bitflipper
Back on topic - no, vst-club.com has been discussed here before and is absolutely NOT legit.

Thanks for the responses. As soon as current flagship products popped up at ridiculous prices, "cracked software" came to mind for me too. Not meant to point at anyone in particular but this site itself (so much about it just screams "wrong" when you read further into it).
 
 
 
 

I don't think there's any point being politically correct about it. The fact that Russia is a hotbed of cybercrime is not generally contested, but nor is it a bad reflection of the character of Russians as a whole. I have Russian friends who freely acknowledge the problem with cybercrime in Russia. I would say one reason for it is the relatively low pay on offer to computer engineers. The average pay for that kind of job in Russia is around $25,000 so obviously there's a huge incentive to turn to other means to make your computer skills pay, and the Russian government tends to turn a blind eye to it. I think it's the same situation in China, if not worse. 

I remember being naive back when the similar mp3club was popular and believing i could really get thousands in software for next to nothing.  They were based in Russia too.
 
On a related note, i have noticed many of the kids that i work with from other countries get serious sticker shock at the actual prices of software. Apparently the software is provided at extreme discounts in certain impoverished countries and/or they are being sold pirated software dirt cheap.  i say "and/or" because I do know there are actual programs in existence but not what the ratio of deep discount to pirate ratio exists. It gives me perspective on why adults from those countries might actually believe these offers are legit.

dubdisciple
I remember being naive back when the similar mp3club was popular and believing i could really get thousands in software for next to nothing.  They were based in Russia too.
 
On a related note, i have noticed many of the kids that i work with from other countries get serious sticker shock at the actual prices of software. Apparently the software is provided at extreme discounts in certain impoverished countries and/or they are being sold pirated software dirt cheap.  i say "and/or" because I do know there are actual programs in existence but not what the ratio of deep discount to pirate ratio exists. It gives me perspective on why adults from those countries might actually believe these offers are legit.

I think a lot of kids in this country get sticker shock as well. If you're a teenager or in an entry level job then hundreds of dollars is out of the question (unless you have rich parents), especially if you're not sure music production is something you're going to stick at. 

There WAS a time, when software/music/video was almost completely illegal in Russia. But the reason was simple:
imagine Windows has price $10000 and SONAR yet another $15000. $500 for cheap "Original" content. So the question was not "pay or not to pay" but use computers/listen music or forget about it. Yes, it WAS so bad. For short period, just several year. The next phase was like $1000/$1500/$50 respectively. That time I have bought my first legal CD, $15... I had monthly salary ~$100 officially supporting products from local company and one big US software developer.
 
But the times are changing. In US "white only" has disappeared completely and copy rights protection took the rest of the world into account, but it took quite some time. Content piracy in Russia still exists, but it is not the same as before. 2009 was the first case when 2 persons was sent to prison (for 1.5 and 2 years!) for trading illegal software. That was the first, but far from the last precedent. All famous physical "markets" with pirated music/software was closed. Most sites with illegal content was forced to move from Russia. While some sites also have changed domain ("famous" Russian book site is in ".ec" (Ecuador) domain), other still use Russian registration and proxy. While vst-club is registered and has IP in SpB, that does not automatically mean it is physically there. It can be just a proxy address (as domain names, still relatively cheap there). These people are "hunted", with progressive success.
 
10 years ago, I could not imagine to get something from officials in Russia without some "bonus" under the table. Today it works. But 10 years ago I believed that "west laws" protect consumers. Today I understand that is a miracle. Here (in Europe, I am not in Russia), copy protection laws are systematically misused while consumers are normally pointed that "chapter 1024 part 43 of our AGB has warned you...". Software patents, FTA... Well, I do not want to continue that, too political, especially for this forum.

I've watched the same progression in the Philippines over the past 10 years. As recently as a decade ago, there was no market for legitimate software or movies in that country. $3 was the going price for a video game or a movie - actually, you'd get up to ten movies on a single DVD, compressed beyond recognition and often made with a handheld camcorder in a Chinese movie theater.
 
The economy at that time was still recovering from the damage done during the Marcos era. Average annual income was $2400 and a middle-class job in the city paid $20 a week. Out in the rural areas, the standard wage was $2 per day. Imagine Starbucks coming in and trying to get $5 for a cup of coffee.
 
Today, those bootleg movies and software are gone from the market stalls. People can now afford to buy legitimately, and for the most part, they do. That metamorphosis is the result of both a stronger economy and political pressure from foreign trading partners. It truly is a global economy now, and if you wanna play at all, you gotta play by the rules.

Enforcement is everything. Consumer/copyright laws mean nothing if they're not being enforced. Which is why it's a common occurrence here in New York to see people lay out a picnic blanket on the street and sell hundreds of bootleg DVDs. I've even seen cops buying them. There's a guy on Delancey Street who has a table set up with boxes and boxes of CD compilations of old soul and Motown tunes that he's obviously just downloaded illegally off the internet and burned onto discs. He's been there for years and the cops just walk right past him, nobody cares. Then of course you have the counterfeit goods openly sold on Canal St. Every few years they have a "crackdown" and a bunch of stores in Chinatown get raided. It's all for show - the store owners pay a fine, and they're back in business knowing they'll be left alone for a couple of years until the next raid. 
 
But try setting up a website in the US selling counterfeit goods and they'll shut you down pretty quickly. You'd have to do it on the Dark Net via Tor.