Not a deal - 8dio

[craigb]

59 minutes ago, paulo said:

They'll probably go straight to 10dio for some unexplained reason.

And then force everyone to upgrade...  Yeah.

[PavlovsCat]

TL;DR VERSION
I'd be interested if anyone who read the original VI Control attack thread that this thread is about thinks of 8Dio now? 

AN UPDATE TO THE STORY THIS THREAD IS ABOUT
We're getting close to a year away from the original VI-Control 8Dio attack thread. VI-Control's owner and sample developer, Mike Greene, has continued to go on off the rails, F-bomb-dropping, reputation attack rants in literally every 8Dio related thread (with one exception) on his forum,, even when he's aware that the allegations he's representing as fact are untrue. He clearly is obsessed with a vendetta against a competitor developer and is using his forum as a weapon to damage their reputation. Like this Cakewalk forum thread, there have been many threads on various forums, a subreddit, tweets and all sorts of conversations on the web that came out of the original attack thread and just days ago, when a composer on X shared that he liked at a SoundPaint (a division of 8Dio) library, someone replied that 8Dio is a bad company and linked to the VI-Control attack thread on 8Dio. 

VI-CONTROL'S OWNER DELETED  POSTS SHARING THE TRUTH ABOUT ONE OF THE KEY STORIES USED TO ATTACK 8DIO
Having known one of the stories told in the 8Dio attack thread was falsely presented by Greene's friend who told it, as I was the person he received advice from 13 years ago, I had posted the true story in the original attack thread. Mario and I had interacted in that thread to discuss the facts (a developer that brought me in to provide advice, still has notes and in has sent them to me electronically; as he put it, Troels and I are telling the story accurately). However, Greene quickly deleted all of our posts and sent me a PM telling me not to get involved in the thread and later privately disparaged 8Dio to me.  Greene later posted a lie that he didn't delete a single pro 8Dio post out of what he acknowledged where hundreds of posts he deleted. 

SARAH MANCUSO,  WHO STARTED THE ATTACK THREAD, NOW ADMITS SHE WASN'T WRONGED BY 8DIO, JUST UPSET THAT THEY DIDN'T  BUY HER UNCOMMISSIONED FAN PROJECT

Sarah Mancuso, the person who started the attack thread, now has stated that she wasn't wronged, that it was fair and "8Dio was well within their rights" to not purchase her decommissioned fan project she wanted them to buy for 5 -6 figures for a retired sample library.  Sarah acknowledges that while she used Cory Pelazzari as part of her attack, she never even attempted to reach out to him and never communicated with him at any point while she leveraged him for her vendetta attack. She also never once met, spoke with, PMed or emailed 8Dio's CEO, Tawnia Knox and when she referred to Tawnia as a phony, evil bitch, it was based on what Mike Greene's remarks to her about Knox. 

GREENE'S OBSESSIVE DEFAMATORY ATTACKS ON 8DIO SINCE THE ORIGINAL ATTACK THREAD CONTINUE ON VI-CONTROL AND VIA EMAIL 
Last week, I responded to one of Greene's recent rants against 8Dio where he cited the original attack thread claims and exploited Cory Pellazari in an attempt to legitimize his attacks (Mike actually knows some of the real story and despite claiming to be a friend of Cory has no relationship with him beyond using his name in attack rants). His attack started out ranting about 8Dio discounting their libraries too heavily. Greene wrote, that 8Dio is "leading a race to the bottom" regarding their pricing. Now let me share why many developers see Mike going on these rants as a conflict of interest.  Consider an 8Dio orchestral library where they've publicly shared that the total production costs totaled of $605, 500.  Then you have additional costs like royalties, marketing and distribution. A developer needs to sell a lot of units to recoup those costs.  So you can understand why a small developer who sells in very low volume, like Greene, is considered about a more successful developer lowering the prices on their libraries in the same marketplace. As Greene has stated in his rants, it makes it a lot harder for him to sell enough product to break even if he has to lower his prices dramatically. And that part of Greene's rants are understandable. However, using his forum to make attacks on competitors and then defaming those competitors, it's not only unethical, it makes other developers concerned they may be on his enemies list in the future. 



But Mike deleted all of my posts in that thread and deleted or edited his rants I was referencing, then moved all of my posts -- which are now completely out of context -- to their own thread, without his full rant posts I was referring to (he's edited out at least 50% of the rant post of his I quoted in my original post and has created a new post from his claiming that I'm making these posts out of the blue in reference to the original attack thread that began in Jan 2023. I wasn't. I was referring to Mike's attack rants in every single new thread on his forum that has been created since the original Jan 2023 attack thread. Here's an excerpt of one of Mike's rants that came after the original attack thread: 
 

Quote

"Their "race to bottom" pricing strategy is bad for the industry. It makes things difficult for those of us who are trying to invest in producing quality products and need to price them accordingly. In my own case, I'm over $160k in recording costs alone for our upcoming choir library. $160k. And that's before editing or advertising or licenses or paying myself for my time. Yet I guarantee someone will post on my Facebook ad that it's overpriced, because they got Requiem Pro for 35 bucks. Guaranteed. In fact, I got one of those yesterday on my Nightfall ad, as someone said it should be $39, because that's what Product X is.

It's not healthy for the industry, and from what I've heard, Troels and Tawnia don't give a flying f*ck. (Before they sic Amanda on me again, they're welcome to correct anything I'm saying. I won't delete anything they post.) They've got a large catalog they can keep drawing from, so it will be a while before that well runs dry.

I might add that a year and a half ago, Tawnia told us (here) that 8dio wouldn't be doing sales like this anymore. But ... did anyone really believe her? I didn't, which is why I bookmarked the post.

So yes, I get really pissed off seeing that 8dio Flash Sale thread day after day, bumped to page one of Latest Posts, cycling blowouts on the same damn products (you know they're being repeated, right?) with the same damn discussions, over and over and over. Making a mockery of the companies I do respect.

F*ck that. And especially f*ck anyone who threatens Cory Pelizzari, who is one of the nicest guys I know."

FTR, the lawyer that Mike claimed 8Dio "sicked on them" is actually a friend of his, or maybe it's more accurate to say, his friend's wife and she was friendly with him, as he later made a post to state. 

Mike then sent me a transparently manipulative email libeling 8Dio's CEO, trying to persuade me to not like her which I replied to cc'ing her. His email showered me with praise calling me a good guy, praising my character, ethics and "heart of gold" before he launching into the reason for his correspondence,  character attacks on 8Dio's CEO, Tawnia Knox. He proceeded to attack 8Dio's CEO as a deceitful woman of poor character and a manipulator. His email reads like something out of the script for Meangirls. It's juvenile, petty. manipulative at a level an 8th grader can discern. The basic premise is that everyone hates 8Dio's CEO and I should too and he doesn't want them at his forum or to see me make a case defending them on his forum. 

While Greene's defamatory public remarks against Knox are that she can't handle criticism and is litigious and claims that he's merely defending his good friend Cory (who, in reality, he's never even corresponded with). Mike knows that he can't use that narrative with me because he's aware that I've posted a number of savage reviews on sample libraries, including several very harsh reviews of 8Dio libraries that Tawnia has seen and never once asked or even hinted that she would like me to edit or delete them. Consequently, Mike takes a different approach to attack his competitor with me, he claims that she's a phony and everyone hates her. From Mike's email to me: 

"Again, I’m not trying to convince that I’m in the right about any of the 8dio drama.  None of that matters at this point.  I’m just speaking to you as a friend, who I believe has been taken advantage of....Ask yourself this: If you were at ask people...' He goes on to praise his and my character and make defamatory remarks about Ms. Knox. 

The case Greene made in the original VI-Control attack thread on 8Dio was that the company's leaders cannot handle criticism and are litigious. Greene's new narrative in his email is that 8Dio's CEO is an evil manipulator and Mike, for some reason,  really cares what I think of her. It's unhinged and unethical. I'm not a lawyer, but I am pretty sure Greene's posts and emails are libelous.  One thing is certain,  it's unethical. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by PavlovsCat