Do you really buy that expensive recording software?

[Toker41]

That Was The Best Damn Post On This Thread!!!!


....and It Was From A Software Engineer!!!!

 

[dgatwood]

That Was The Best Damn Post On This Thread!!!!


....and It Was From A Software Engineer!!!!

Most software engineers I've met would agree with this, BTW. It's the MBAs and other suits of the world who are into rigid DRM/activations, preventing piracy at all costs, and treating customers as criminals by default....

 

[jtees4]

Overall I have done all three choices. I used to download everything....I've done it less and less over the years. The proliferation of good open source software has helped too. And...I actually buy some now.

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[zazz]

That Was The Best Damn Post On This Thread!!!!

i have to agree....i think society as a whole is going through a rethink on the building blocks of what is acceptable as a result of the digital/internet movement...within this world the old logic is breaking down fast.

of course you have the old gaurd defending the basic principles to the last but then in every sea change you will have these die hards...its just history repeating itself.

 

[wheelema]

...From my perspective as a software engineer, I'd much rather somebody use a piece of software I wrote without paying for it than use the competitor's product. Even if they never pay for it, they are creating mindshare---creating a larger user base whose members share files amongst themselves, thus contributing to vendor lock-in, which ultimately is good for the vendor...

This mindset flies very nicely as long you have an income stream from some other source. But when that is not the case; when you're sitting in your car with all of your worldly possessions... or God forbid, no car at all... needing a good meal and hot shower like you need oxygen, than this blue-sky ideology has the flight envelope of a rock.

Using Visual Basic as the GUI front-end, Oracle as reporting database, and RPG/400, CLP/400, and FTP as the back-end I coded several very powerful distributed applications that saved my employer a ton of money. A consulant described the security auditing app as the most 'elegant' AS/400 app he had ever seen. My employer didn't even know I had done it... I was giving them the same information that my predecessor had given them, I just did in a hour what had taken him five days.

I was strongly urged by several co-workers to commercialize the app, and maybe I should have, but at the time there was absolutely no way that I could see to protect it. My employer... a huge multinational... was and is a piece 'o shit. When I came on board I'd say about 80% of their software was pirated. They settled with Microsoft shortly thereafter and licensed up, but there was no doubt in my mind that they and their ilk would no more pay for my efforts than they would pay for anyone else's.

 

[zazz]

i dont think that sceanario is just for your situation but just about every other downtrodden individual in the hands of the capitalistic society.

 

[UnityRecordings]

after reading two pages of this, all I can say is....




REAPER!

awesome software and it's a test of morals itself. Do you do the right thing and buy? or do you continue on with your never-ending evaluation period?!

I paid so I'm good

 

[jarrydee]

hi guys,

Yeah, I know you're right to pick on me: it is not fair to use software cracks. I didn't intend the 'no money' issue to be an excuse.

Dechay, you're right about the motivation thing, and not having much money really motivates me to try to find more money to even buy several stuff. And I do purchase software, just as I purchase my hardware. But yes, I have some plug ins and a few programs I haven't paid for. I know I should be ashamed, and I really do intend to buy some extra software later, also that may seem a lame excuse.

But I follow Shackrock when he tells he uses crackz to get to know programs and buy what he think is suitable for him.
But also Charger is right when he says demo's are getiing better.

Veiledsaber also has a point: someone serious about recording buys the stuff. And I'm not serious about recording, but now I use my recording still for a home purpose (I sometims record in several studio's who have off course all the legal software), and when I expand my small setup to record others, I would definetely buy all the software I have to use.


Btw,a stupid anecdote, I know a guy who has an official version of Logic, but he runs the crack version because that one had eliminated a bug that was in his original one.

I have to say that I have used a bootleg waves mercury bundle, just to check it out...and Im glad I did..I would have been real upset if I had payed $10,000.00 for it!!!

If you want to jump on people for stealing someone else's hard work, go over to the hip hop thread..all kinds of that going on..they just call it sampling instead of stealing!!!

PS. I am so glad that I did not have to pay 500 $ for PT mp3 option and a few extra tracks..digidesign rips you off, so I feel no shame when installing my free Music Production Toolkit.

 

[dualflip]

I agree with all you guys we should all buy the software we use, and if we earn money from what we do in it, the more reason to buy it. But just to get in the mind of the piracy guys i wanted to ask you this: Imagine you have lets say 600 dlls, with that you can either buy one multitrack soft like logic (maybe logic will be worth less but bear with me i use Protools) or pre-amps, mics and some extra things. What would you do?

BTW i dont support piracy

 

[acidrock]

I agree with all you guys we should all buy the software we use, and if we earn money from what we do in it, the more reason to buy it. But just to get in the mind of the piracy guys i wanted to ask you this: Imagine you have lets say 600 dlls, with that you can either buy one multitrack soft like logic (maybe logic will be worth less but bear with me i use Protools) or pre-amps, mics and some extra things. What would you do?

BTW i dont support piracy

Buy Reaper for $50 and have $550 left for a preamp.


The only reason to steal software is if you want something you can't afford.The tools are out there for free or cheap and there are also demo versions if you just want to try it out.

 

[NYMorningstar]

That's a ludicrous comparison. It completely ignores the difference between choosing to sin and merely failing to do good. (Little Catholic reference there.) In the real world, there's a difference between a lost sale and theft. By your standards, if I walk by Wal-Mart and stare lustfully at their new riding mower but don't choose to buy it and instead borrow my neighbor's, I'm stealing from Wal-Mart. That argument doesn't fly with me.

.

What's really absurd is your attitude which you probably don't own up to much and blame on others (Little Catholic reference there). So how do you figure stealing software isn't the real world? If you borrow from your neighbor and he stole it from Walmart would you consider that stealing from Walmart? Well I'm gonna guess you answer no because that would be your neighbors problem right? And what if your neighbor just borrowed the lawnmower from someone with the understanding he would not let someone else use it?

Then you go ahead and try to qualify your answer with I'm a software engineer? A thief, is a thief, is a thief...

Did you miss this in school? http://www.acm.org/about/se-code

Like someone said earlier "fine! No problem! Do it! Just DON'T FUCKING RATIONALIZE"

 

[jarrydee]

I agree with all you guys we should all buy the software we use, and if we earn money from what we do in it, the more reason to buy it. But just to get in the mind of the piracy guys i wanted to ask you this: Imagine you have lets say 600 dlls, with that you can either buy one multitrack soft like logic (maybe logic will be worth less but bear with me i use Protools) or pre-amps, mics and some extra things. What would you do?

BTW i dont support piracy

I bought my daw software!!..My 003 came with it!!

So I would probably buy another grace m101 pre amp for stereo acoustic guitar!!

I am raising 5 children (in my home...no dead beat dad here)..so..If there is a plugin I need but cant afford..well you know the rest!!..BUT...If I did have the doe I would buy it.

I just bought my first Ilok key ...so...I will do the right thing!!

But when it comes to WAVES..I dont give 2 shit's about it..over priced corperate ass holes...

PS. I do not use the waves plugins...I have tried them but they are not installed in my computer!!!

Here's what I use alot... They are kick ass and free.
I think the neve eq's sound better than waves!!
http://antress.webng.com/

 

[jarrydee]

What's really absurd is your attitude which you probably don't own up to much and blame on others (Little Catholic reference there). So how do you figure stealing software isn't the real world? If you borrow from your neighbor and he stole it from Walmart would you consider that stealing from Walmart? Well I'm gonna guess you answer no because that would be your neighbors problem right? And what if your neighbor just borrowed the lawnmower from someone with the understanding he would not let someone else use it?

Then you go ahead and try to qualify your answer with I'm a software engineer? A thief, is a thief, is a thief...

Did you miss this in school? http://www.acm.org/about/se-code

Like someone said earlier "fine! No problem! Do it! Just DON'T FUCKING RATIONALIZE"

Like I said before....go over to the hip hop form and tell them that.

STEALING IS STEALING no matter what you call it (SAMPLING)

People worked hard and spent lots of money to create those albums!!

 

[dualflip]

Here's what I use alot... They are kick ass and free.
I think the neve eq's sound better than waves!!
http://antress.webng.com/

WOOW, thanks a lot for the link, they look very cool ill try them tonight

 

[dgatwood]

What's really absurd is your attitude which you probably don't own up to much and blame on others (Little Catholic reference there). So how do you figure stealing software isn't the real world?

The claim I was replying to was that not buying is the same as stealing. That's prima facie absurd.

If you borrow from your neighbor and he stole it from Walmart would you consider that stealing from Walmart? Well I'm gonna guess you answer no because that would be your neighbors problem right?

Yup. Now if you buy something from someone knowing that it is likely stolen, you're treading on dangerous legal ground, but borrowing it without necessarily even knowing it is stolen? You'd have to be borderline nuts to think that was somehow morally wrong, much less legally.

And what if your neighbor just borrowed the lawnmower from someone with the understanding he would not let someone else use it?

That makes your neighbor a jerk. It's certainly not illegal, though. At best, the original owner could claim wear and tear and argue that you should have to pay a small fraction of the cost to cover that... assuming the original owner was charging a similar charge to the neighbor, that is.

At this point, you're straying way away from the original point which was that downloading something is very clearly a distinct act from stealing a physical object.

1. In the physical case, you are depriving someone of not only the sale to you, but also of an object that could be sold to someone else; in effect, you deprive them twice. In the illegal copying case, you merely deprive them of the sale to you.
   
2. In the physical case, the owner has in essence natural rights of ownership to the object. It is in the owner's possession. In the illegal copying case, the owner merely has a right created by the legal system. That right is no more natural than your right to vote. It is a right created by the government for the benefit of society, and when that right no longer serves the needs of society, it is well within reason for the government to alter or abolish that right---reducing copyright duration, for example. That means that unlike real property, intellectual property may cease to be intellectual property at any time.
   
   This is a very significant difference, as it underscores the fundamental disagreement between people who call copyright violation "theft" and those who feel as I do that this is an egregious misuse of the language.
   
3. The case of unauthorized copying is not necessarily even illegal. If I own a DVD, for example, I have the legal right to make copies of it for personal use, whether in the form of an archival copy (burned DVD that I play while the original is safely locked in a closet), in the form of format shifting (ripping it to play on my iPod), and so on.
   
   Further, I have the legal right to have access to that content regardless of where I am or whether I am in possession of the physical media. After all, we purchase a license, not a copy. That means that if I'm at my uncle's house, I technically have the right to download a copy of that movie off of BitTorrent to watch it so long as I have a reasonable belief that nobody who has broken into my house is watching the physical copy on my shelf.
   
   This makes copyright violations a much, much more grey area than physical theft.

Be aware that I am not disagreeing with you that copyright violations are wrong. I am disagreeing with you that they are tantamount to theft. They are not. They are not even slightly similar in nature, and any argument that they are somehow similar inherently weakens the public's understanding of copyright law and the issues surrounding it, usually for the abusive, despotic purposes of the recording and/or movie industry (who regularly make fraudulent claims that most of the fair use rights I've mentioned in this post do not exist). That pisses me off greatly.

Please do not fall into the trap of calling copyright violation theft. It does nothing to strengthen your argument and allows greedy corporations to walk all over your rights and the rights of others.

 

[dgatwood]

STEALING IS STEALING no matter what you call it (SAMPLING)

You're kidding, right? Your rights to not have your material "stolen", as you put it, are defined by copyright law. Copyright law requires that for something to be protected, it has to be a significant amount of material. That means that preventing others from reusing small bits of your work is quite frequently outside the scope of your exclusive rights as a copyright holder, and therefore such use is not stealing.

There's a definite grey area about how much you can sample, and court cases span the gamut depending on whether it is an identifiable portion of the original work, whether the work is tarnished by association, etc., so it isn't in any way clear cut. If you sample, be prepared to defend yourself in court if the copyright owner isn't happy about it. That doesn't mean they'll necessarily win, though, just that if you can't afford the defense, you generally shouldn't risk it. Common sense.

In any case, claiming that sampling is the same thing as stealing is disingenuous and misleading at best, manipulative and harmful at worst, and wrong in general.

 

[jarrydee]

You're kidding, right? Your rights to not have your material "stolen", as you put it, are defined by copyright law. Copyright law requires that for something to be protected, it has to be a significant amount of material. That means that preventing others from reusing small bits of your work is quite frequently outside the scope of your exclusive rights as a copyright holder, and therefore such use is not stealing.

There's a definite grey area about how much you can sample, and court cases span the gamut depending on whether it is an identifiable portion of the original work, whether the work is tarnished by association, etc., so it isn't in any way clear cut. If you sample, be prepared to defend yourself in court if the copyright owner isn't happy about it. That doesn't mean they'll necessarily win, though, just that if you can't afford the defense, you generally shouldn't risk it. Common sense.

In any case, claiming that sampling is the same thing as stealing is disingenuous and misleading at best, manipulative and harmful at worst, and wrong in general.

Hey..stealing is stealing!!! It's not yours..you didn't make it..Just because you lack the ability to play chords on an instrument doesn't give you the right to STEAL someone Else's!! Go ahead and quote the copyright law...It don't matter..you are still taking something that's not yours!!

No money= people steal software
NO talent= people steal music!!

 

[mixsit]

Six years running. Not bad.

 

[dualflip]

Here's what I use alot... They are kick ass and free.
I think the neve eq's sound better than waves!!
http://antress.webng.com/

Just tried them, they are OK, the best is that they are free. But they are far from being a good reproduction of the original, i mean they sound pretty good, but i've seen better emulations. I'll say that the EQ's are on the more accurate side, but the compressors are like a whole different story from the original, ill need to make more tests. But Thanks once again for the tip

 

[dgatwood]

Hey..stealing is stealing!!! It's not yours..you didn't make it..Just because you lack the ability to play chords on an instrument doesn't give you the right to STEAL someone Else's!! Go ahead and quote the copyright law...It don't matter..you are still taking something that's not yours!!

According to the law, it is NOT stealing. You can play games with words all you want to, but ultimately it is the law that defines these terms, and the law does not consider copyright infringement to be a form of theft. It is a very different act as far as the law is concerned, and to use the same term only serves to confuse people who don't know any better.

Theft is a criminal matter. It is prosecuted by the state in criminal court. Copyright infringement is almost exclusively a civil matter. It is prosecuted by the aggrieved. It is therefore in the same class of offenses as breach of contract.

Stop calling a trowel a spade. Instead of contributing to the disinformation by mistakenly calling copyright violation "theft", how about arguing a point that actually has some validity, e.g. that copyright violation is wrong. You won't get any disagreement on that point from me.