Trouble in Paradise

More editorial than anything since we all got options. Learning to freak out less these days.
 
Fired up a project using the very good Eventide Ultra Channel strip that the company generously offered us for free over a short time. Cannot complain about this.
 
Opened the project and a crash error message that the ilock interface was defective. Something would not connect with something else and the program is toast. Either reinstall the program or the ilock manager.
 
Installed the program again, still failed. Tried to install the ilock manager and got a message that an error had occurred attempting to install and nothing was changed. Eventide no longer exists on this computer. Lucky it didn't happen while someone was recording by the hour.
 
Joke around here often, but really not a joke about securing a washed in the blood warez crack before purchasing anything forcing online control over you. Even more disturbing, regarding the thread about online cloud subscriptions required to use a software. Waters were tested several years ago involving this scheme and will invade like a cancer if we let it happen.
 
This is just an example. Something I can probably get resolved after phone calls or support emails, troubleshooting the crash, investigating what I'm trying to rip them off. Why do I have to devote hours of precious, irrecoverable time trying to fix a flawed safeguard the company imposes and controls, making my life miserable to keep me from being a suspected thief.
 
Thanks to Allah that Cakewalk has not gone down this low life road.
 
John
 

Carl,
 
Using the legitimate legal plug after having gone through all the required steps they demand to get it running.
 
Not using a crack. The company-imposed system failed somewhere. Makes it my problem.  Can likely get it resolved if I want to burn up the effort and time to get back into good grace.
 
Will try to get this resolved sometime in the distant future if it is worth the time and effort.
 
John
 

Eventide offered this plug for free for a while. No warez. Not sure why John mentioned them, his writing style is a little too cryptic for me.

Carl,
 
Yes, you are right and have the moral high road over me in any case regarding the letter of the law, cannot deny or debate this.
 
I got burned out of multiple softwares over the years, screwed by companies shutting down or denying further activation of programs I spent hundreds of dollars on, either demanding more money to renew activation rights or outright denying further transfers.
 
Can sleep with myself in a bastardized hybrid approach I took on out of reaction, for personal survival in the digital realm.
 
Have to come out of the closet because I have some Mp3's on the computer I haven't paid for. This is a sin and ripoff of the artists I have to come to terms with.
 
Doesn't make me any more stainless, but every piece of software on my computers is fully paid for. I do not use warez cracks to avoid paying for something. There is not a single illegal program on my rig that has not fully compensated the developer for his or her effort.Everything I fire up is paid in full.
 
If I can't pay for something, I do without rather than ripping a struggling author off. There is no rationalization for piracy, even if the cracked programs are there for the taking.
 
After very bad experiences with multiple companies, and projecting this vibe on those I have not had a bad experience with... As much as possible, I secure a warez crack for a program that I legally and legitimately purchase. Company gets the full monetary compensation they ask for. I guard, respect the sanctity of their license agreement otherwise. Just I don't have to worry if they change their mind and put the screws on me again.
 
As a decent middle of the road heathen, this works. The guys have their money and I have the program not having to worry about when it will be aborted.
 
John
 
 
 
 

Carl,
 
Agree with you 100 percent.
 
John

When airport security became so obnoxious that it's now the #1 complaint of travelers, the TSA came up with a solution. Let them run a background check on you, prove you're a good guy, and you can get an ID card that speeds the process. Great for frequent flyers.
 
When lines at the US-Canada border crossings similarly became aggravating, both countries collaborated on a program that lets people who cross frequently get a fast pass that reduces their border headaches.
 
The software industry could learn from this with a Trusted User program. You'd identify yourself completely, agree not to sell or share your purchases (and they'd agree not to sell your personal information). Then, when you subsequently buy a product from that company you get a (perhaps watermarked) DLL with no security protections - no license file, no registry keys, no dongle, no need to connect to a server to authorize. You make your own backup of the file(s) and you're guaranteed to never have of the kinds of problems described in the original post.
 
The first vendor to implement such a scheme would have a competitive edge, and encourage repeat business and customer loyalty. 
 

bitflipper
When airport security became so obnoxious that it's now the #1 complaint of travelers, the TSA came up with a solution. Let them run a background check on you, prove you're a good guy, and you can get an ID card that speeds the process. Great for frequent flyers.
 
When lines at the US-Canada border crossings similarly became aggravating, both countries collaborated on a program that lets people who cross frequently get a fast pass that reduces their border headaches.
 
The software industry could learn from this with a Trusted User program. You'd identify yourself completely, agree not to sell or share your purchases (and they'd agree not to sell your personal information). Then, when you subsequently buy a product from that company you get a (perhaps watermarked) DLL with no security protections - no license file, no registry keys, no dongle, no need to connect to a server to authorize. You make your own backup of the file(s) and you're guaranteed to never have of the kinds of problems described in the original post.
 
The first vendor to implement such a scheme would have a competitive edge, and encourage repeat business and customer loyalty. 
 

Sounds like a Great idea, but, Several software dev's still believe they can prevent/reduce piracy by using these silly ass licensing schemes that just cause pain for the Customers. Hopefully/Eventually they will find they are losing their Customer base because of this. 
 
I have noticed a trend for certain vendor/dev's to advertise 'iLok not required' only to find out you still have to DL some sort of licensing mgr. to your machine that causes just as many problems.
 
I try to never buy into a system like this but I am also seeing a trend of the licensing info not being available until after you have made your purchase. This very thing just happened to me with the upgrade to Revalver 4 and I ended up having to purchase 2 (two) copies of the upgrade in order to use it. It now requires that you tie the license to some USB device on your machine(s).

Guys,
 
More trivia thoughts on this, warez cracks and the like, after which I almost promise to shut up over the issue (until my next crash blubbering in rage...). Labor Day and a couple beers...
 
Carl mentioned that this was "bad karma". I blew this off because I was only protecting what I had legitimately paid for after multiple disasters. Some crashes in my past were taken care of in a couple days by fast and good company support, but the damage could not be undone for the burnout happening at the absolute worst possible time. They don't factor this in with the purchase price.
 
My significant other is way more refined and aware than I can ever be. She reminded that me posting warez even as a moral fallback on a public forum is the bad karma of it all. Anyone delving to the darkside because it is available, or crashing because of virus is a negative weight in my account going forward.
 
My problem is the way I see the world, navigating thru life trying to balance moral and legal. In the US, we still have many despicable state laws still on the books that relegate blacks and women to animal status with as many rights. Other laws exist that made sense in the 1800's but a joke to actually enforce in 2014. They are mostly unknown and not enforced, but are still on the books and thus the law. To enforce them would be immoral.
 
Good argument from Socrates who downed the hemlock poison to kill himself. Was the victim of an unjust legal system that condemned him to death. His followers bribed the guards and he could have escaped. Socrates said that if he escaped, the legal system would collapse with any individual interpreting what is legal or moral. He elected to kill himself rather than set a precedent that would weaken the word of the law, no matter how defective or unjust.
 
Me, I would have bailed out the back door without a second thought, why I have no trouble with warez cracks as long as I don't share them and have paid full price for the program.
 
Carl does bring up another critical critical point about warez cracks, and this is in the risk and danger.
 
The available cracks are maybe 70% or more infected with serious viruses. Serious meaning enough to bring your computer down to rubble. Without a backup hard drive, I wouldn't have a computer after some of the lethal crashes trying to find a backup.
 
A crack or torrent may present as the program but is more often the back door to grief, as Carl warned. Very suicidal to even go there for any reason. Been a vegetarian for about 40 years. Guess this is my replacement for deep sea fishing in very dangerous waters, as long as it is moral, which does not necessarily mean legal.
 
John
 

Like the other thread said. It will eventually all be on the cloud and we'll have to log on to use it. Because people chose to steal it. Doesn't matter if they chose to download cracks for a good or bad reason.

Personally, I like the I lok 30 bucks a year scheme, where my many thousands of dollars of music software are useable across all my computers and I am protected if anything gets stolen.

Sand,
 
Yeah, maybe 70% is unclinical and a random guess. Seems however like 70 percent if 100 percent grief is encountered. You are extremely fortunate if you did never encounter a virus infection from a warez program. Possibly also your "years ago" there were fewer cyber monsters cloaking lethal attacks for the fun of it under the guise of a free ride you don't have to pay for.
 
Also agree that warez junkies complaining about their free crack failures, needing support are part of the cement that secures scum of the earth.
 
(edit)
Backwood,
 
Just saw your post and curious about how you see this. Just here to learn, so not throwing flames at you. Respect your input.
 
Cloud to me is a nightmare of external control. They got you by the balls and have the capacity to screw you once they gain control, and once you accept the new model as the inevitable norm.
 
What happens is what has happened here multiple times before even without the new horizon of remote virtual ownership. I'm not an isolated case having been given the shaft.
 
Company changes the rules. Cut's the throat of your ownership of a program. Never disclosed in the original purchase when they begged for your money. Waves bastards never online inactivated my purchases, but sent me an email they changed their minds and were refusing any more transfer of licenses. Would not invade and inactivate my purchase on an existing computer, but dead meat if I needed to transfer. All could be fixed for extortion money to pay for the new contract.
 
Gave up and downloaded the crack. Waves can go to hell and back. I roll my own transfers from here out.
 
John

My dabbling in cracked software was years ago as well.  The whole concept was fairly new.  Like most of the people (at least most that I encountered) most of the downloading resulted in installing, looking at it for a few days and then ignoring.  The only time I ever chose to use Warez consciously for a software product I actually used was when I used a cracked version of Cubase because it worked better than the one I had paid for.  The dongle did not like my computer and just kept crashing.  I made a conscious decision to go with only legal software once I got to the point where I was making money and have not looked back.  One of the companies that I had used cracked versions of was actually pretty cool about it and said that many of their best customers started off with warez (Sonic Foundry) and gave me a discount to actually purchase the product.  None of this justifies using warez.  I just find the stats seem distorted hwne it comes to the subject.  It's as if the only acceptable way to declare using warez is wrong is to go along with questionable stats like the mentioned "70%" or declaring items that would have never been purchased products as "losses" for the industry.  I think the bigger problem for software companies is that the number of people who can regularly shell out the kind of money they want to charge is limited .  Outside of the big production houses that employ top audio engineers, the sound quality between the bedroom musician using low-cost and freeware does not sound that much different from the bedroom musician who has thousands in plugins.

Had something go south with various versions of Sonar, two times over the past years. Required reinstallation of the program due to whatever I had destroyed with registry cleaners, or who knows what I did to crash it.
 
Reinstalled, put in the serial number and was back up and running.
 
Never under any circumstance have shared or given away my serial for Sonar.
 
Thanks Cakewalk. Your trust is deeply respected, and the license is secure as if in Fort Knox. Never needed online activation or an ilock to secure against piracy.
 
John

dubdisciple
My dabbling in cracked software was years ago as well.  The whole concept was fairly new.  Like most of the people (at least most that I encountered) most of the downloading resulted in installing, looking at it for a few days and then ignoring. 

If you were downloading, the concept wasn't new anymore. Does anyone remember the "Crazy Bits" cd series? They were cd's full of warez that came out every month or two. They were handled like drugs in the sense that you had to "know a guy who knows a guy" and it was never clear where they actually came from :)

When I mentioned viruses, I specifically meant pro audio software. A copy of Nero once tried to eat my computer. Luckily I caught it in time. Still, even if it's five percent or less, it's another good reason not to use that stuff.

John, I'm actually deeply sorry I made any comments at all regarding piracy at all becaue I inadvertently helped give Larry another chance to give another variation of the rant he seems determined to post in every topic now. My apologies. I have eventide plugin. I figured I would do an image before install if I found the ilok stuff impossible to cleanly remove. Good plugin but it does underscore the fatal flaw in attaching extra items to software functionality outside of the software itself. When it works it is ok I suppose but when it fails it fails miserably.