The very REAL consequences of Music Software Piracy

[bayswater]

Maybe they've lost confidence in iLok and Pace and are going to do their own protection. Hope they work it out.

If you want another example of real effects of piracy, don't forget Elemental. They explicitly said in their "farewell letter" that they couldn't deal with the piracy. Too bad, I liked their stuff.

[Phil O]

There are indeed very real consequences of any theft. The real problem is getting people to understand, one that this is true, and two that it's really theft. The whole thing is so messed up.

Phil

[James Steele]

If you want another example of real effects of piracy, don't forget Elemental. They explicitly said in their "farewell letter" that they couldn't deal with the piracy. Too bad, I liked their stuff.

I used to own Passport Alchemy many years ago. It was pretty heady stuff watching it do it's thing over SCSI with my EPS 16+. It just gave me a real charge in its day! I recall something though that Passport (who also did Master Tracks Pro) ended up ceasing development on Alchemy because it had been so pirated, that the income it generated didn't justify further development. Hardware samplers ended up fading anyway, but the rumor I'd heard was that Alchemy met a premature death due to these guys:

[mess]

If they make enough noise that it forces MOTU/Apple/Digi to take notice and start pushing the envelope again, then I'm not mad. They obviously aren't cutting that far into anybody's market share.

Really? You must have missed the part about SOS's user survey and the DP-specific "Performer Notes" being reduced to 1/4, from monthly (12 times per year) down to quarterly (4 times per year), while Reaper was given a new monthly feature with great fanfare? I suggest that when you essentially give away a DAW, and ask for a voluntary license fee starting at $40, it's inevitable you gain market share?

And what sort of "pushing the envelope" is this supposed to encourage? The "price war" envelope? With the feature set of DAWs pretty mature these days, and limited room for "breakthrough," earth-shattering features, what will compel someone to spend $400, when they can spend $40 (or even nothing if they lack any ethics)?

How old is PureDSP?

Old. Not as old as built in pitch correction which works like a champ. And what is the point?

Okay, Sound on Sound, about that. DP has never been big overseas. DP is mostly viewed as the old man's scoring tool. I'm not surprised that a pub like SOS has cut down coverage. Reaper's user numbers are dictated by what, the number of downloads? People who paid $40? I doubt you could actually call that a user base. The low entry cost (as in ZERO) guarantees downloads strictly on a curiosity factor. It's also pretty big with the "tracker" crowd, which is largely European.

And on "pushing the envelope" I'm not referring to a "price war" because nobody is changing their prices over Reaper. I mean pushing the envelope for developers to realize they need solid, lean code that will SCREAM on the generation of 64-bit machines we are and will be seeing. DP is a long way from efficient. Maybe it pushes MOTU to implement some features to entice NEW users from the younger set of computer musicians out there? Doing so might help them turn the tide against the schools that have been replacing DP with Logic in their MIDI Labs and curriculum.

From what I've been told, DP's pitch correction relies on PureDSP. Go into Soundbite info and turn off PureDSP and then try to process pitch correction. Try to use pitch correction on something that ISN'T monophonic or has some kind of processing on it. How awesome does it sound then? Why is it that I have to take my audio OUT of DP to be manipulated?

I love DP and will continue using it, but I don't have any qualms about dabbling in other programs if they meet my creative needs and especially collaborative needs.

Back on topic - the new iLok should do a lot for future products, but I'm not sure of some of the smaller devs affected by this will be able to absorb this hit. So long as their aren't any major architecture changes to the OS the cracked versions are out there and will continue working. (It's nice that you'll finally be able to fit other auths on an iLok alongside a Waves Mercury bundle).

I actually saw a pretty successful artist on Twitter asking for serial numbers and key gens last week. The fact that they would openly discuss stealing from the companies that make their artistic endeavors possible made me sick to my stomach.

[James Steele]

Okay, Sound on Sound, about that. DP has never been big overseas. DP is mostly viewed as the old man's scoring tool. I'm not surprised that a pub like SOS has cut down coverage.

Right... only Sound On Sound has a U.S. edition and they sell magazines in the United States. Sorry, but I don't want European tastes dictating MY content if the magazine intends to do business here.

Reaper's user numbers are dictated by what, the number of downloads? People who paid $40? I doubt you could actually call that a user base. The low entry cost (as in ZERO) guarantees downloads strictly on a curiosity factor. It's also pretty big with the "tracker" crowd, which is largely European.

I think the user base for an essentially "FREE" DAW is large. And apparently so did SOS since they gave Reaper a monthly feature, that's 24 pages per year, shortly after cutting back DP from 24 to 8. So whatever you might think, that's the result.

And on "pushing the envelope" I'm not referring to a "price war" because nobody is changing their prices over Reaper. I mean pushing the envelope for developers to realize they need solid, lean code that will SCREAM on the generation of 64-bit machines we are and will be seeing. DP is a long way from efficient. Maybe it pushes MOTU to implement some features to entice NEW users from the younger set of computer musicians out there? Doing so might help them turn the tide against the schools that have been replacing DP with Logic in their MIDI Labs and curriculum.

As I said, I disagree entirely with your assertion that there are enticing new features that could level the playing field against a competent developer engaged in giving his product away in the market. I say "giving away" in the sense that they are utilizing NO copy protection whatsoever.

From what I've been told, DP's pitch correction relies on PureDSP. Go into Soundbite info and turn off PureDSP and then try to process pitch correction. Try to use pitch correction on something that ISN'T monophonic or has some kind of processing on it. How awesome does it sound then? Why is it that I have to take my audio OUT of DP to be manipulated?

Depends what you're trying to do I suppose and how good a vocalist, etc. is that you're starting with. But it's beside the point. DP's pitch correction algorithm isn't going to compete with a free DAW and it's hardly to blame for any slipping market versus Reaper, especially. How many DAWs actually have an Autotune style pitch correction function built in?

I love DP and will continue using it, but I don't have any qualms about dabbling in other programs if they meet my creative needs and especially collaborative needs.

Not saying one should or shouldn't. I'm discussing the effect of building a large user base by dumping a DAW on the market without CP, and CHEAP *IF* someone has the character enough to pay $40.

Back on topic - the new iLok should do a lot for future products, but I'm not sure of some of the smaller devs affected by this will be able to absorb this hit. So long as their aren't any major architecture changes to the OS the cracked versions are out there and will continue working.

I don't know if they can or can't. But I do fully support their decision not to release updates and upgraded product until it can be protected and kept from the clutches of the morons who will distribute it illegally.

I actually saw a pretty successful artist on Twitter asking for serial numbers and key gens last week. The fact that they would openly discuss stealing from the companies that make their artistic endeavors possible made me sick to my stomach.

Please send me a screenshot if you have it. I'd be happy to post it here and open up a topic. I also think we should start NAMING NAMES on people like this. You're protecting his/her identity. We should call those people out publicly. You should have screen captured the tweet and then sent it to news organizations if this person is famous enough. TMZ or something like that. These people should be brought out into the sunlight and shamed and ostracized until they change what they're doing.

[James Steele]

Here's another good post on the subject forwarded from Arthur at DAW-MAC:

There have been some very impassioned opinions elicited in response to
the original post. As someone with a bit more of an "inside view",
there a couple things I would like to share.

First off, I am not a copy protection apologist -- I have been openly
critical of onerous protection schemes and the tendency of companies
to overestimate the lost revenue while underestimating the cost, both
direct (engineering) and indirect (customer support, ill will). I
have voiced those concerns in open forums, behind the scenes at audio
companies, and directly to copy protection providers such as PACE many
times over the last 16 years.

But the original article dealt with the specific case of the events of
this summer, and the devastating impact on small plug-in companies.

As a contract developer who works with many different companies to
bring plug-ins to market, I have an inside view of what happened and
what the actual effects are. Here are a few things to think about:

- What happened this summer was dramatically different from past
cracks. Previous attacks generally made individual products freely
available but left others protected. This time -- with a few
exceptions -- every plug-in and any as-yet unreleased plug-ins, from
every manufacturer that uses PACE, were effectively free for the taking.

- Developers are not "crying over mythical lost sales". The month
after these cracking tools became available, sales fell off a cliff.
New products may sell or not depending on a wide range of factors, but
existing products have a fairly predictable and consistent revenue
stream. Those revenues fell precipitously for every plug-in company
impacted by the crack.

- There was no short-term fix. Unlike past incidents where companies
could move on with new releases using protection that patched the
security hole, there was no readily available fix. Only now, many
months later, is there a suitable alternative.

And here is the point of the article:

- Large companies can weather events like this; small ones can't.
While a few plug-in companies are behemoths like Waves, many are small
shops with handful or fewer employees. Having revenue drop to near
zero for six months is a death blow for them. I know of one company
virtually certain to close shop due to this, and several that are
hurting very badly.

- Many products that could have been, weren't. I have direct
knowledge, just in my corner of the plug-in world, of several
companies who pulled projects out of development at the last minute
because of the cracks. There are some very cool things that could
have been solving your problems and offering new sonic possibilities
-- but are now shelved indefinitely.


I don't like copy protection. But the reality is this: good products
require money to develop. College students and (and maybe trust fund
babies or dot-com lottery winners) may code for "Chinese food and RAM
and an occasional new preamp" but experienced programmers have
families and mortgages; modeling expensive gear means buying expensive
gear; producing more complex, more sophisticated products requires
more time and effort going into each product. Hiring a Bulgarian
college student to develop the next great thing in exchange for
General Tso's chicken and a Mike-E doesn't produce solid,
professional, state-of-the-art products.

The general state of the economy coupled with the chaotic
disintegration of the music marketplace has made times challenging for
everyone. It has made the "well, I can't afford it right now so I'll
use the pirated version... but I'll buy it for real later"
justification intoxicatingly tempting for many. Unfortunately, the
reality is that there is a tipping point: when too many people go that
route, the viability of small innovative developers disappears, and it
is exactly on that precipice we currently find ourselves.

I do hope that the article and ensuing discussion has at least made a
few folks pause before either using pirated software themselves or
turning a blind eye to it. This isn't developers saying "woe is me, I
can't afford a Ferrari for my summer house". This is folks saying:
"Users have stopped paying for plug-ins, and people have lost their
jobs." It isn't hyperbole or fear-mongering or propaganda... it's an
unpleasant fact.

And if anyone truly believes plug-ins without any form of copy-
protection at all can recoup their development cost, I invite you to
put your money where your mouth is. I'd be happy to discuss financing/
partnership deals on several projects I have sitting on the shelf.

Frank Filipanits
Cool Stuff Labs, Incorporated

[mess]

http://twitter.com/atrak/status/2817126914072578" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is Kanye West's tour DJ. A few days later he was asking for QuickBooks codes as well.

I sent along a heads up to a friend at Izotope about it.

[James Steele]

Good. Yeah the QuickBooks thing is brazen. I'm still using QuickBooks 2006 that I own LEGIT! I couldn't afford to upgrade. Never thought of twittering for a serial number!

[n2mpujack]

These last couple of posts remind me of when I started getting into Quake 3 and people were always looking for serial numbers and keygens on the Quake newsgroups. Bastards too cheap to pay for things

[Shooshie]

These last couple of posts remind me of when I started getting into Quake 3 and people were always looking for serial numbers and keygens on the Quake newsgroups. Bastards too cheap to pay for things

I don't know what's up with all of that. I always bought my kids the latest and greatest versions of Quake and dozens of other games. They'd STILL use the cracks. I'd ask why, and they'd just shrug their shoulders and say "I dunno." It's sort of like there's a culture of cool, and if you don't use a crack, you're not cool. I did my best to get them to install the real thing, but I couldn't always be watching and checking, and even if I did, how do you tell a crack from the real thing? If it's just some serial numbers they copy, then there's no real way of telling. But we're talking about kids who were 10 to 15 years old at the time, and they have their own world. The important thing is that I did buy it for them, and I did impress upon them my feelings about pirated software. I think they pay for things now that they're grown and seeing how the world works.

But that brings up another subject: what do you do about kids? Technically, my kids could have been prosecuted for using a crack, even on software they owned. I doubt that a judge would have convicted them for that reason, but sometimes they just decide to make an example out of someone. I mean, here are kids with the actual disks in hand, with actual serial numbers and everything. Irrationally, they're using a crack. Maybe it gave them access to some kind of super-duper weapon or treasure or secret level in the game. I don't know. But are we going to ruin children's lives -- seriously damaging them for the rest of their lives -- over something like that?

I also found them using Limewire for songs, even after I gave them access to my iTunes account and encouraged them to download anything they wanted. Why? I think because in their minds it was easier and faster. I disagree, of course; Limewire is in no way as fast as iTunes. But the reality was probably more like their friends were copying something at that very moment, and told them to get in on it. It's a social thing.

Contrary to my beliefs from 25 years ago, when copy protection seemed like a way of causing computers to crash needlessly, not to mention all other kinds of problems, I have been for many years now a complete believer in paying as you go. When I download a little utility or some other doodad, I immediately click the PayPal link and just get it over with. It takes all of about 1 minute extra, and from then on I get updates and everything, not to mention the goodwill of a happier developer who is on my side for having paid him.

BUT… as a father and a former leader of PTA's, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and just a local advocate for kids, I think we have to be able to sort out the criminals from the immature. It is never ok to ruin a kid's life for bad judgment on these matters, but it's probably time for software companies to start pooling their resources for international campaigns both on and off the net about how UNcool it is to pirate software, and how much it is hurting people who are just trying to make a living.

One thing to impress upon them is that pirating software from small companies is NOT "sticking it to the man." Another is to show them that when they do it, the long term effect is not to their benefit:

• fewer updates
• fewer new products
• more bugs
• little or no customer support
• smaller network games get closed down
• escalation of the protection/cracking cycle

If we can teach kids from a young age that piracy is no different than breaking into someone's house and stealing their food, clothes, money, and other possessions, and that it also means that one of their favorite hobbies -- programming -- will be closed to them as a profession because of other pirates just like them, then we may make some headway at this.

But when it comes to professionals, studios, companies, and others who do know better, and who make a conscious choice to steal and save themselves a buck or two, we've got to get serious about this and put a stop to it with tracking methods and severe penalties. This is something we should be considering when choosing our elected leaders, too. There are some foundations that are fighting piracy, and in some situations it's tricky territory with constitutional overtones -- when it comes to free speech issues, etc. -- so I suggest doing some research and finding organizations that you can support with a donation or two, and start doing more than talking about it, though talking is still imperative to spread the word.

Shooshie

[micihch]

If someone's interested in a more philosophical view (and with a broader scope) on the issues and implications of the "open" and "free" movement/culture, read the book by Jaron Lanier (you are not a gadget). A very good book (at least in my opinion) by one of the founders of digital technology, who changed his mind.

And he's also a musician, but I think he uses Logic;-)

One of his conclusions is that it takes almost a generation to sort out/change things like this, it's a cultural thing after all (change people's mind about paying for intellectual work etc).

Anyway, to me one of the best books in years...

[James Steele]

If someone's interested in a more philosophical view (and with a broader scope) on the issues and implications of the "open" and "free" movement/culture...

That's opposed to the culture of "thievery," right? Because what we're discussing isn't really a culture of "open" and "free," it's very clearly about theft, and I don't think it should be "dressed up" in nice words as if it's a movement. We're not talking in this thread about open source software, or public license or any of that. We're talking about the hard work and great investment in man hours and capital being stolen.

[richardein]

James,

I completely agree with your comments here, that there is a difference between "free as in beer" and "free as in 'I stole it'" (to vamp on a favorite motto of the open source folks). Likewise, I have no doubt that software piracy impacts the sales of products.

The question is, how much? The article that began this thread tells a terrible story about McDsp, but I'd like to know more about the sales falling off a cliff across the music software industry the month after iLok 1 was cracked.

Anyone publish the stats - ie, sales figures, charts of sales - on this (and I'm talking about properly reported and checked sales figures, not anecdotes or non-verifiable assertions)?

Three iLok-using companies with dramatically lower sales in the month after the hack would satisfy my interest.

To be absolutely crystal clear, I have no doubt that hacking the iLok affected sales. The question is: Precisely how much?

[mess]

I would imagine it would be pretty difficult to get any of these smaller devs to divulge their sales figures. These are mainly small, privately held shops that aren't likely to put their financials out there.

For these smaller developers a 30 percent hit to sales on back to back months could force them to make a decision on whether they can keep the lights on or not. The audio FX market is not that large and there is an apparent class structure. A company like Waves can absorb the hit much more easily than the likes of McDSP or URS.

[Phil O]

To be absolutely crystal clear, I have no doubt that hacking the iLok affected sales. The question is: Precisely how much?

It really shouldn't make a difference. Theft is theft. If convenience stores in some neighborhood are being robbed, should we have to ask exactly how much they got away with to determine the severity of the problem? Should other convenience stores not put locks on their doors because the thieves only got away with a few things in the last robbery? And what if it's Walmart? Not that big a deal because they can absorb it, right?

There is no justification for it. Theft is theft... is theft.

Phil