of HEXWARS' releases) is utilizing their work in one form or another and I have yet to see them get credited even once. What a slap in the face of teams that have supported us for as long as anyone can remember. Also, in my humble opinion, challenge can't be the whole part of the equation because challenge is a private endeavor in these cases. If it were solely about the challenge then why would the teams leak their stuff at all? To release it into the wild must be for reasons beyond that, whether they be fame or helping others. I know for R2R helping musicians is certainly a big motivating factor. They even go so far as to make note of it in the NFO. However that which comes easily is always taken for granted, even more so when it's free. This makes it rather ironic that with such noble intentions, they're the ones that people talked the most shit about when they stopped.
Absolutely.... but later on it did become the norm for Radium mainly due to the influx of people in #audiowarez and as the couriers and frankly, other unrelated groups were already doing it anyhow, it seemed a little pointless trying to fight it so they just decided to put them out there themselves "for the benefit of all musicians'... and it did work out 'for the good' until it just got all too big. Oh yes Cat. I couldn't agree more with this. To use/borrow and/or release something that was cracked with the help of another group's work and then not to even give them the credit where due, is just 'bad manners' and shows a total lack of respect for the original group's hard work. As it was for Radium and most of the groups that followed on. Bearing in mind the whole 'try before you buy' in regards to Audio warez, came from Radium anyhow.. and later on, other groups kept up that ideal... until it just wasn't worth all the aggravation any longer. This is why I get where R2R are coming from in all of this.. I frankly don't blame them at all for releasing to a small internal group these days. The fact that some people just don't 'get it' and feel entitled to such releases, instead of truly appreciating what is released, is.... a sign of the times my friend. Regards and respect... Z...
You nailed it. As a side note, what a computer the Amiga was! I had a Commodore 64 before, and the crack screens before the game, called "trainers" back in the day, often were more spectacular than the game itself lol
I should swing by these kind of threads more often. Mostly because it makes me feel very young when I see all the talk about Commodore 64, NES, CD-Rs and old scene groups and stuff I've never even heard of!
People there is already enough stuff out there from this groups, and am in eternal gratitude, on the other hand it suck so hardcore when someone is actually selling pirated softver online from one of this mentioned groups.am imagening idiots who buy pirated softver better save money and buy officaly
