I hate buying stuff I can't sell. Makes me feel like I didn't really buy it, they just took my money and let me borrow it. If I can't put it up on Knobcloud, i'll just use the cracked version.

 

My reason is just dont have money or make money on it i means not yet... still 戦い

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2023

@vuuru_keg
One vote option is missing: I buy software and plugs if they are not cracked but I hardly want/require them.

 

Another reason I stumbled upon recently.
I switched my HDD to a pair of SSDs (cloned the system) and some of the patched-and-keygenned software I have stopped working due to "invalid license". The way I understand it, is that it's because their license is calculated using all of your hardware.
Here's the kicker. HDDs and SSDs are expendable materials. You *will* change them. And then you will have to buy yourself a new license.
Yeah no thanks. You can fuck right off.

 

Last edited: Oct 6, 2023

OK not quite true, but I get your point. (in most cases yone can get a new auth)

If I change hardware I do need a new license in many cases --> Asking several vendors for new licenses takes a lot of time (weeks literally) --> time is money for me --> hardware bound licences are stealing my money --> therefore I have the right to steal their plugins.

q.e.d

 

Last edited: Sep 30, 2023

You're not a kid anymore then, you grew a pair. You're a true man.

Proof right there

 

Would you say No to FREE Quality Drugs or Top-tier Pussy?

 

Personally I buy the things I use but:

1.-A layer of time consuming technicalities we should not be handling regularly
As an example there is Avenger
When I am on the mood of extending an old project (3-6 months), I load it just to find I need to reauthorize Avenger. Since this is a closed can ITB environment, I need a workaround of avg 10 mins, imagine if this scheme is for 10 plugins, insta creativity killer. Are we into sounds or reauthorizing plugins.

2.- The new $ trend of subscription plans
Calls for unreliability, I meant to own what I have, so I can be consistent in the future. This goes for PA, Waves (which I do not use anymore) and partly Roland. I do not want any project I do, depending on the health of any company, costs in the long run, inflation, currency xchange rates.... For example, OHM plugins are super old and now they are not being updated but at some point they worked and we can still make them work like some configuration snapshot. The motivation behind the subscription is only financial so F ur subscription plans. Project a monthly payment to over 100 companies, and you will not own anything, are you happy?

3.- Keep your hands off my DAW aka no phone-home
This goes for those new AI server side vsts and VCV (use Cardinal instead btw), they think they should access the internet from within my DAW. That is calling for instability and it is unreliability. Multiply that for 1000 plugins and see the resource drainage. Why? not for better audio.

I am ok I just like ranting sometimes.

 

Most of the time they just concatenate the hard disk serial number with other info. So if all you are changing is the hd, you can just change the serial number of the new drive. But like you mention, it is not always just the hd data. It can be MAC or various other data they can collect from the machine. It's annoying, because if some really wants to install the plugin/program on multiple computers; this definitely is not going to stop anyone. It's only a headache for legit paying customers.

 

This is why I would never buy anything that uses any other protection than a simple serial. like Cockos, u-he, TAL, and other generally smaller companies. This way I also support smaller developers which I care about the most. Draconian software protections serve noone as software still gets cracked and legal users get "punished" in a way with not being able to use the software normally. What if the developer goes down? How are you supposed to use it if you can't authorise it? This is just ridiculous. Dongles are the highest level of ridiculous. Imagine if all software on your computer used a separate dongle? How many USB hubs would you end up using just to be able to stick in all the USB dongles... Incredible how selfishly some companies think.

Vote with your wallet.

 

Why do you use cracked plugins?

f.) I actually don't use cracks at all, and I'm against it - %0.0

 

I've been preaching this for 40 years, not of course just in the audio plugin market (which didn't exist then yet) but overall concerning shit companies foisting poison food on populations while marketing them as healthy, products originally manufactured in their country of origin at let's say $24°°, opening factories in the far east or using foreign manufacturers and saving 80% of their costs while still selling their goods at the original price or using child labor while skirting safety to their young semi-slaves to save billions and reaping the profit from this illicit and evil practice. Right now we still have wiggle room to pick our devs that we condon, though perhaps in the very near future as the grip tightens from those who wish to control all narratives that choice will be cut down in size.

We've all heard the rhetoric of "own nothing and be happy" form the WEF minions, but that logically means that a VERY, very, very few will own everything which does not at all in the least bode well for freedom of expression and human rights and which will open the flood gate and institute a serf/overseer civilization which will in point dwarf any comparison which might be said about the world situation as it stands today. Either follow along or face severe consequence whence the noose falls around our leathered necks.

 

Last edited: Sep 30, 2023

I felt the same way. Gave up after 39 years.

To say it with Dante.. abandon all hope, ye who enter here...

The average consumer - and they determine what happens, not the few who think about what they do - buys what he has seen in advertising.
So I came to the conclusion the average - 98% of all - consumer is an idiot.
Some (most?) vendors shouldn't even exist.

We get the vendors we deserve.

P.S.: exchange customers with voters and vendors with politicians if you will
Hint to Oly, delete the post scriptum if you will. it should be a bitter joke, but you may see it as political

 

Last edited: Oct 1, 2023

Just go with MADI.

 

I've bought a good few plugins that I've been disappointed with. Particularly VSTi instruments. Wasted my money in many cases as I've never used them for anything.

And I particularly dislike internet activation, as my music PC stays offline. I have to connect it briefly (a couple of seconds) to activate, and Windows starts updating various things before I can pull the plug, even though I use update blocking software to try and prevent this. Last time it updated some drivers without asking me!

 

Gehackte Plugins? Wovon reden Sie, Herr Polizeikommissar! Ich habe noch nie gehackte Plugins verwendet und unterstütze Internetpiraterie in keiner Weise. Schreib es auf!

 

because most of the time, they load faster and use less resource on my computer

 

You did better than me then. i only read the title and made a facepalm.

 

If I need to setup a new machine it takes me several days to reauth all the software I own. And for all of that software there is a crack (minus on very special title).
So the bottom line is that only legitimate users will be penalized with activation.
In the meantime, it can be said that almost all protection schemes can be cracked anyway. So the vendors should go back to the good old serial number.

They are not always and and not forever reliable because MS updates their update methodology every now and then.
Sent you a PM

 

Last edited: Oct 2, 2023

95% of the stuff I use were bought by this paypig. The remaining 5% is Kontakt (lol I'm not paying 400 bucks for a sample loader) + a few things I'm still testing. Even with what I got, I think I've too many things in my library, I'd rather know my (maybe, hopefully, limited) tools perfectly than spread my attention on one thousand different things.

Does this apply to Arturia's stuff? I love using them but it's so painful to load them... Some say it's because it's scanning the presets, but this is not true, some VST just have a small bank of presets.