Subscribe to Impact Soundworks newsletter then unsubscribe for an 80% off discount code.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

1 hour ago, Carl Ewing said:

Just checked through a torrent site - virtually every Kontakt library is available, and Kontakt is fully cracked, just like it was 15 years ago...including Kontakt 7. Meaning any library built for Kontakt 1-7 will be totally piratable (word?).

What's interesting is that the only products I see from developers who have their own proprietary players (Orchestral Tools, Spitfire, etc.) are the Kontakt versions. For example, all Kontakt version of OT libraries are on torrent sites. I'm sure that was a motivation for some of those devs to get away from Kontakt - too many resources devoted to cracking all things NI. 

In practice, trying to fight piracy with anti-piracy measures is a losing game in most cases. Eventually, your carefully crafted scheme is circumvented and you have to divert more money and resources towards that instead of improving the product...And that's when you don't develop measures which harm legitimate customers because the crack outright bypasses the measure, or removes encryption schemes which cause performance overhead and so on.

Looking at how much money Native Instruments makes per year, I question if piracy is really harming them. Or other large companies. Not that I'm advocating for piracy, but you gotta question at which point software issues are either piracy or an excuse used by companies to justify lack of improvements and such.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Bruno de Souza Lino

[Paul P]

I wonder what the point is to worry about piracy.

It's not as if people insensitive enough to steal from others will suddenly start paying for software if piracy is no longer possible.

And what could pirates possibly produce with their loot that would be of any value to humanity.

[jngnz]

14 minutes ago, Paul P said:

I wonder what the point is to worry about piracy.

It's not as if people insensitive enough to steal from others will suddenly start paying for software if piracy is no longer possible.

And what could pirates possibly produce with their loot that would be of any value to humanity.

You should hear the amazing rap tracks I produced in 2002 with my cracked Waves Mercury.

[PavlovsCat]

4 hours ago, Paul P said:

I wonder what the point is to worry about piracy.

It's not as if people insensitive enough to steal from others will suddenly start paying for software if piracy is no longer possible.

And what could pirates possibly produce with their loot that would be of any value to humanity.

I largely agree, but there are some things that sample developers know that may surprise you. I think it's been more than a decade now, but there was some very high profile composers that were caught using pirated libraries and in one high profile case, that I believe went to court, a composer had his staff illegally sharing his licenses on their computers. The big surprise there was that some well known composers engage in using pirated sample libraries and/or intentionally violate license agreements. 

Although, no doubt, that doesn't represent the average person using pirated sample libraries or plugins. I've long tried to persuade sample developers that I've known to prioritize the user experience over obsessing about piracy. I'm not a fan of developers who sacrifice a better user experience for their obsession with believing they can make their work uncrackable. I also resent when their obsession with that intentionally makes for a poorer user experience plus adds significant costs for legitimate users. Piracy sucks, but as a legitimate user, I don't feel good about it negatively impacting my experience or resulting in my having to pay for dongles-- something purely at my expense because of a developer's obsession. That's just my opinion.  I realize some folks will disagree.  

Edited June 23, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

13 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

Although, no doubt, that doesn't represent the average person using pirated sample libraries or plugins. I've long tried to persuade sample developers that I've known to prioritize the user experience over obsessing about piracy. I'm not a fan of developers who sacrifice a better user experience for their obsession with believing they can make their work untraceable. I also resent when their obsession with that intentionally makes for a poorer user experience plus adds significant costs for legitimate users. Piracy sucks, but as a legitimate user, I don't feel good about it negatively impacting my experience or resulting in my having to pay for dongles-- something purely at my expense because of a developer's obsession. That's just my opinion.  I realize some folks will disagree.  

The sad part is, making your software inconvenient to use and activate legitimately actually encourages people to pirate it in some cases. Several groups use that as "sales pitch" to why their cracked version is better, citing how much less memory it uses because of how measures are circumvented, encryption schemes deactivated and so on.

But I think the biggest middle finger to intrusive anti-piracy measures can be demonstrated in two scenarios:

- When Ubisoft wanted to make a digital distribution version of Tom Clancy: Rainbow Six Vegas 2, they forgot they had anti-piracy measures in place and were stumped to find several people locked out of their legitimate copies because of it. While they tried to remove the measure as good as they could, they failed and the only solution was for them to use a cracked version of the game as the official release.

- Rockstar used a cracked version of Max Payne 2 for the Steam release because they were either too lazy to remove the measure or couldn't do it.

 

[antler]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I think it's been more than a decade now, but there was some very high profile composers that were caught using pirated libraries and in one high profile case, that I believe went to court, a composer had his staff illegally sharing his license on their computers (so that was about misusing his license).

But how did anyone know? It's not like you can listen to a score and know whether the libraries used were licensed.

 

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm not a fan of developers who sacrifice a better user experience for their obsession with believing they can make their work uncrackable.

I remember when a certain orchestral sequence library required a special unlock file beyond a (quite large) number of starts. The process of getting one wasn't that painful, and once you had it you could use it forever. But the lack of transparency on the website caused quite a panic. In the following library of the series, that mechanism had been dropped.

[PavlovsCat]

10 hours ago, antler said:

But how did anyone know? It's not like you can listen to a score and know whether the libraries used were licensed.

I don't recall how the developer found out, I think one of the composer's employees reported it (I could ask the developer who told me; I definitely remember the first person who told me about the situation and lawsuit; but I don't think it's worth bugging him for the trip down memory lane). But it was a well known developer and it eventually was reported by Sound on Sound and other industry publications. Still, I don't want to say names. I learned about it from a couple of developers I had consulted to prior to the news coverage. One developer explained to me how it had long been rumored that some major film composers who had staff that completed their compositions. Candidly, until that point, I had no idea that this is the way that some of the most successful composers work (that is, by coming up with a motif and passing it on the employees to flesh out). Candidly, that was far more interesting to me than the piracy issue, and a bit creatively problematic (just my opinion) than their bad ethics with sample libraries.

People find all sorts of convoluted ways to justify bad behavior (relating to how people justify piracy), but I always assumed that when I heard a movie soundtrack by a specific composer that the composer actually did the entirety of the work of creating that composition. So, it was during that whole major composer piracy lawsuit that I became aware of how many big name composers workflows really work. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[PavlovsCat]

Okay, I just googled it and there's a thread from back when from VI Control (the link in the OP to the news article no longer works).  But this was the case I was talking about, Cinesamples. And long before it went to trial, the sample developer community was discussing it and there was very famous film composers NOT NAMED in the lawsuit that developers claimed had been using pirated sample libraries and violated license agreements. 

Also, I had written it was more than a decade ago, just guessing from memory. It turns out it was 11 years ago. Not so bad. 

Hmm... Cakewalk won't allow me to share the link to VI Control. If you're interested in finding it, the title is "Cinesamples Awarded $379,050 in Digital Piracy Case." 

Edited June 23, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[antler]

7 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I don't think it's worth bugging him for the trip down memory lane

You're right - don't worry about it.

8 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I had no idea that this is the way that some of the most successful composers work (that is, by coming up with a motif and passing it on the employees to flesh out)

I'd heard that too - can't remember where or who though. It must suck to be a ghost-writer non-voluntarily.

[Paul P]

3 hours ago, jngnz said:

You should hear the amazing rap tracks I produced in 2002 with my cracked Waves Mercury.

Yeah, but so what ?  Does anybody really care ?

People steal cars.  If they were really easy to steal and not get caught, I still wouldn't steal one.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

20 minutes ago, Paul P said:

People steal cars.  If they were really easy to steal and not get caught, I still wouldn't steal one.

When you steal someone's car, that person no longer has ownership of that car. Pirating software is simply copying without authorization from whoever owns the IP. Waves doesn't magically lose property of their Mercury bundle simply because you downloaded a cracked copy off torrent or a site.

Likening piracy to stealing is like claiming athlete's foot is an ear infection.

[PavlovsCat]

On 6/23/2023 at 4:42 PM, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

Likening piracy to stealing is like claiming athlete's foot is an ear infection.

That statement is plainly objectively false.  The term piracy originally applied to high seas theft. I suspect your issue is that this is intellectual property and not physical property,  so it's a bit more complex. But it is inherently theft. Here's Websters Dictionary's related definition of "piracy": 

Definition

1: an act of robbery on the high seas

also : an act resembling such robbery

2: robbery on the high seas

3a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright

b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

Without getting too academic,  yes, because intellectual property theft in the case of software piracy isn't restricted to the original version of something that doesn't make it excluded  from being theft. 

I believe that your real point is that damages are more severe in the case of physical property theft. I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison,  and I think it greatly discounts the ethics problems with software piracy, so here is a point I'd make. And to be clear,  I'm not some great champion of rampant capitalism at all costs, I am just convey, at a basic level,  that piracy has impacts upon revenue, business operations, and employment, as well as touch on the fundamental ethically problematic aspects of it -- as numerous posters have referenced  the ethics of pirating. 

So, yes, likening the magnitude of someone using a pirated copy of a plugin doesn't seem on the same scale as someone stealing your beloved personal possession. However,  consider the cases of pro composers using pirated sample libraries and misusing their license resulting in a developer missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue that would have been used to pay back investors on an orchestral sample library, the developer's employees and then there are the various independent contractors that worked on the library who often have royalty agreements that provide them a cut of sales (musicians, engineers, coders, etc). 

So while intellectual property theft -- which includes software piracy-- isn't identical to physical property theft, it's still theft and it has negative impacts on peoples' lives. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by PavlovsCat

[MusicMan]

1 hour ago, PavlovsCat said:

That statement is plainly objectively false.  The term piracy originally applied to high seas theft. I suspect your issue is that this is intellectual property and not physical property,  so it's a bit more complex. But it is inherently theft. Here's Websters Dictionary's related definition of "piracy": 

Definition

1: an act of robbery on the high seas

also : an act resembling such robbery

2: robbery on the high seas

3a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright

b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

Without getting too academic,  yes, because intellectual property theft in the case of software piracy isn't restricted to the original version of something that doesn't make it excluded  from being theft. 

I believe that your real point is that damages are more severe for property theft. I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison,  and I think it greatly discounts the ethics problems with software piracy, so here is a point I'd make. And to be clear,  I'm not some great champion of rampant capitalism at all costs, I am just explaining the basics of how this commerce and  business ethics operate. 

So, yes, likening the magnitude of someone using a pirated copy of a plugin doesn't seem on the same scale as someone stealing your beloved personal possession. However,  consider the cases of pro composers using pirated sample libraries and misusing their license resulting in a developer missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue that would have been used to pay back investors on an orchestral sample library, the developer's employees and then there are the various independent contractors that worked on the library who often have royalty agreements that provide them a cut of sales (musicians, engineers, coders, etc). 

So while intellectual property theft -- which includes software piracy-- isn't identical to physical property theft, it's still theft and it has negative impacts on peoples' lives. 

I agree with a lot of what you've written here, but from what I've seen over the years, the people that pirate software, libraries and samples were never going to buy them, they would just find legally free, or other cracked alternatives.

I don't use (or advocate) any pirated software and that's a personal choice, but when considering the damages of piracy, it's often not the same and somewhat implied, when there likely wasn't ever going to be a positive aspect from these consumers as they were never going to spend the money anyway.

Just another perspective ✌️

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

That statement is plainly objectively false.  The term piracy originally applied to high seas theft. I suspect your issue is that this is intellectual property and not physical property,  so it's a bit more complex. But it is inherently theft. Here's Websters Dictionary's related definition of "piracy": 

Definition

1: an act of robbery on the high seas

also : an act resembling such robbery

2: robbery on the high seas

3a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright

b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals

Sure. Let's see the definitions for stealing then:

1:  to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice

2: to come or go secretly, unobtrusively, gradually, or unexpectedly

3: to steal or attempt to steal a base

Are you gonna tell me these two are the same thing? Sure, robbing and stealing are synonyms, but not when you refer to software piracy, whose definition is well explained in 3a and b of the bit of text you copied from Merriam Webster. And that pretty much goes in line with what I said in my post.

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

Without getting too academic,  yes, because intellectual property theft in the case of software piracy isn't restricted to the original version of something that doesn't make it excluded  from being theft. 

The problem with that statement is that theft is defined legally in many places as "depriving someone else the use of an item by physically removing it from them." Infringing someone else's copyright is not that. And this is a bad idea which was proposed by anti-piracy movements across the years. If you think piracy is as bad as theft, fair enough. That's your opinion. Now, saying that piracy is theft creates a disconnect because if piracy is so bad, why do they and we have to pretend it is something else?

Which goes back to my post. For example, you might think having an ear infection is as bad as having athlete's foot. But if you say "athlete's foot is an ear infection," people will probably look at you weird and not borrow any creams and ointments from you.

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

So, yes, likening the magnitude of someone using a pirated copy of a plugin doesn't seem on the same scale as someone stealing your beloved personal possession. However,  consider the cases of pro composers using pirated sample libraries and misusing their license resulting in a developer missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue that would have been used to pay back investors on an orchestral sample library, the developer's employees and then there are the various independent contractors that worked on the library who often have royalty agreements that provide them a cut of sales (musicians, engineers, coders, etc). 

Are you seriously gonna tell me not paying someone money you owe and stealing money from them are the same thing?

2 hours ago, PavlovsCat said:

So while intellectual property theft -- which includes software piracy-- isn't identical to physical property theft, it's still theft and it has negative impacts on peoples' lives. 

Never said it didn't. I just think people have to call software piracy for what it actually is instead of riding on the RIAA and MPAA train of calling everyone thieves and likening software piracy to theft. You're not gonna get people to understand what they're doing has negative effects by calling everyone a criminal.

 

[Fleer]

La propriété, c'est le vol !

[Paul P]

Is this a generational thing ?

I brought up my two daughters and we bought all the songs that we each listened to while everyone else was happily stealing them and passing them around.

And they were, what, 1$ each ?

So just because something is easy to steal by copying, it's no longer theft.  Weird.

[Last Call]

I bought Cubase 12 Elements, I feel robbed.

I bought an M1 Macbook Air, I feel robbed.

I bought Spitfire Hans Zimmer piano, I feel raped.

I can't return either.

Where is justice for me?

I bet there are lots of people unhappy about software they purchased, and they aren't going to see their money back. Ever.

This situation goes both ways.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Last Call

[Carl Ewing]

8 hours ago, Paul P said:

Yeah, but so what ?  Does anybody really care ?

People steal cars.  If they were really easy to steal and not get caught, I still wouldn't steal one.

If I could download a car I would totally do it. Often. Quite often actually.

But I always found that "you wouldn't steal a car would you?" kinda funny. As if duplicating a digital file is the same as duplicating a car. If duplicating a car was easy as pirating a Game of Thrones episode, literally half the world would have a Ferrari, and an entire new department of government would be formed to investigate the illegal use of the Star Trek replicator.

 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[Carl Ewing]

2 hours ago, Paul P said:

Is this a generational thing ?

I brought up my two daughters and we bought all the songs that we each listened to while everyone else was happily stealing them and passing them around.

And they were, what, 1$ each ?

So just because something is easy to steal by copying, it's no longer theft.  Weird.

There's a reason a totally an obscure company from Sweden ended up taking over the music industry. Or why a company that didn't exist prior to 2000 took over television and movies (for a period). Both Netflix and Spotify were answers to industries  that weren't giving customers what they wanted, despite the technology being available.

While people were yelling at each other about piracy, a couple companies were like "hmm, maybe we should just give people what they want: convenience. Every movie and every song you could ever want on one platform, with one app, at the click of a button, on demand." If The Pirate Bay would have charged $9.99/mo for access to their tracker list, they would have been as big as Netflix. It wasn't about piracy. It was never about "free". It was about convenience. People would have paid for it.  

How the movie, television and music industry never figured this out, and instead tried to fight their consumers by putting artificial & obsolete roadblocks in their path, is amazing. Both of these 100+ year old industries got their ***** handed to them by companies that either didn't exist (Spotify, Netflix) or had nothing to do with either industry (Apple) prior to digital piracy. It's incredible how that happened. But a great lesson in idiocy.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Carl Ewing

[Carl Ewing]

11 hours ago, MusicMan said:

the people that pirate software, libraries and samples were never going to buy them, they would just find legally free, or other cracked alternatives.

You are flat out wrong about this. Almost every studio and every colleague I've ever met in the music business has used or still uses pirated software. Same applies to graphic design and video work. This can be everything from full scale libraries to preset packs, loop packs to effects. In design it's effects packs, fonts, full design programs, brushes, textures, clip art, and on and on. See it all the time. And these are studios that spend 10s of thouands on software every year. 

Why do they do this? Some of it is habit - always that nerdy engineer guy who has a portable harddrive filled with pirated shit. This guy is in every studio - everyone knows that guy. Other reason is trying out full products (like full sample libraries) before paying for it. Again - I see this happen all the time in large commercial studios.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Carl Ewing