Actually that's quite a good idea. You'd have to be a really dedicated troll to create several accounts, post nice things for 5 posts, then start trolling again. Lol!

 

Hey all. First post here, figure i could move this thread back on topic.

My set-up is a mix of paid, warez and freeware. I try to avoid using warez if i can find a decent free alternative, but when i do it's with the mentality that its a sort of loan and I'll have to pay it at some point. A lot of the time though, it is just unrestricted demoing which rarely lasts more than a few days on my machine, but the stuff i keep i intend to buy.

Thing is money is tight, my budget is limited. There's "uncracked" stuff out there like u-he I've bought because that's the only way to get it, there's small devs like Klanghelm releasing quality stuff cheap i'll gladly support. On the other hand, it can be a little hard to part with money for Massive when I've had it for years and morally it feels less bad "stealing" from a big company like NI. Likewise, I can't really justify paying for Autotune when i barely ever use it.

The whole "all theft is the same" argument is flawed though, it may work for those that need laws to tell them right from wrong but i think most of us can make a moral distinction between burglary, fraud, shoplifting and piracy. There can be a very black & white mentality towards warez in some circles and it goes in both directions. I'm probably a good example of the grey area that will buy but just need a bit of encouragement. I wish i could answer yes to the OP's question, but truthfully its more like "sometimes."

 

And what i mean by this, is that i will do both.

Whatever gets my music done, and sometimes paying respect for the people making amazing software

 

I think it is just amazing that we can have options.. and this really helps people get more good music, bc some producers just starting out need the same tools as they will when they ve been hitting it big for some time

 

VirtualMark
We had to figure something out because we encountered a situation that spurred more thought on this subject. Literally had a guy posting shit pictures all over the forums. The funny thing is that when the incident first developed I had nothing to do with the issue at hand. There was a member that was posting audio news regularly and then one day someone made a duplicate post of a product that they had already created a thread for. Such a trivial problem and it somehow it became a supernova. He was actually angry at the other poster as if they intentionally created a dupe to detract from the guy's own post and then they proceeded to start trolling the member. Then I got involved and was just looking for a way to resolve the issue and move on, I even deleted the duplicate thread. All of a sudden the guy turns his anger towards me spouting all this nonsense about how it was all my fault because I wasn't on AudioSex the exact moment that the duplicate post was created. At the time I was actually on AudioZ helping a member with some troubleshooting. After that he completely lost it and it devolved into a shit show...literally. Then I implemented that system, also to combat the annoying spammers that try to ride on our coattails. My logic is that if someone is willing to go to such lengths then fuck it, let them waste enormous amounts of their time just to get to make a post that will last all of a second before it's deleted and then they would have to start all over again.