Waves Clamps Down on Piracy

[piano]

How Waves...... I hate piracy but only Waves would go to this length. Waves has earned their reputation.

Good to see an American company like UAD eating them up.

I've purchased Diamond plus API. They have truly garnered my contempt over the years with WUP and the little value given out for the extortion ..... er payments.

[big country]

soft money / hard money

to compare software and hardware legalities is wrong ...
soft ware can be copied much to easy.

this is were technology and law (rule) need to adjust to current time




hard ware takes allot more time and effort to produce .

for 1 you have to design the circuit , then proto type , test it ,
then manufacture it . box it ship it
then include facility costs and wages

software is all code , sure it takes time to develop , and test ,
but once that is done , you can rip it all day long,

its odd for software companies to step in a hard ware industry
and want to fetch almost the same prices as hard ware .
then pursue legal actions...

does the person who invented the EQ go and try to profit from every one with an EQ?
does he have huge office buildings dedicated to collecting what is his ideas

I think that glass would be half empty ,



the invention of the EQ is far more important to our industry than Emulated software.

to protect what is important to our industry and its future development is far more important
than worrying about ripped ( hard ware ) emulation software...

I think our industry needs more carrots for innovation for hard ware ,
glass half full ...

[Neon Heart]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the license even reduced to one person, that means if a studio uses waves plugs there's only one engineer allowed to use them if they purchased only one license?

so, by the act of opening the plug ins (legal copies) of another studio's computer in order to have proof aren't these "spy" engineers or clients by waves actually acting against their own policy?

also, for sure this has been suggested before, isn't there a possibility that these "fake clients" installed these illegal versions themselves on some of these studio's computers in order to get "brokerage"?

these system of proof seems to be a grey area.

[Neon Heart]

Originally Posted by gregohb

The V series is clearly a rip off of Neve. I don't think they paid a cent of royalties. Why didn't they just update their now dated Renassance series of plugins rather than release a new renassance series call V series.

Because offering an update doesn't bring as much $$ as a new product.
also, the prestige (they benefit from the reputation of famous vintage products) allows them to sell them more expensive.

and in the end, the psychology of our society forces people to assume and think that a product that is expensive is/must be better than a cheaper one.

[mradlauer]

Isnt one piece of gear...say an LA-2A upwards of $3k?? One piece of gear that serves a narrow purpose? Compared to a suite of software that covers a very broad range of use...

I am all for hardware, but think its shortsighted to not embrace software as a tool to better serve our clients.

Software developers are not much different than those who design physical equipment. Manufacturing of the end result is different, but R&D, design, beta testing etc is all still part of the design process. No one just puts code together and can magically emulate an SSL Master Buss compressor, that takes alot of work....

I've only been an engineer for a short time, but I have spent a lot of time in the technology field and have seen software developement first hand. You'd be suprised how difficult it is to get those 1's, 0's and complicated algorythms to do what you want.. So when you say its "just code", its not "just code".

[Bassmankr]

Not pointing any fingers but I think we would all be surprised by how much code is ripped off by software plug makers. Ever wonder why so many of the guys are basically putting out the same products with minor variations and GUI differences? In fact Microsoft and Apple are some of the biggest documented pirates on the planet (rent the video "Pirates of Silcon Valley" to see how much stealing Gates and Jobs did from Xerox to get started). Not condoning but copy protection for all these guys is pretty hypocritcal as it's usually the small developer that makes the inovation and gets his code ripped off by all the big guys. Just another example of not "walking the talk". Lets call a spade a spade, corporate greed drives all of this, not some high moral ground about stealing.

[big country]

Originally Posted by mradlauer

Isnt one piece of gear...say an LA-2A upwards of $3k?? One piece of gear that serves a narrow purpose? Compared to a suite of software that covers a very broad range of use...

I am all for hardware, but think its shortsighted to not embrace software as a tool to better serve our clients.

Software developers are not much different than those who design physical equipment. Manufacturing of the end result is different, but R&D, design, beta testing etc is all still part of the design process. No one just puts code together and can magically emulate an SSL Master Buss compressor, that takes alot of work....

I've only been an engineer for a short time, but I have spent a lot of time in the technology field and have seen software developement first hand. You'd be suprised how difficult it is to get those 1's, 0's and complicated algorythms to do what you want.. So when you say its "just code", its not "just code".

I do have respect for 1's and 0's, but when software legalities
step into hardware legalities it creates an imbalance.
you cant live in a virtual home , its best live in a real home,
and does all this virtuality create a sense non reality.

you cant cuddle up to 0's and 1's but you can cuddle a distressor or a Fairchild

there needs to be a balance . in the end reality is so much better.
and I think circuit technology being threatened by software by
carying the same foot print in courts , is not good .

believe it or not soft money is different than hard money.

[macleodgrant]

Originally Posted by gregohb

The V series is clearly a rip off of Neve. I don't think they paid a cent of royalties. Why didn't they just update their now dated Renassance series of plugins rather than release a new renassance series call V series.

importantly and something that people often over look is that you can open a session now which used renaissance plugs from several years back and it still opens perfectly. they're essentially future proof - this to me and i'm sure many other professionals is very valuable and important!

besides, the Renn Plugs are amazing, why fix what's not broken?

i love the V-Series too, rock solid plugins

[terminal3]

Originally Posted by macleodgrant

importantly and something that people often over look is that you can open a session now which used renaissance plugs from several years back and it still opens perfectly. they're essentially future proof - this to me and i'm sure many other professionals is very valuable and important!

besides, the Renn Plugs are amazing, why fix what's not broken?

i love the V-Series too, rock solid plugins

Exactly - and you can't monkey with old plug-ins either for the same reason - let's say they DID change the sound of the plugs (even it it was arguably for the better) - if I opened my session from a few years ago today, it would sound different, and that may p*ss me off way more!

You can only "update" a plug-in to sound fundamentally different if you still also offer the old algorithm somehow for legacy sessions.

[Volodia]

Originally Posted by big country

soft money / hard money

to compare software and hardware legalities is wrong ...
soft ware can be copied much to easy.

this is were technology and law (rule) need to adjust to current time




hard ware takes allot more time and effort to produce .

for 1 you have to design the circuit , then proto type , test it ,
then manufacture it . box it ship it
then include facility costs and wages

software is all code , sure it takes time to develop , and test ,
but once that is done , you can rip it all day long,

its odd for software companies to step in a hard ware industry
and want to fetch almost the same prices as hard ware .
then pursue legal actions...
...

Plugin prices are far from hardware price . Secondly when a plug is done there is (in good companies and waves is one of them) a lot of work for keeping up to date with
changes in computers and OS that hardware makers don't have to do ..

Regarding the law , I hear this all the time , what do you propose to adjust it ?

That some of us pay and that the others are entitled to use cracked versions ?

If you think the price is not right don't buy it . simple . Just as any other product . Nobody is forcing you . This is just a lame excuse for using illegal software .

[big country]

I have no illegal soft ware and no were in any of my statements did I condone pirated software.

[big country]

Originally Posted by big country

its odd for software companies to step in a hard ware industry
and want to fetch almost the same prices as hard ware .
then pursue legal actions...

in the end what is the final company take home for hardware and software
for each individual product.

do hard ware companies hand out demo products like candy on halloween. fuk no
its a different realm and should treated as such

[Dean Roddey]

Microsoft and Apple are some of the biggest documented pirates on the planet (rent the video "Pirates of Silcon Valley" to see how much stealing Gates and Jobs did from Xerox to get started). Not condoning but copy protection for all these guys is pretty hypocritcal as it's usually the small developer that makes the inovation and gets his code ripped off by all the big guys. Just another example of not "walking the talk". Lets call a spade a spade, corporate greed drives all of this, not some high moral ground about stealing.

I would not recommend basing your understanding of history on movies. The issue in that case was not theft of code but of a look and feel. They both had to spend huge bucks actually creating their own software. So it's not remotely the same thing. At that time, there was no real legal tradition about look and feel of software.

Copyright protects a specific work. It doesn't protect the concepts embodied in the work. Anyone is free to make a GUI that looks similar to Apples or Microsofts as long as they write their own code and they don't make it so similar that it would mislead consumers as to which product they are using. They can use all the standard GUI ideas and concepts, because copyright only protects the actual implementation of the ideas and concepts.

Now there might be patents and trademarks and such to consider as well of course, but that's a separate issue.

[Dean Roddey]

I've only been an engineer for a short time, but I have spent a lot of time in the technology field and have seen software developement first hand. You'd be suprised how difficult it is to get those 1's, 0's and complicated algorythms to do what you want.. So when you say its "just code", its not "just code".

Once you get up to a fairly significant size of product, it would be FAR more complex than putting together a vintage compressor or something liike that. It's enormously complex and expensive. A single guy can create a good vintage compressor product, even a few of them. A company with the size and complexity (and multi-platform nature) of Waves will require a large development and support team that has hugely higher costs.

[Dean Roddey]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the license even reduced to one person, that means if a studio uses waves plugs there's only one engineer allowed to use them if they purchased only one license?

No, that's the point of the dongle. All that matters is that you have a licensed dongle. You can install the plugs on any and as many machines as you want. It's just that you have to the dongle installed on the one machine that you are actually using at the moment. It doesn't matter who is using it.

[TRA]

Originally Posted by lowfreq33

Waves sent a letter like this to the studio I work at. They tried to say we had a cracked diamond bundle.It's complete b.s., we have a legit copy of the gold bundle, no diamond bundle, no cracked anything. I think they're just phishing.

I was sent one as well. That same day I sold my Waves plugs (all are legit), and they'll never get another dime from me.

[Bassmankr]

"I would not recommend basing your understanding of history on movies"

Dean, I get my history from many sources including being involved with computers since the first IBM and TI desktops (I bought the TI because it had an 8 color moniter (5 grand back then), IBM only had a choice of green or amber), point I was making was code stealing is rampant in the software industry and was correctly documented in the title I mentioned. This show did not disguise Gates and Jobs nor run for any legal cover. If they had presented ANY facts that they could not back up they would have had the bejesus sued out of them by Microsoft and Apple, both of which have no shortage of lawyers. Frankly any smart lawyer who would be taking on one of these Waves cases would subpena their source code during discovery and investigate if any of it is stolen. Pretty hard to show economic damages if they are just transfering stolen goods. I'm not saying that Waves hasn't written every line of code from scratch but frankly it's a fairly dirty industry, you do the math. The smartest/dirtiest thing the software industry ever did was in its infancy, pay alot for "special legal protection" with the whole legal concept of "licence". I have to laugh when you look at the lack of liability for non working product and that when you buy other products, they are yours to do with as you see fit including resale, not so with software.

When people ask me about Waves I tell them there are other plugs that do the same or better for less money, (frankly I'm into hardware compressors, I've got 35 channels of the ones I'm going to keep (got to be a little slutty to post here LOL) ) plus from what I've read on the forums, any company that treats it's customers as badly as Waves has deserves it's own demise. K-mart lost their customers one at a time on the road to bankruptcy and if this thread is any indication, Waves appears heading down the same road.

[KEN1]

Originally Posted by TRA

I was sent one as well. That same day I sold my Waves plugs (all are legit), and they'll never get another dime from me.

They tried to say that my 3 legal and registered native waves bundles were actually cracked TDM bundles.Then tried to extort over $19,000 from me using threats.They are whacked beyond belief!!!One time when they called I told them that the call was being recorded and they hung up on me.It's the biggest lying scam in the recording industry imo.I just pray that people wake up to their tactics and boycott them out of business.

[Dean Roddey]

Dean, I get my history from many sources including being involved with computers since the first IBM and TI desktops (I bought the TI because it had an 8 color moniter (5 grand back then), IBM only had a choice of green or amber), point I was making was code stealing is rampant in the software industry and was correctly documented in the title I mentioned. This show did not disguise Gates and Jobs nor run for any legal cover. If they had presented ANY facts that they could not back up they would have had the bejesus sued out of them by Microsoft and Apple, both of which have no shortage of lawyers.

I've been a hardcore professional software engineer for the same period of time. And I also am a fair student of the history of the industry. I've read various histories of Apple, Xerox, Microsoft and others, where these issues are gone into in lots of detail.

Apple and Microsoft didn't steal any code from Xerox that anyone has ever claimed who were involved in it that I know of. As I explained, all they took was the look and feel (and not even that exactly) and they hired some engineers from Xerox, who was not really making much headway on getting computers out to personal users, despite being far ahead of everyone else at the time in terms of technology. Maybe Xerox could have tried a look and feel suit, but would have probably lost just the same as Apple did against MS.

So, again, the movie is wrong if it implied or said that, so you shouldn't believe what you see in the movies.

Nor is the theft of code rampant in the industry. Obviously it's going to happen once in a while, but it's far from rampant. In actual fact, most software has no code in it that anyone would need to steal. Most of it is just completely grunt work code that any good engineer with experience in the problem domain would have no trouble writing. Waves clearly has lots of experience in their domain, and would hardly need to steal code to create their products.

[starfighter]

Originally Posted by KEN1

They tried to say that my 3 legal and registered native waves bundles were actually cracked TDM bundles.Then tried to extort over $19,000 from me using threats.They are whacked beyond belief!!!One time when they called I told them that the call was being recorded and they hung up on me.It's the biggest lying scam in the recording industry imo.I just pray that people wake up to their tactics and boycott them out of business.

If this is the way they go about "collecting their cash" I'll second your suggestion...

morten

[David Brown]

Originally Posted by KEN1

None of them have even began.Waves are swatting at flys and have no legal feet to stand on with their lawsuit threats.They hired Allied national collection agency to call/email studios and threaten them to see if they will break.I have 3 legal Waves bundles and they sent their spy into my studio then 5 months later Allied starts calling me up threatening to sue me unless I buy the Waves mercury tdm bundle + a penalty fee totaling $19,000.The calls have stopped along time ago after I threatened to sue them for harrassment.Waves are thieving bastards and I will never,ever buy any of their products again.They are the lowest of the low..........pure out scumbags!

ON WAVES!!!

You can make great records without Waves. There are plenty of great alternatives to anything they offer. Make your studio a Waves Free Zone.

David Brown

[KEN1]

Originally Posted by David Brown

You can make great records without Waves. There are plenty of great alternatives to anything they offer. Make your studio a Waves Free Zone.

David Brown

My Duy,McDsp,Massey,and URS plugs smoke anything Waves put out.The Rencomp and Supertap delay are the only plugs I might use from Waves if I even use them at all.Waves and their associates are criminals in my book.I can't believe how low they are stooping to get cash out of their loyal and legit customers...........and I thought their WUP scam was bad.Anymore as far as i'm concerned only a fool would invest in any of their products.

[chrisj]

I encourage Waves to do whatever they want to do with their products, seeing as it's up to them to dictate the terms by which people use their stuff. Software's funny that way.

My only objection is that what they do affects what people expect to get out of plugins in general, and the way I sell my AU plugins is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very different.

But that's okay too :)

[Dean Roddey]

My only objection is that what they do affects what people expect to get out of plugins in general, and the way I sell my AU plugins is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very different.

But, you have to put it into perspective. You are one guy with a small set of plugs and probably limited customer support burden. They are a company with a huge sest of plugs, with a lot of customers and customer support issues, doing a lot of research and development and having to support old plugs and many platforms.

When you get to the point they are, where you have 50 or a 100 people's jobs depending on the company's revenues, you may have a different outlook on the situation of people stealing from you on a fairly large scale. And of course someone who will steal from them will steal from you just the same.

And when you are in that transitional period from where you are now and trying to grow your company, that's when you'll really start to understand the hurt of every lost sale due to theft. When you are sitting in your office with a heart monitor because you've barely made payroll for the last 12 months in a row and the stress is about to kill you, and you've not been able to take a day off all year, it won't seem quite so benign a problem.

[gregohb]

Originally Posted by Neon Heart

Because offering an update doesn't bring as much $$ as a new product.
also, the prestige (they benefit from the reputation of famous vintage products) allows them to sell them more expensive.

and in the end, the psychology of our society forces people to assume and think that a product that is expensive is/must be better than a cheaper one.

Of course, I understand why Waves does this. that is no mystery. other companies upgrade and improve their existing plugins and take care of their loyal customers. For example PSP, Fab Filter, Native Intruments, Antares Autotune, etc. etc. PSP for example, had an upgrade fee of maybe $50 for Vintage Warmer II with improved audio capabilities - one of the hottest plugins around. It take some years - but its like two guys progamning on their own so there is only so much they can do but take care of their users. I just updated to Mix Pack 2, after having bought Mix Pack 1 for $60 or something 8 years ago. I woiuld pay them double for the value of their updates.

On the hand, imagine if Emapple, didn't release Logic 8, but instead left all their Logic 7 users languishing, and then offered a new product call the V-Logic which people had to pay full price for - no upgrade from the previous version.

crazy - but thats sorta what Waves is doing to maximize their profits. for example, say you spent $1000 for the gold bundle 8 years ago (or whatever the exact cost) - but then they never update it and you are using 8 year old technology today - software originally made to work on 100 mhz machines and not taking account of the vastly higher speed computers today.

And its even worst than that, becuase Waves wants to charge you WUP too - to drain your wallet a little more just to find out the mystery of how to install their plugs.

To be fair, UA doesn't update their plugs either. The LA2A hasn't changed in the same period either - but UA doesnt charge WUP. You could buy a card in 1999, and still be using it with their newest software that came out last month.

[gregohb]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

But, you have to put it into perspective. You are one guy with a small set of plugs and probably limited customer support burden. They are a company with a huge sest of plugs, with a lot of customers and customer support issues, doing a lot of research and development and having to support old plugs and many platforms.

When you get to the point they are, where you have 50 or a 100 people's jobs depending on the company's revenues, you may have a different outlook on the situation of people stealing from you on a fairly large scale. And of course someone who will steal from them will steal from you just the same.

And when you are in that transitional period from where you are now and trying to grow your company, that's when you'll really start to understand the hurt of every lost sale due to theft. When you are sitting in your office with a heart monitor because you've barely made payroll for the last 12 months in a row and the stress is about to kill you, and you've not been able to take a day off all year, it wo