IAMLFO wrote:Hey James,
When I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
I totally get where you are coming from and agree with your actions 80%.
Adam did post that he got the producer file, that is copyrite material and therefore should not have been obtained. I don't know how he got it. It could have been a file sharing site or it could have been from someone with DP. You assume the former, I'm not going to assume either way.
I do not think that I said anything assuming it was a torrent site. I think I mentioned there was also the possibility that he might have obtained it through a DP user who sent it to him.
I looked and cannot find any evidence that Adam posted the producer file anywhere. Where did you see this? If he did, that is clearly out of bounds. I'm going to assume innocence before guilt.
Look earlier in this thread. Scott Stillwell who is a moderator already redacted the link that he posted. I saved a Safari webarchive of the thread so here's a screenshot:
I left the link intact because it looks like the files have (wisely) been removed. Adam clearly states it is a zip "with all of the theme elements from the DP app folder..."
For what it is worth, the reaction at the Reaper forum has been what I think you would want to see. If Adam posted the graphic material, (it is not clear if it had been or not)he has been told that he was out of bounds. In other words, the Reaper moderator made it clear that is a no-no.
That doesn't surprise me as I think it's fairly obvious to the moderator that this is something you can't do. I also wrote to the moderator last night making it clear that I was not an employee of MOTU, or a representative of theirs, but simply a third party observer and that there were copyright violations taking place.
There was an interesting discussion about the situation and it might surprise you to hear that overall the feedback about you and MOTUNation was positive. Not that you were going to lose sleep over it, but for what it is worth. Also, Reaper users also made a case of why UI content should not be taken and re-used, no one dissented this, though a few had a `what's the big deal?' mindset.
Well, we sort of needed to explain what the "big deal" was for people who didn't quite understand. Seems like that's been done. As I said, if Adam had just not been so public about it, or posted the elements online, little would have come of it.
Two quotes from Adam:
Anyways, I have not and do not intend to use any of the actual Digital Performer graphics, even if I wanted to they don't fit in the Reaper UI and aren't designed to, I was merely looking for better reference material than the one small cropped graphic on the MOTU website because I liked the color balance and thought I would take a stab at making a theme for Reaper that had the same sort of vibe.
The entire goal was to maintain almost the exact same theme style as the default Reaper theme, just with a color balance closer to what I saw in the DP theme that caught my eye. Every single element is either from the Reaper default theme or concocted from scratch (ie the toolbar buttons, the base I created from scratch and used WT's overlay masks for each button image). The only exception is the faders which I borrowed from RADO and made some small tweaks and changed the colors.
Hence, I think what could have avoided all the mess is if he had shared this information on his original post.
Adam can say whatever he wishes to at this point. I can't take it at face value because he (or someone) has removed the PNG resources taken directly from DP that he had posted for others to have, so clearly he understands this was not smart or most likely legal. Further, I know my way around Photoshop. There's something called "Scale." Granted not all elements would fit exactly with Reaper, but if you're close you simply select and change them by scaling them or by modifying. It saves a lot of time that way.
But, really what Adam said about not using any elements directly (see bold text in quote above) is clearly not true and he himself posted proof of this. Below is another screenshot taken of Adam's own post in the thread. Look at the screenshot from DP and look at Adam's Reaper theme.
Look at the fader caps. Clearly they are the SAME EXACT GRAPHIC and not made "from scratch" as Adam asserts. I'll make this easier:
Perhaps instead of going the PM route you could have just responded to the post and made it clear that content would not be provided by you, nor should it be by anyone else.
And just because I "say" it shouldn't be provided, everyone on this board is going to go along lock-step with that?
Already in this thread you can see that there are DP users who also don't think it's any big deal. Deleting the request was the only way to make sure that nobody would send him screen shots or even Theme bundles from DP itself.
I still bristle at the generalizations made about Reaper users. They are as unfair as it is unfair when people say that DP is an outdated, has been program with a tiny user base. People make it sound like Reaper users are all questionable sorts that only want things for free. I'm a Reaper user, I am a *huge* advocate of opensource, freeware and shareware. But I don't expect anything for free. I have paid for and keep updated Cubase, DP, Logic and now Reaper (twice!). I have never (as in never) used a piece of pirated software for audio and have not used a pirated piece of software at all since about 1984. Piracy is stealing.
Good for you. We agree. All I have ever said is that I assert, and this is my OPINION, that a significant percentage of the Reaper user base has not paid for it. That is my opinion based solely on my personal experience with how widespread music software piracy is.
I get that Reaper represents a new train of thought and a new economic model, but that doesn't mean it is either bad or wrong, though it could be bad for competitors that don't adjust.
Or you mean established competitors that CAN'T adjust. Competitors who have larger overhead, larger payrolls, bigger operations than the fellows that are putting out Reaper?
Is Reaper undercutting other DAWs to get market share? Could be. Or it could be that, in the spirit of opensource it is keeping its cost low for the benefit of its users. A little pressure on competitors is useful for us consumers.
Useful up until the point that if the respective developers were forced to remove copy protection from Cubase or Digital Performer and then ask users who downloaded the app then to "pretty please" pay either $60 (or $225 if they're exceptionally honest) for it after they have a fully functioning copy, they might go out of business. That of course doesn't apply to Logic since revenue from Logic sales probably pays for janitorial services at One Infinite Loop. They could and someday may just give it away. Be interesting to see what would happen to Reaper's loyal user base if Apple dumped Logic on the market?
For instance, I think the upgrade price for Ethno Instrument is a full on rip-off. I'll never upgrade it. If MOTU feels some pressure to back off on prices to a degree then good for us consumers! If they need to generate more revenue then let them get creative and find new revenue avenues. I don't feel sorry for them because they didn't feel sorry for me when I shelled out $199 for DP 6, a *horrible* release. Same goes for Cubase 4.
Well then you have two options. You can simply decided not to upgrade. If enough Ethno users do that, MOTU will get the message. The other option is to go to Cuckos I suppose and ask them to make a huge investment in a sample library and then develop their own plug-in that's equal or better than Ethno, and then have them make this "Cuckos Ethno" and its library freely downloadable with no copy-protection so they can look like good guys. I can't wait to see how that would work out for them financially.
Oh, I learned something today also. Reaper is *not* free. I installed it on this laptop and the evaluation box pops up and the first thing it says is, and I quote `Reaper is not free'. It then goes on to describe pricing and that the version being used is a fully functional evaluation until it is paid for.
Nobody here... myself included ever said it was
FREE. What we have suggested is it
may as well be free. As Fernando has mentioned, in Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, and other parts of the world, that little notice telling you to pay after 30 days means NOTHING. Not sure if they have a "nag screen" or not, but a non-time limited, fully-functional demo is, for a large number of unethical people or people whose local culture doesn't respect intellectual property, essentially FREE. There is no realistic expectation of consequences for those who choose NOT to pay and keep using the app. It is on the HONOR system, and in the world of music software if you simply look around at all the places using cracked plugs, HONOR is in short supply.
So, in short, the Reaper community is not the stereotype that it is being labeled with. Some are freeloaders to be sure, but so are DP (or Cubase or Logic) users running cracked versions of the software. Why people look down upon the Reaper community is beyond me. I went in with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised with the product and the people.
I appreciate your opinions, Kevin. I really do. And I think this has been a valuable discussion. Agree with me or not, so long as Cuckos makes a fully-functional app available for download all over the world, with no copy-protection which does not time-out after the 30 days in which you are supposed to pay, there will always be a cloud over the user base in my mind. That is to say, how much of the user base that SOS has recently started catering to actually PAID for the software and how many are PIRATES. Because of the non-existant copy-protection, I suggest that it is VERY safe to assume that Reaper has the largest percentage of PIRATES to PAID USERS of any DAW on the market.
I cannot fathom how someone can have an opinion on something they don't know anything about. *shrug* `The toy' has produced a huge amount of great music out there by the likes of Scott and Kenny Gioia. Without wanting to sound rude, that kind of close-mindedness drives me nuts. But to each his own.