ORIGINAL: droddey

So the studio where there may or may not be pirated software in use is the property in question? How is that Waves' territory? Only the software they designed and sell is their property, not the studio they contract under false pretenses.

They paid to come into the studio. THere's no such thing as false pretenses. If they want to pay to come into the studio and stand on their head the whole time, that's their business. They paid for it.

I believe the article said "teams of investigators posing as potential clients visited facilities in the UK and US to gather evidence, secretly filming studio owners and engineers demonstrating or discussing ‘cracked’ copies of Waves plug-ins. A prominent education establishment is also believed to be implicated."

No mention of contracting the studio. I would much rather have a policy where your list of plug-ins is verified
by the manufacturer and you get a "good studio" rating.. kind of like the better business bureau or diamond certified or
something like that. That's something I could advertise and like Dave Rich say "hey, we respect IP .. we'll respect your
IP .. we're crack free." If done correctly, it would something that people would look for with a potential engagement with
a studio. If I walked into a town I didn't know, and I needed some work done, you better believe I'd look for that.

Instead we get to say "hey, we haven't been raided .. isnt' that cool?"

What waves is doing is exactly the same tactics that the RIAA did with illegal file sharing. It did *nothing* to curb the problem and made
them look like total bastards because (when they picked on the wrong people) it blew up in their face. The RIAA quietly had to
settle with a number of individuals that they errantly targeted. Waves will make the same mistake with their policy, I predict.

"A prominent education establishment" ... that is intriguing .. some of these large "studio schools" seem a little
shady to me.

Haha, the idea of this kind of sting operation is kind of hilarious.

Some private investigator pretending to be a musician successful enough to need a pro studio, then coming in and asking questions about cracked Waves plugins... all the while asking the engineer to talk into his lapel? Pretty funny.

And sheesh, if you're gonna use cracked software and run a professional studio with it, AND you're also gonna brag about it to clients you've never seen before that won't put that funny looking purse down? Well... maybe a Darwin Award moment right there....

ORIGINAL: ...wicked
Some private investigator pretending to be a musician successful enough to need a pro studio, then coming in and asking questions about cracked Waves plugins... all the while asking the engineer to talk into his lapel? Pretty funny.

Ok, all you studio owners... a quick quiz... This should only take a couple of minuts, and who knows, it may save your neck some day!!!

Secret Agent or Musician -- You Decide

A.


B.


C.


D.
















Answers: A. Boy band member with walkie talkie -- NOT a secret agent, B. Shady character in shadows -- MAY BE a secret agent, but then again may just be a perv hangin' out on the corner, C. Extra double-HOT double-secret-secret agent posing as a extra-hot singer/songwriter -- secret agent, D. Keith Richards

I'd like for spies to work on my behalf and infiltrate Waves Co. Their mission: once inside, authorize my specific license to use Native Power Pack which Waves Co have stolen from me and are holding for $200 ransom.

I'm all for a company rigorously protecting it's intellectual property. But Waves is not just any company. They are as low and detestable as the pirates who crack their software.
I briefly considered acquiring a cracked copy of NPP; but I decided against it. I'm better off having no connection whatsoever with the likes of Waves or their ilk; software pirates.
It's important for me to feel good about the people and companies I do business with. It is a shame that such a great suite of products have become so stained as to make the Waves experience a thoroughly repulsive one. The last thing I want is to have any association with the leaders of that company. What a low wretched lot they are.

I got a suggestion for Waves. Why don't they cut their prices in half and maybe a lot more people would start purchasing their plug ins. If I hear a Voxengo plugin I like I immediately purchase it. Why? Because they are reasonably priced. The same can be said for several other companies. Waves are so expensive and require a dongle. I know some pro studios that actually purchased the Waves plugs but use hacks because they don't want to deal with the dongles or limitations when upgrading to a new computer. For god sakes Waves wants $1000.00 for their SSL bundle on their website. At Sweetwater it's $750.00. That's a lot of money either way! Now if they sold that bundle for $400.00 I would have purchased it a long time ago. I'm hoping to get a Dunede for a reasonble price at some point. Hopefully the price will come down or I wil find a good deal on eBay.

They are as low and detestable as the pirates who crack their software.

Indeed. They are without a doubt the worst company I have ever dealt with on any level. I purchased their Gold Bundle for a Pro Tools HD rig I used to run and it literally took threats of death to authorize my license. I seriously considered flying to Isreal to kick some butt, Krav Maga be damned.

For god sakes Waves wants $1000.00 for their SSL bundle on their website. At Sweetwater it's $750.00. That's a lot of money either way! Now if they sold that bundle for $400.00 I would have purchased it a long time ago. I'm hoping to get a Dunede for a reasonble price at some point. Hopefully the price will come down or I wil find a good deal on eBay.

While I agree that they charge too much, you have to put it in perspective. I use Kjaerhus and Voxengo plugs for my core stuff (EQ, compression, limiting), but how many plugs do Kjaerhus and Voxengo have? Why don't they have as many as Waves? Why don't they support ProTools? Well, probably because they can't afford to hire the people required to create a full suite of plugs and maintain them and provide customer service for them and deploy them on multiple (very different) platforms. You can't outfit a whole studio from either of them, but you can from Waves, because they have the resources to hire the programmers to create a full line.

And Kjaerhus and Voxengo are single programmer outfits, AFAIK, and if anything happens to those two guys, everything you've invested in them is a waste because they'll die as products. That's fine for us in a home studio, but it's not for a professional studio. They need to know that the company will remain viable and will continue to expand their offerings. That costs money, and in a fairly low volume business it costs even more money per unit. And the research to create new and powerful new plugs, to gather high quality impulse files, support new platforms, etc... is not cheap. Companies like K and V are able to make a basic living and operate a small company, but they can't expand significantly at those prices as the volumes that these types of products sell at.

Dean - in reply to several of your quotes here...

I agree 100% that Waves is well within their rights to use whatever copy protection or anti-piracy methods they choose within the limits of the law. In fact, Waves is perfectly within their rights to make any number of business blunders and marketing snafus.

Several years ago I broke the story on Waves' absurd anti-piracy paranoia and ridiculous use of bizarre and (IMHO) unethical copy-protection schemes. At that time, Waves software was more virus than application. I'll tell you from personal experience with that company that they were absolutely unable after several months to get me a version of their software that didn't wreck my test machines. This story was more than a single incident: Waves copy protection problems date back at least to 1998.

I think Waves makes great software, but their copy-protection has long been over-the-top, and, IMHO, dangerous for any professional studio to employ. Based on their history, I cannot trust them to produce software that won't completely run my recording rig into the ground. I would never recommend that a professional studio install their software, if only due to the risk that the copy protection will glitch and lock up the computer at a critical time.

I know many people who have great experience with their software and never hit problems with their copy protection. However, in professional circles, the mantra has long been "buy the software, but use the crack" because historically, the cracked Waves software is more reliable than the retail version.

I am relatively sure that Waves spends an inordinate percentage of its annual expenditures on anti-piracy efforts. As a paying customer, I personally frown upon their use of my money that way, because it represents clearly misplaced priorities and, in the end, does not benefit me, their customer, in the least. Curiously, many other competitive companies (ie Cakewalk) are able to thrive with only minimal copy protection.

I for one will continue to scold Waves for their continued misuse of copy protection and other anti-piracy schemes.

I'd like for spies to work on my behalf and infiltrate Waves Co. Their mission: once inside, authorize my specific license to use Native Power Pack which Waves Co have stolen from me and are holding for $200 ransom.

I also had this experience. Agree 100%. 20 points for Gryffindor.

Several years ago I broke the story on Waves' absurd anti-piracy paranoia and ridiculous use of bizarre and (IMHO) unethical copy-protection schemes. At that time, Waves software was more virus than application. I'll tell you from personal experience with that company that they were absolutely unable after several months to get me a version of their software that didn't wreck my test machines. This story was more than a single incident: Waves copy protection problems date back at least to 1998.

How do you know it was their copy protection scheme, and not just the usual general issues that everyone has with this or that piece of software? Plenty of us have plugs that are not copy protected at all that cause all kinds of problems. It's just par for the course because of the way that DAWs work.

If whacking your computer is a sin, then Cakewalk is jsut as sinful, as are every audio card maker. Plenty of people will never get this one or another piece of hardware or software to work in their machine, or even get their machine stable with it installed. It doesn't really have anything to do with copy protection, it's just what you get when you have a lot of people building pieces separately and then us consumers being the ones that put them together in various combinations and get hit with the incompatibilties.

As I said, I'm no fan of Waves, but they are running a real business, and their stuff is ripped off widely, and they are pretty much on their own to do anything about it. They depend on pro business way more than Cakewalk does, and therefore they are going to take pros ripping them off very seriously.