Ableton Forum

I could never be a cop. Politics and law are memes that I will never fully acclimate myself with. Theres no intellectual aspect or finesse to law and politics. It's corruption and bad code.

Funny I went from hardware to software.
Did my research.
Asked in a multitude of forums.
Got very good instore demo's at certain places.
Sold ALL my gear .
Bought the lappy / new monitors / mixer / soundcard / audio drive etc
Got it professionally configured with all paid for software preinstalled / tweeked and ready to go.
I think there's an overt "age of innocence" or warez type denial going on here.
Not all warez users buy legitimate software.
Alot of them pretty much never intend paying for anything.
Their are alot of damn fine freeware alternatives that are just as good as alot of payware stuff.
For those of you that have used the crack and then bought the software I truly commend you.
The sad reality is alot of people have no intention of purchasing the software they d'load in alot of cases.
LIVE may well be one of the rare exceptions too the rule though
Alot of SMALL DEV's go under due too software piracy .
Maybe I just come form the oldskool hardware world of thought.
Before all this virtual stuff if you couldn't afford it you just simply had to go without (unless you decided to go window shoping with a wallet full of bricks) .

I literally have the following and nothing else.

Host's / Rewire apps - Live5, Reason3, P5v2

Audio Editor - Audacity

VSTi (synths) - KarmaFXModular, Kubik, Vectrik, Foorius, Asynth, Texture, Motion, StringTheory, PlugsoundFree

VST effects - SMEX plugs, Pluggo Jnr, FishFillets, Luxonix LFX1310, Glaceverb's Dasample

I have a minimal and VERY compact VST instrument and VST effects folder.
I get more than enough from all of those.
The majority of that is freeware/donation ware.
Luckily I had enough hardware when I had to quit working (due too ill-health) to get everything I more or less needed for a decent setup.

Thankfully my Family and Partner have helped pay for new revision upgrades of some of the software and the odd sample library here and there.
I'm pretty much broke these days and am saving up for Operator which will take me some 6 months but hey I'll get there.
I still don't feel that a lack of cash is a justification for warez use myself.
Maybe that's just me ?

That said you do NOT need alot to write great tunes.

Nothing in life is free (well it seldom is even on a spiritual / karmic / metaphysical level).
It simply boils down to fundamental principles of respect as far as I'm concerned.
I have had alot of GOOD people help me along my way.
Infact in life the generosity of strangers has been somewhat overwhelming on the odd occassion.
Which is another story altogether and not really related to this thread.

A little bit of respect and humility goes along way in life.
That's all I've got too say.
Learn to be thankful for what you've got.

I've been waiting for this topic to come up in discussion because I have a particullarly good reason for paying:
As someone who is aiming to go into Audio engineering or music production professionally, I feel that the money I paid for Live is going toward making Live accepted as an industry standard, at which point I would be highly versed in it. It's an investment in my future.

personalyy i think cracked software is a great way to spread your product. most of the people using cracked software are teenagers that cant buy it anyway, so there isnt much of an impact

Livewire wrote:personalyy i think cracked software is a great way to spread your product. most of the people using cracked software are teenagers that cant buy it anyway, so there isnt much of an impact

Stolen products (books, clothes, etc..) always felt "better" for that reason. And it won't ever stop. lets not even talk about our " great" capitalist society or even, intelectual property or copyrights.
I too had a cracked copy of... everything!! How to learn? (softwares are not in Library to be borrowed) How to know, experiment?
With, Live 1.5 I was curious. W/2, impressed and started using the thing. v3 came , I HAD to OWN this thing!!!!
People who create/build/make need people who steal to, at least raise the value!. and to wear it out!
Anyway, old subject ...

netchaiev wrote: People who create/build/make need people who steal to, at least raise the value!. and to wear it out!
Anyway, old subject ...

Wow is that some far out philosphy from the land of FarrrqinHideous .
Honestly cannot believe some of the justifications and or rationale's I'm reading here.
Pffft whatever I guess.
People will do what they wanna do.
That said the whole "people who create/build/make need people who steal" is the single most retarded line of psuedo logic I've read in a long time.

The old ethics, that latest when you earn some money with a programm its time to buy it, should be mentioned..
And Live is a program where you get pretty early in the situation that you earn something with it is.. Even when its only free drinks for your first gigs...
Direct income is defenetly bejond the border of just testin something..
but even joy can be seen as profit...People pay for joy...
I however cant see joy in sequencer programs..they are a necessary evil


Its anyway not wise to use a hacked program as your main workhorse...

on the other hand... A program with safedisabled demos crys asks for beeing hacked...And buggy release versions also give the hacks some points... usually the updates and bug free operation are the reason to buy the software...

The weird thing is that for some reason some people asume cracks, evne people that shouldn't.

I was in a computer music shop a few months ago; saw a Ableton mousepad and wanted to know the price.

"Those are free when you buy the software."

"Yeah, but I already have the software, I'd like to buy just a mouse pad".

*frowns*
"that's not so nice"

"No, but it is, I paid for it, it's registered and all, even upgraded".

In the end I walked out with a free mousepad, but it did strike me as weird that a salesman seemed to asume already having the software meant I had some dubious copy....

ultrasource wrote:stealing makes white kids feel bad-ass. just like listening to hip hop.

well unfortently we black folk cant aford it an foo stamps arnt acepted, drop the price to match the 99 cent menu an we all be makin hip hop, then we get the bling bling and then we buy the white kids an sell em back to ther mommas for 8.99 a piece. we gonna rule da world again, but all this afta i go get me some pussy. damn crackaz

so what if its cracked man, if you can get a freebie take it, its the human way. everybody has gotten something for nothing. most of you are dj's and sample producers riding the coatails of people that actually play, so fucking what if you payed for your software, you still steal.

The Offender wrote:so what if its cracked man, if you can get a freebie take it, its the human way. everybody has gotten something for nothing. most of you are dj's and sample producers riding the coatails of people that actually play, so fucking what if you payed for your software, you still steal.

- speak for yourself mate because you arent speakin' for all of us .

This thread is making my respect for alot of software users go down the crapper.
Theft is theft doesn't matter how you cut it IMHO.
Legit software users and companies suffer.
When shit doesn't innovate any more due to poor financial return and high risk investment we know who to blame dont we.
Not the people who supported the companies in the first place that's for sure.
Some of you cats live in friggin Never Never land .

FaX-01 wrote:

The Offender wrote:so what if its cracked man, if you can get a freebie take it, its the human way. everybody has gotten something for nothing. most of you are dj's and sample producers riding the coatails of people that actually play, so fucking what if you payed for your software, you still steal.

- speak for yourself mate because you arent speakin' for all of us .

you mean you've never used a loop you haven't created ? I mean even ableton provides loops that use bits of drumming that I sincerely doubt are cleared ...

to be totaly honest I can say that I have never used a sample loop in a track that I have sold. For just hacking around with stuff i do sometimes but honestly no I have never resold a loop i took.

As for steeling software. I tend to agree with the idea that if the person who is taking the software is not in a postiton to be a "lagit" customer due to lack of funds then the company that is selling the software is not loosing anything by the act of the person steeling it. But if the person is in a position to purchace the product then they are causing harm.

There was this court case that I read about a long time ago. Microsoft was trying to sue the goverment of a third world country because some schools had gotten there hands on cracked copies of windows to teach there students how to use a computer with. The judg threw it out because 1. they cost the company nothing because if they did not steel the product they simply would not have bought it because there was NO cash. And 2 because the school system threre was helping to further the companys objective of becoming the worlds most used operating system.

I am not saying that to steel the product is ever right but if you are truly not in a position to buy the software when you steel it you are not costing the company anything.

bottom line. When you have the cash or credet "invest" your cash with the products that you belive in.

FaX-01 wrote: the whole "people who create/build/make need people who steal" is the single most retarded line of psuedo logic I've read in a long time.

I think it's a clever statement.
If I would drop some money on the street and no one took it, that would mean there is no value in them.

// C

Chris J wrote:

FaX-01 wrote:

The Offender wrote:so what if its cracked man, if you can get a freebie take it, its the human way. everybody has gotten something for nothing. most of you are dj's and sample producers riding the coatails of people that actually play, so fucking what if you payed for your software, you still steal.

:roll: :roll: :roll: - speak for yourself mate because you arent speakin' for all of us :cry: .

you mean you've never used a loop you haven't created ? I mean even ableton provides loops that use bits of drumming that I sincerely doubt are cleared ...

Coming off old hardware sequencers and drum machines I've had to pretty much program everything via midi.
If I use loops now they are always sliced and resequenced anyway but I generally perfer working with one shot kits samples and have a pretty extensive custom made loop library.
Most of my material is 7-95 bpms - with alot of clock divisor tempo fills / flams etc and most loops sound like crud dropped down to that bpm ration also so I have no choice but to program them from scratch if I want them to sound tight.