Is there a thing such as The Curse of Piracy? Is there anyone who achieved great success using pirated stuff?

Are you evil by using a product in which the developer's energy was put into and he didn't get paid back?
If you buy your plugins after you achieved success will that erase the curse? Or is it cheating?

Or perhaps it is impossible to achieve success in art if you are not pure enough.

I think this also applies in reverse. Why would I pay €500 for a plugin if I get €0 profit?

Infinite trial until you make money. Free software, a percentage of each track goes to the developers of the plugins used in that particular song by using an audio cryptography algorithm. (no, companies would go bankrupt).

To summarize, I think it doesn't matter whether you use pirated stuff or not, it's up to you if you want to support the devs, it will not impact anything but your conscience (and maybe not even that). The curse is your laziness since it's instant gratification so you don't spend as much time and energy into a plugin that you didn't pay for.

What do you think?

 

Last edited: Aug 31, 2023

If this were TW, I'd say this was thrown up for the engagement points.

 

I never pirated anything in my life. Never. Moreover, I will continue to fight piracy until the day I die.

 

How did you forget the option: I Buy some plugins - others are on 'extended trial' ?

 

Added

 

Pirate thinking? I don't even own a boat, an eye patch OR a parrot for that matter!

 

I used to buy a ton of stuff back in the day. But the main reasons that changed my mind was cost, DRM and subscription based models. I had many games which became coasters overnight when Microsoft made DRM games unusable on a previous version of Windows.

The latest reason is companies who have turned their software into a subscription based model. In effect you pay your money but you never own the product. I believe that if you buy something then you should own it. The only subs that I pay are for the MMO game World of Warcraft and my anti-virus and firewall software.

I pay for other things such as certain Tonex profile packs if I feel that the pricing is reasonable and I can't find them elsewhere. I've also bought guitar plugins but I usually wait until they have a sale. I would never buy a neural dsp plugin due to their pricing and intrusive software.

I really hate software that has intrusive DRM.

 

i think mostly about @The Pirate's fine fine ass... like most of us do

 

i have had over 30 releases since 2011 until 2023 all using pirated software, but made no money from it, so yeah why buy it.

 

Plugin aren't there to give you the possibility to make money, they are there to give you the possibility to make music, so no matter if you make money or not, you should buy it (just the same way you don't borrow a car until you find a job, or to stay in the music, a piece of hardware).

If you don't make money with your music, that's on you, not on the developper. With this way of thinking, game should be free until you make money with streaming or pro gaming.

That been said, there's ton of producer reaching success (and making money) with cracked plugin, they just don't scream it. Some have the decency to buy the plugin once they can afford it. Personnally I tend to do that, if a project get me some money, I'll use a part to "regularize" my situation with some plugin.

At the end of the day, using cracked plugin/DAW is a choice and not an obligation, cause now there's a ton of free options that can give you similar result. You can make a hit (or just money with advertise music, don't need to go big) with just your DAW's plugin, or some free options.

 

It doesn't really matter. I don't go out my way and try to crack programs, or provide teams with programs. I am poor as fuck (country with shit currency), so it is suddenly OK when I delete my archives and not pay the devs, opposed to using a version from 2020 and not giving a single d*mn about the new versions or bother the devs with bug reports.

I am not saying it is morally acceptable or whatever, I'm just saying it probably doesn't matter (at least in my case) for the developers. Because I was not going to buy it anyway.

Don't have money for the new Guitar amp??? Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) is there for you. What difference does it make that such a product like NAM exists or the crack for the other amp sim exists. If it would help one sleep better, I can just delete them.

 

The Chemical Brothers admitted that they used cracked software before they hit it big, but promptly ponied up once they started making money. My personal rule is as long as I'm not making money, directly or indirectly, nobody is getting hurt. Software isn't a depletable resource. I see pirated software as a demo license, nothing more.

 

Pirate everything , AUDIOZ is the best , fuck em

 

shiver me timbers, if only I had enough gold to choke a whale

 

Raise the flag of piracy, sing the song of victory
Glorious in battle are we
We've never known defeat, we never will retreat.
We live to hear the cannon roar,
And terror is our sempahore
Victoriously loathsome are we,
We rob the rich, the poor; then steal a little more.

Victory: we fight to win
Victory: is ours again
We are the scourge of the land and sea
Beastly pirates are we.

Masters of the briny sea,
We'll go down in history.
Couragous men who live by the sword
We deal in treachery, the kings of lechery.
Raise the anchor, trim the sail
We raid tonight if winds prevail
Invincible we fight to the end
United to a man, we need no battle plan.

Victory: we fight to win
Victory: is ours again
We are the scourge of the land and sea
Beastly pirates are we.

It's so pitable a sight, to see them walk the plank
They squirm and cry for mercy regardless of their rank.

Victory: we fight to win
Victory: is ours again
We are the scurge of the land and sea
Beastly pirates are we.

Victory

 

I really would like to support the devs, and occasionally do buy stuff on black fridays and other sales, specially the iLocked ones ;). The prices are normally quite unreachable for a life long social bum artist that I am, so the extended trial it is. The ones I use the most I tend to buy when have a change.

 

There wasn’t an option in the poll for me. I’m not trying to come across as morally superior, or better than anyone else, but I tend to NOT use “fixed” software UNLESS it is something that I actually own. I especially HATE C/R and iLok piracy protection. If R2R, Flare, Cubeadooby, VR or Mocha release a reliable “fixed” version, I always go with them instead of the official builds.

What galls the tar out of me is that so many plugins and VIs nowadays consume way too much system-draining “phone home” checks and constant dongle talk. One or two iLok plugins isn’t noticeable, but 20 or 30 of them constantly checking that USB dongle is a right royal pain in the rump! And that C/R shit! Grrrr. I hate that stuff. It’s the legit users like me that getbtreated like I’m a crime suspect when my 3 “allowed” activations are used up. Most times, I have to keep going back and forth with so-called support until they're satisfied that it's really me, with new SSD/HDD receipts, or new MB receipt, and whatever. That crap is a royal pain to deal with.

R2R, VR and others fix that crap for me. I love them for the “medicine” they give us.

I believe that stealing is wrong. It’s listed as a serious no no in the ten commandments and it is a terrible sin to steal from others. But, I also really dislike jumping through some freakin’ developers constant hoops too. I hate when my system gets bogged down and plugins crash because too many of them are fighting to check my iLok at the same time. I HATE when plugins won’t work coz they can’t constantly phone home on the internet.

Good devs who don’t resort to that harsh, heavy handed DRM, and still use serials or watermarks, I don’t like seeing them get raped by pirates. A lot of skill and hard work goes into making good plugins - those guys deserve to earn an honest living from their hard work. I have used “extended trials” myself, but any plugin I actually use in a project (even if just for fun), I will always save up for and BUY (even if I still use the cracked versions for reasons listed above).

nobody likes when someone steals their amazon or postal deliveries. No one wants to have their wallet stolen. Nobody wants their car or bike stolen, or their lunch stolen at work. Stealing is wrong, but so is bad DRM by greedy or heavy handed devs. So again, the poll option that I need is:
“BUY IT, but use (better) “FIXED” versions if they are available.

 

In theory, I might be moved to pirate anything I could even when I own them legally just to protect myself from end of support issues, bloat, copy protect crippling, this, that and the other. An insurance policy, let's say.

Edit- Sniv got there first and said it better