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by experimedia » Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:38 pm
In all honesty I have watched over the many years, pirated software feed and contribute to the growth of the industry. 50% of most people who now buy and support audio software development got into all of this because they first came across a pirated version of cubase, or fruity loops, or acid, or what have you.
I guarantee even some of the abes even started out this way as well as a good percentage of the members of the board and now legal ableton owners/customers.
A while back there was an interview with one of the founders of the Radium cracking team. He claimed that on occasion a software developer would contact him requesting that they not crack and release their software which he would agree to. He went on to say that after several months the developer would contact him again saying that their sales had been very low in comparison to other similar products on the market that did have warezed copies floating around and that he felt it was because no one had heard about it because there weren't warezed copies floating around to get people interested.
I also think the Abletons know this but have found a way to use this to their advantage with some savvy copy protection code that allows the copy to be used for a few months, getting the user hooked, and then locking up on them causing them to either purchase Ableton or completely reformat.
I feel that so far uncrackable software such as Halion 3 will suffer in sales because of this.
But in all honesty I doubt someone within Ableton is directly involved in the software being cracked in such short time. 98% of all software on the market, especially software from the major companies, can be found pirated, the day after or sometimes the of its release. The warez scene is rather organized. Same thing goes with movies. You can usually find a shitty copy of a film the day after its major theater release. Sometimes even before.
I am not justifying or defending using pirated software. Just trying to point out that it has in fact contributed to the growth of the industry. Not every person that uses a pirated version of software follows the 'try before you buy' motto. But many do.
I will say with no shame, that if it weren't for the audio warez of yesteryear I wouldn't be a paying customer and supporter of the scene today. Everyone has to start somewhere and when you are a young teenager too young to work with nothing but a computer, stereo, and internet connection chances are your parents aren't going to shell out $100's of dollars to buy you some piece of software. But chances are those young kids downloading warezed software today, will turn into paying customers when they can start working and earning a decent living. Some of them may even be the next Aphex Twin, Native Instruments, or even Ableton.
You can criticize my statements all you want, complaining how its not fair to paying customers, but I know my points are valid, and in the end I feel it is all part of a cycle that only benefits everyone involved from the developers to the customers.
Last edited by
experimedia on Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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