[peeder]

Originally Posted by planseven

In my particular case, I was approached by a female who wanted to record and mix her album and wanted to view our studio amongst others so that she could decide on a suitable facility. On arrival she insisted that we used Waves as plugins for the mix; I tried to persuade her to use UA instead as I personally prefer them and indeed, have four cards. When she insisted, I said that I'd look into getting Waves if getting the session depended on it. I then followed up by email saying that I had Waves available and did she want to discuss dates etc; no answer was forthcoming. In actual fact, I didn't have Waves, and was waiting for a confirmed booking before either getting a copy or using one of our regular freelancer engineers who is a licensed user. I certainly wasn't going to lay out thousands of dollars on spec for software that up to now I had never been asked for and that I didn't need except for this specific booking.

Three months later I had a letter from Waves' solicitors saying that they had evidence that I had an unlicensed copy of Waves Gold Bundle and that they would instigate court proceedings unless I paid them the licence fee togther with $5000 damages. I later found out that the evidence consisted of a secretly filmed video of the visit for which they demanded $70 for a copy.

Luckily, I have an old friend who is a copyright expert having published legal textbooks on the subject. His advice is that according to Section 16, the copyright statute states that the provisions only come into effect when an unlicensed copy of a copyright has been made in material form; as a computer program in this particular case. The act of claiming to have a copy (to procure a booking, in my case) is not an offence. Furthermore, it could be argued that the unusual actions of Waves' agent could in this case be taken as an exceptional granting of a license (see previous posting on Waves' friendly help on using the demo as a temporary licence) and that the actions of the agent posing as a potential customer could open Waves up to all sorts of counterclaims for deception and trespass etc.

In summary, he told me that the action of Waves was based on very dubious legal grounds, and that as it would cost $5000 or more for them to even start a court action, his advice was for anyone in my situation to stand their ground and not respond until and unless legal proceedings were started.

I didn't ask him what to do in the situation that the studio actually had an unlicensed version of Waves on their computer as this obviously didn't apply in my case but other advice I have taken suggested that it's a fair cop and Waves should be sent an amount to cover the licence fee together with a small amount to cover legal expenses; certainly not the $5000 requested as damages.

I do not condone the use of cracked software, but it is surely reasonable to be allowed to try expensive plug ins out thoroughly before committing to a large financial outlay. My personal moral criteria are clear to me; if I find myself endorsing and using any software for commercial ventures, I pay for it. And as far as being a suspicious newbie poster, I have been a reader of these forums for many years now without ever having felt the necessity of adding my particular irons to the fire. Until now, that is...

Thank you very much planseven for your very articulate and useful rundown and please continue to contribute to these forums on any topic you wish!