Ripped off software!

[davlan]

Illegal copies. Got any.

I made a decision to make sure that everything on my music PC was legit even though I would admit to infringement in the past. I simply budgeted for it this time around and updates and upgrades are available and cost effective (usually). My warranty on the machine would probably have been void if there was. Also I am hearing that some companies have gone bust because of it. Pinnacle bought Steinberg out for a paltry 20 million. (Apple didn't that much more for Logic) It has been said that if all the copies out there were legit then Steinberg would have bought out Pinnacle. Some companies, e.g. Roland won't touch soft synths for this very reason. Which is a shame because it makes such a lot of sense. You've already got the hardware so just buy the software at a ridiculously low price. For Xmas I got a copy of the new Yamaha CS80 emulation from Arturia. The original machine in 1977, adjusting for inflation would have set you back maybe £30'000. I think mine cost £170. This is great value.  Have a look in a muso magazine and any module will cost at least three times this and be nowhere near as good, flexible, or integrated.

Although I appreciate that it is easy for the cash strapped musician to easily download this stuff with their sense of guilt in denial but truth is it's stealing. And you are only hurting the thing you love.

Agree, disagree?

[john]

Hi Dave

I'm with you on this one, with an almost identical story Though I didn't get £170 soft synth for Christmas  

Cheers

John

[Guest olggu]

just buy the software at a ridiculously low price. For Xmas I got a copy of the new Yamaha CS80 emulation from Arturia. The original machine in 1977, adjusting for inflation would have set you back maybe £30'000. I think mine cost £170. This is great value.  Have a look in a muso magazine and any module will cost at least three times this and be nowhere near as good, flexible, or integrated.

Although I appreciate that it is easy for the cash strapped musician to easily download this stuff with their sense of guilt in denial but truth is it's stealing. And you are only hurting the thing you love.

Agree, disagree?

I agree, and disagree; you are right about that what you say about illegal software, but I disagree that statement of ridiculously low software prises; I haven't see any of those, but on the contrary, I have seen only very high software prises. Like that Cakewalk Sonar, if you buy producer version, it set you back something like 700$, Studio version is 500$ and even that, my friend, that is lot of money for me. If you want more sophisticated software, you pay even more, so I don't know about that "ridiculously low software prises"...Well, if you got the money, maybe it is cheap  

[davlan]

Olggu

Point taken my friend. I am not suggesting for a second that this stuff is cheap - but relatively speaking it is fantastic value. A Ferrari for £2000 say - still a lot of money but amazing value. Today you can set yourself up with a computer based studio for say £2000-£5000 from scratch. And i am talking about a near state of the art digital multitrack work station equipped with samplers/synths, 24bit sound, 60+ tracks of audio and all the virtual outboard you need. 15 years ago this technology was unavailable to anyone. State of the art equipment then cost a fortune and would have been unrealisable to the small musician. Whereas, for the cost of a meagre bank loan, the small musican can access state of the art.

Sequencer packages are expensive, £200-£1000. But again I read somewhere that there is about 20 years of programming man hours in the production of these packages. These are very serious pieces of software and probably worth every penny. Would they be cheaper if there was less piracy? I don't know.

I have a very meagre income at present, and although I am reasonably financially stable I do not have a NASA level bank balance. But with a bit of prioritisation and bloody mindedness I am giving myself a chance to see if I can do this for a living.

My point is that one of these systems is in reach of most of us and maybe it might be beneficial to computer musician's to support the creators of this stuff.

best

Dave

[BongStuff]

I never use cracked software of any kind. Apart from being ( at best ) a semi pro musician, I'm a programmer by "trade" so for me it's straight theft.

A friend of mine, who has never bought any music software in his life, yet has a vast array of Reason2, CuBase SX etc... has the opinion that "as long as I'm not making money from it". I think that sucks ass!

Steinberg will ( did  :'( ) have a LARGE sector of the hobbyist/semi pro market as part of their turnover. As will most sequencer/VSI/plugin companies. If that drops out then the company cannot survive off "professional" individuals being their only paying customers. These music outfits are not the Microsofts and Oracles of this world!

And Dave's point is well stated. These programs are NOT expensive when you consider that they will come v.close to the original sound of the very expensive instrument - *and* it probably took thousands of man hours to develop.

I wonder how many of us would be e.g. VST plugin designers and coders if the industry wasn't being killed by piracy and was as active as other "mainstream" software industries?

As a manager for a very mainstream ( publishing/finance ) software company right now, I'm hiring for someone with 3 years of commercial experience in Java for 28K (UKP) pa - the point being that it's a pretty well paid field because the software *makes money*.

I would bet that most of the skilled and dedicated musical software engineers who are out of work now because of piracy would jump at the chance to make anything like that sort of regular cash - and I'd also bet they'd be better engineers!  

 BS

[Guest olggu]

I never use cracked software of any kind. Apart from being ( at best ) a semi pro musician, I'm a programmer by "trade" so for me it's straight theft.

A friend of mine, who has never bought any music software in his life, yet has a vast array of Reason2, CuBase SX etc... has the opinion that "as long as I'm not making money from it". I think that sucks ass!

Steinberg will ( did  :'( ) have a LARGE sector of the hobbyist/semi pro market as part of their turnover. As will most VST/plugin companies. If that drops out then the company cannot survive off "professional" individuals being their only paying customers. These outfits are not the Microsofts and Oracles of this world!

And Dave's point is well stated. These programs are NOT expensive when you consider that they will come v.close to the original sound of the very expensive instrument - *and* it probably took thousands of man hours to develop.

I wonder how many of us would be e.g. VST plugin designers and coders if the industry wasn't being killed by piracy and was as active as other "mainstream" software industries?

As a manager for a very mainstream ( publishing/finance) company right now, I'm hiring for someone with 3 years of commercial experience in Java for 28K (UKP) pa - the point being that it's a pretty well paid industry because the software *makes money*.

I would bet that most of the skilled and dedicated musical software engineers who are out of work now because of piracy would jump at the chance to make anything like that sort of regular cash - and I'd also bet they'd be better engineers!  

 BS

This is quite interesting thread, and I appreciate your point of views, because what you are saying, is just facts. I can't argue, pirated software generally is no good. BUT, in the other hand this means that if you aren't capable to buy this stuff, but you are musician by hobby, you should start looking for something new for doing you free time. These programs look inexpensive only if you are going to make money with them, but if you have to save price of them from you weekly pocket money, or save the price from your rent or something, they are quite hard to get. I know for sure, that I don't be able to buy that kind of programs with those prices just to be a home musician, because there is so much more important things to get with that limited amount of money what I  have, which means I should drop my interest to computer music? Yes, that is true, I should do that, but this is the situation which many of us find unbearable...those programs are just sitting there...costing nothing...how about trying is there anything I need...and there you go. If prices wasn't so high, there wasn't any piracy, and that is fact. Prices of these products are just too high for ordinary people and hobbyist's, like any other software, because software company's want to get their investments back in no time, and build a maximum profit on the side. That is name of the game, and when they do that, they are creating a need for pirated software by themselves, which doesn't happened if you sell you product with reasonable price. Need example? Let's look about those audio CD;s which are maybe most copied products in the world. When we only have those vinyl records, there wasn't any real piracy like there is today in that business. Wonder why? Vinyl records was cheap, but when they print that same music to the CD-disk, price is more than double?? How the hell this happened? Production costs for one vinyl record is more than for one CD-disk, but CD is more expensive al tough music in there is just same...just because they put the people pay some extra, because changing to the new media type give they opportunity to get some more money for nothing. With computer software it isn't about the media type, it is just about at simple greed; you have to get maximum money from you product, so you put high price for it, so you get your investments back quickly. With high price you create illusion that your software is worth of something, and if it isn't,  who cares. With every software I have buy, there have been endless work with updating to get it work, there have been problems with hardware etc. which you don't expect from product which you have payed hundreds of euros. I mean if you buy TV, and it isn't  compatible with your video set while it should be, and they ask you some money for update it, you go be-zerk that's for sure. Why all that is accepted in computer software business? Because everybody do that; they sell you some overpriced shit for software, and told you that there have been so many thousands man hours involved in production of this software, there may be some bugs here and there but we take care of that in the in future updates...and you find yourself with poorly produced software, which you have pay dearly, but which drive you crazy because it boot your machine every other minute...wait a second...you get this shit for free from internet...how about that? ... this is the reason what makes people go with pirated software  

[Steve]

I suppose it's fair to say that we've all tried cracked software, and I am no different than anybody else! But there are software packages out there that don't cost an arm and a leg. You can for example buy a fully featured sequencer for less than 50 quid (Thats UK quids). Magix Music studio deluxe is £49.99 ( looks exactly like logic) Or you can get Cubasis vst4 for 60 quid. I subscribe to Computer Music magazine and they give away free, a complete audio package including several VST plug ins... So I guess there really is no excuse. I think some of this stuff is way beyond anything the average 'bedroom' muso needs anyway!

[Guest olggu]

I suppose it's fair to say that we've all tried cracked software, and I am no different than anybody else! But there are software packages out there that don't cost an arm and a leg. You can for example buy a fully featured sequencer for less than 50 quid (Thats UK quids). Magix Music studio deluxe is £49.99 ( looks exactly like logic) Or you can get Cubasis vst4 for 60 quid. I subscribe to Computer Music magazine and they give away free, a complete audio package including several VST plug ins... So I guess there really is no excuse. I think some of this stuff is way beyond anything the average 'bedroom' muso needs anyway!

There is a good point there; you don't really need any high end softwares if you just play for fun...But in the other hand, this mean that if you later get some urge to be more than bedroom muso, you need to buy several softwares, because that el cheapo doesn't fill you needs anymore, and you find yourself paying double for joy of making music  

What comes to mind about those pirated softwares, is that software producers do exaggerate this whole thing; Far as I know, most of people who is using them, use them just about testing is that product what they need. I mean what to f*uk you do with them anyway? If you are lucky enough and able to get some retail software from the internet, there is no way in hell you could be so stupid that you try to update it, and we all know how long these programs run without regular updates. So you have to search new version, download it, get the crack just for realise that whole thing doesn't work etc. and when you have done that few times, you go and buy that bloody thing anyway just to get out from that stupid circle...If you download some ripped software, you notice very soon that the program is very unstable, or something is missing etc. so you are going in the shop even sooner...and this is how it goes around the world. Real situation is that there is few badass hackers & crackers, and bunch of pimple-faced teen-nerds who are whole bunch who use just pirated software; everybody else use them quite randomly, because it is really easy way to check out some software, or do some little project with right software, what they doesn't want to buy because it cost more than buying that project from shop. If they need that kind of software, they buy it, if don't, you find it from the hard disk few years later with lots of dust, and delete it  

[john]

Hi

Following Olggu's argument, you would buy a car to get from A to B, but if you decided to become a professional rally driver it would ok to steal a top of the range race tuned Subaru.

Think of it from the other side. Consider this:

Part-time Musician: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write songs. You record songs, burn them on cds, put them on the net, some you sell (if you are lucky) most you give away for free. You don't depend on this income, so that's ok.

Part-time Programmer: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write software. You make programmes, burn them on cds, put them on the net, some you sell (if you are lucky) most you give away for free. You don't depend on this income, so that's ok.

Full-time Musician: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write songs. You record songs using expensive gear, you pay to have them put on cds, put them on the net for sale, some you sell (if you are lucky) you can't afford to give many away for free as a promo. You depend on this income. It's your living. It's how you feed your kids. People pirate your tracks, and your sales go through the floor. This is not ok.

Full-time Programmer: You spend hours, days and years learning skills. You put a lot of yourself in to your work. You write software. You make programmes using expensive gear, you pay to have them put on cds, put them on the net for sale, some you sell (if you are lucky) you can't afford to give many away for free as a promo. You depend on this income. It's your living. It's how you feed your kids. People pirate your software and your sales go through the floor. This is not ok.

You might be with a record label or software house. The fact is, if your product doesn't make enough cash, you lose your job. That's the bottom line.

I understand the frustration, because pirate software is easier to get than a race tuned Subaru. But there is no justification.

Piracy is killing the Music industry. You might think it is opening the way for the indie artist, but the fact is less and less people are paying for Music coz it's so easily available. If you decided to go pro, your chances of making a living may be higher because of the internet, but as less people are willing to pay eventual some bastard will pirate your tracks and effectively put you out of business.

All that is then available to the listening public is free tracks, produced by people who rarely can afford good gear coz they can't make any money from their Music, or large label stale commercial tracks that stick to the safe ground and charge large prices in order to stand the best chance of making any money.

Years ago when I started recording, I used a standard tape deck, and occasionally borrowed a 4 track when they came along. I made do with the instruments I could save and buy. I still made Music. I still got my tracks out there. Sure, I even paid to go into recording studios when I started making money from gigging. I saved and bought better gear. I knew that better gear was available (hell I even worked in a studio), but never once did I think it was ok to steal studio gear. I might have been tempted once or twice ...

I had to wait years. In the meantime I made do. I even used pirate software. But i didn't once think I was justified. I did  it from more or less a position of blissful ignorance, after all everyone seemed to have pirate software.

For years I saved, I took out loans, I worked overtime, I studied and worked at my Music. Eventually I had enough savings and was able to take on enough debt to invest in some decent gear.

If people keep pirating Music, the industry will more or less disappear as an industry. Apart from of course the most manstream acts on the top labels. Even then they are at risk. The same is true of software.

In the end they will make it so difficult to pirate that you can't, and the penalties so large if you do, that it's not worth the risk. This will happen because they are large industries, and peoples livings depend on them stopping piracy.

In the meantime, piracy will thin out the field and bankrupt all the small and indie operations.

Like it or not, piracy is killing the industries. Each time you download a pirate mp3, you make it less likely that you will make money from Music. It's the same in Software.

What price on giving up dreams? Free apparently... :'(

Cheers

John

[Guest olggu]

Hi

Following Olggu's argument, you would buy a car to get from A to B, but if you decided to become a professional rally driver it would ok to steal a top of the range race tuned Subaru.

Not really, but if you want to see it that way, be my quest. What I am saying is:

1. That whole problem which piracy make in  the software & music business, is coloured. So simple.

2. The industry arouse a need for piracy by itself via selling their products with too high prices. Simple facts.

Try to figure out formation of price for audio cd, and you see who benefits from it, and get more money from it than artists, and you see who's interest they are protecting...Anyway, piracy is stealing, there is no doubt about that, and we should get rid of it, but I don't think that rising prises and putting extra taxes in the price of blank CD-R;s is right way to do it.

In Finland our copyright organisation "Teosto" have decide, that you can't play radio in shops, barber shops or cab's etc. without paying them some money, which lead to that they doesn't play radio, or they be criminals and play, but doesn't pay for it. Why all this? Because fight against piracy is holy war, and this is part of it; they even make you to be criminal just because you don't want to use our original CD:s in your car-CD-player, but make copies of them for that.  I find that ridiculous. They are narrowing you rights just to gathering more money, and what musicians get from it? Not even that sum what they pay when they pay taxes for those blank CD-R:s what they buy for saving their music when they are doing it in the first place?

[Rudi]

Piracy is killing the Music industry. You might think it is opening the way for the indie artist, but the fact is less and less people are paying for Music coz it's so easily available.

I do not condone stealing, howsoever termed. Certainly, there have been times when I have used un-paid-for software, but if its been something I want to use, then Ive bought it. I have also paid for software that has turned out to be useless junk, and discovered it too late. The same goes for recorded music. To my way of thinking, this makes us about even.

I dont condone hurting the struggling musician who is trying to make a living from  his/her skills by ripping them off. I do not see such people as `the music industry'. They may be `becoming the music industry' or actually be the music industry of the future.

The music industry I have known for the last 40 years has NO INTEREST IN MUSIC. They only are interested in profit. The music industry I know will not help anybody discover anything other than the bland pap they push onto a public starved of anything remotely uplifting or cultural, or with any potential for longevity. If this music industry is killed, then the sooner it happens, the better. The media control music industry has done more to disenfranchise ordinary people than any thief. They should get a proper job.

[Steve]

I think this topic falls into the same catagory as Religion and Politics...  

As an X business man, I can tell you all how fickle the general public is. If they can get something cheaper down the road, they're gone like a shot! If they can get it for nothing, you won't see their heals for dust. No matter that they may lose something in the process...  

[john]

Hi

All fair points, most of which I agree with. Olggu, I wasn't geting at you, just trying to follow through your argument. If I mis-understood, sorry.

I do agree that CDs are over priced, and that the established Music industry works as a closed shop. And that the biz doesn't give a toss about music. It's the same in the software biz. All they care about is the bottom line. Does it sell...

I guess the largest part of my issue with piracy is that it does not distinguish between small, new business products and the larger established businesses.

Aprt from that, I have trouble believing that lowering the prices would make any difference. The fact is pirates are free or very, very cheap. These guys don't absorb any of the development costs, or the promotional costs, so they will always be able to supply their version at a cheaper price. As Steve says, this basically means that Joe Public will shop with the pirates as long as a pirate version is on offer.

Sad, but true.

Cheers

John

[Steve]

I dont think lowering the price will change much! I remember reading in Computer Music Magazine a letter from an Independant software developer. He had created a new piece of software (Vsti plug in I think) and put it out for sale at a very low price, maybe £5 or £10.  After a while, he was told by a friend that his software had been cracked and put onto a warez cd...

It doesn't matter that it was only a few quid! Somebody out there cracked it and gave it away.....

[Rudi]

It doesn't matter that it was only a few quid! Somebody out there cracked it and gave it away.....

Its sad but true that people will say anything to justify keeping or gaining a bit of money. In these odd times it takes a special kind of talent to make a fair profit from digital data.

I know someone who has `recieved' hundreds of thousands of MP3s consisting of current and `classic albums' spanning decades. He can never possibly listen to it all. He has given up his CD collection. He paid several hhundred £s for a MP3 player with a huge (80g?) hard drive. I wonder whether he has really saved much money at all? Even if he has, the damage to artists is potentially very very serious. Not much of a trade-off there.

[Guest olggu]

I dont think lowering the price will change much! I remember reading in Computer Music Magazine a letter from an Independant software developer. He had created a new piece of software (Vsti plug in I think) and put it out for sale at a very low price, maybe £5 or £10.  After a while, he was told by a friend that his software had been cracked and put onto a warez cd...

It doesn't matter that it was only a few quid! Somebody out there cracked it and gave it away.....

No worry; if there is so f*cking stupid peoples who actually pay money to get some warez cd:s, they do so only once and after they have seen which kind of no-working shit they have pay for, they don't do that mistake again. This is how that warez industry pee on their own shoes; 80% of all pirated software is useless shit, because those teen nerds who are working in that field doesn't know what they are doing...  

[Steve]

A friend and I were working for this Dudeordinaire a few years ago when we got talking about computers. He started to show us what he was doing. He was heavily into 3d stuff and told us about the program he was using.

It was something called 'Maya'. They use it a lot in movies such as star wars etc. We looked it up on the net to find out a price.... (thinking we might invest in it ourselves)   £15,000 for the basic package...

No way on this planet did this dude by it!

[BongStuff]

This is a real interesting one. And the issue's never gonna be easily solvable. I can see both sides, although I know where I sit  

To go forward, my guess from all this is that the software industry will have to adapt to new "selling models" as per the music industry - yeah I'm talking about online downloads. Software on demand! Pay for what you use! That could work. Say 8 hours free. Then a licence - either use-based or outright purchase.

No f***ing about with dodgy CDs loaded with virii.

 BS

[Steve]

virii.

You made that up right?

[Guest olggu]

A friend and I were working for this Dudeordinaire a few years ago when we got talking about computers. He started to show us what he was doing. He was heavily into 3d stuff and told us about the program he was using.

It was something called 'Maya'. They use it a lot in movies such as star wars etc. We looked it up on the net to find out a price.... (thinking we might invest in it ourselves)   £15,000 for the basic package...

No way on this planet did this dude by it!

Bloody thief....anyway, there have been some talk about warez cd;s which really are for sale around the internet, but have you ever think about that situation? You can order some CD:s via internet, and pay it with all major credit cards; that is so easy...but if you stop to think for few seconds, you notice that there is something weird in that situation. You are ordering stolen software from guys who are capable to hack/crack all commercial softwares, and you are paying with you credit card...you are paying to thief with your credit card....well that is a bright idea....And there really is people who have done that, just for notice that they don't have any credit anymore, and police is asking interesting questions about credit card fraud's   :