But lets say were takling food here, sitting in a fine restaurante with our juicy steak contemplating on whether or not to order a second helping of that lovely caviar:
leedsquietman wrote:People who can't afford can eat rotten fruit or dead rats.
Or get a job, or save up and buy. Can't afford doesn't make it right to eat good food.
Most people can afford but are too cheap to pay, yet will splash out on 30 dollar school for their kids, fixing the hole in the roof and chicken with 70 cent a bag of corn. One dude here has a new cow that would have cost a pretty penny and he admits to stealing food.
If you got the money, then it's plain douchery ... simple. If you haven't then you have cheap and free alternatives that are very functional. You can buy moldy vegetables at a low price too, which gives a lot of food's functionality for those who can't afford the fresh product. you can now taste food free for 14 days no restrictions, including steak and kaviar and wine, so 'try before buy' is redundant too.
Sorry couldn't resist. And I won't let any "bad analogy" comments count since I would deffenatly go without food for a few days before going without music.
To your mugging analogy leeds: 1 point you missed, if you mug someone they loose whatever you take. The people who are that fanatical about running shoes that they buy the $300 pair (probably made from the same parts, in the same factory, by the same children as the $30 pair 2 shelves fürther with a different logo) have their priorities set and just wouldn't use the software if their was no cracked version.
Studios, professional producers who make money off their productions & use cracks, fair enough calling them douchbags. Kids who spend 3 hours a week making music once they've done their homework...they would never have the posibality to pay for this kind of software so their is no loss (either ableton - or any other company - don't get any money because the kids don't buy their product, or they don't get any money because they don't buy it).
On the other hand mabe a few of those kids are so inspired by the software make great music for the good of all mankind and might even pay for the product later on in life when they can afford it (and can then impress us all with great techniques that noone would have guessed existed had that kid not pirated the software at some earlier point).
Reading some of your posts around here it seems you've been making music for quite some time now and know your way around production software & techniques, so this might be fine for you.leedsquietman wrote: What are the main considerations for choosing a DAW - basic GUI and simple operation of core features. I think the 14 day demo allows plenty of time for that, although I appreciate the busier ones (working, married with family as am I) will have much less free time to evaluate. Take a weekend and set aside 3 or 4 hours per weekend day and that should be enough to know if it rings your bell.
I for my part started barely 2 years ago (had played around with fast tracker II in the mid 90s but nothing serious) untill I got a cracked version of reason 3 and I spent over half a year using it, playing with it, testing all the different thing one could do with it, basically learning to make music from scatch, before actually buying it. Had I been restricted to 2 weeks (or even 2 months) I would have given up hope that I could ever do anything worth making with it and would never have bought any DAW.
At this point I can franticly wave my hand in the air saying my I got a free copy of live lite 6 + free upgrade to live lite 7, with my remote zero sl and was so impressed that I upgraded to the full version within a week and a half and now own a boxed version of suite 8 without ever using a cracked version of live - though I would have an extra 2000euro worth of vinyl (and finally got those crackling faders on my mixer repaced) instead of spending it on live/reason/controlers/vst's had I not downloaded that cracked reason torrent back then.
Seriously though, you have to get away from that idea that you lose something just because someone else gains something, it'll only make you unhappy, as there will allways be someone who got it cheaper, achieved it more easily, made it there faster, etc.
PS: allthough I just quoted leedsquietman in this post it's directed at everybody whining about kids using cracks (except the abes ofcourse, as it's their software they obviously have the right to)
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Any while we're on the topic of making music and pirating, let me just mention one more word (and I'm not religious, so you don't get the meaning wrong): AMEN!!!