An interesting point Ponder. As I see it the DAW people want zero risk and they are prepared to be aresoles about it to everyone.
No supermarket chain WANTS shoplifting and they invest proportinately to control it but they know they COULD get close to zero losses if they treated every customer that made the slightest mistake as a felon. They don't of course becuase they would soon run out of customers!
Dave.
Everyone wants zero risk. That's a given. All people of all walks of life. Who can blame them?
Software vendors are singularly different, it seems, than vendors that provide tangible goods. I have more problems with tangible goods providers (in my case, jet engines, landing gear, and other aircraft assemblies), but they're visible, tangible, and treatable. I have more HASSLES with software providers - not so much now, because I have it all tamped down nicely.
I'm one of those people that believe "a sale is a sale" which holds up pretty well here in America. I bought it. It's mine. Your opinion doesn't matter. That sorta thing. Don't wanna open up a big discussion with internet lawyers, but almost all of what people bandy about as copyright law is hokum, including and especially the legal departments for these people.
Back in the 60s, IBM started this whole thing about "you don't buy it, you're leasing our 360 system and merely licensing the software."
As they served the largest of corporations, and a computer installation was huge and time-consuming, they got away with it -- and they were IBM. Everyone wants to be IBM and every company want's to be huge. So there's a lot of impersonation going on.
"You didn't BUY that software, you just bought a license for that software."
"Says who?"
"Says the sealed package the software came in."
"You mean MY package that MY software came in? I decided my seal was worthless and my printed instructions were an art project."
"You can't do that."
"Says who?"
Then the discussion goes downhill because assuming something and proving something are two different things.
You see, these little fish always forget that IBM had a stack of paperwork to be signed prior to providing anything. They didn't have any retail products on the shelf.
Again, this isn't about piracy (not something I support) it's about being a customer, not a subject to a King. It's about money changing hands and what it buys.
Interesting detail: there's more software in a new car than in any DAW. Detroit doesn't have a say in what you do with it. They have no control. They have no say. Copy, crack, edit, distribute. Not a thing they can do (or have done). They sell millions this way. John Deere is going through a similar battle (that they've been hopelessly losing) because they decided they DID have a say. They don't.
I never want a code writer to be cheated. It's not right. Whether cheated by their employer (very common) or their company cheated by unscrupulous rip-offs. At the same time, business is not for the faint and dainty. Not everything you touch can be spun into gold just because it seems like it should. It's no more sad for a DAW provider to go out of business than it is a Power Supply provider. It just happens... for many reasons.
The big difference is that lots of people wanna argue about the software and what to do. Hardware, they don't hardly care at all.