ORIGINAL: droddey

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.

Well said and I see your point.

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.

So, are Waves suing them for using illegal software, or for reverse-engineering/cracking the software, which is a breach of EULA, minimally? Big diff, tho.

See, I cannot imagine well how these visits went:

'Hi, we want to make a recording here but do you use such and so Wave Plug, we need it?' answer, Yes, we do, no problem.'
[Gumshoe checks customer database, and wonders why he only thinks of that NOW] 'Ah yes, I see you do, OK sorry to have bothered you, we'll be on our way again'. 'Ah', says the studio owner, 'but of course we cracked our legitimate version for system stability'.

Erm.

Are Waves' agents actually paying for the studio time they're wasting to search for cracked software? I'm not using cracked software, so if somebody abused a studio tour under the false pretense of booking time, that would really chap my hide.

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?

Besides extensive troubleshooting and testing on my part with a variety of machines and DAW platforms, years of experience with the software, and concurrence from a huge swath of the pro audio community...

... because Waves admitted that PACE was to blame.

ORIGINAL: Editor

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.

According to my Waves rep, they're using the same paceApp toolkit as the other iLok enabled companies do ( McDSP, Digi, Sonnox, Celemony, etc.). Is this
not the case? I have found since they retired their hard disk authorization scheme, that I haven't had any problems with the stability of their
plugs or their impact on my DAW. I've never run a crack, so I couldn't tell you if they are any more stable . . but I don't believe
copy protection has been at the root of any of my (quite infrequent) crashes (to date). Also, I believe Pace has made good progress
in correcting some of the more intrusive aspects of the interLok drivers.

The only part of Waves copy protection system that annoys me is that they don't use the standard iLok authorizer. They have their own
weirdo thing. This is at the root of why one cannot transfer iLok assets for their products to other iLoks or other iLok accounts (as you
can with all other iLok software). They claim that they implemented this feature long before Pace came out with theirs ..and that they're
stuck with it until the next major release (v6 I would assume).

ps: I spoke with a colleague who knew a studio that got busted ... Waves is asking them for $50k in fines and may report them
to the FBI. That oughta scare the poop out of people. As lean as most studios are running, 50k could be enough to shut the
place down.

The only part of Waves copy protection system that annoys me is that they don't use the standard iLok authorizer. They have their own weirdo thing. This is at the root of why one cannot transfer iLok assets for their products to other iLoks or other iLok accounts (as you
can with all other iLok software).

I agree with that. They should provide the full benefits of the dongle if they make you use one.

Waves doesn't seem to get it, I'm afraid. Just coming off their WUP disaster (driving customers
away in-droves), having to woo them back with re-bundling, WUP caps and 50% NARAS discounts,
they do this?

It's a public-relations nightmare and perpetuates the stereotype of them being
ham-handed greedy bastards. You gotta wonder who in the company comes up with these
half-assed ideas?

Speaking of which, I think my WUP plan expires today. Waves doesn't respond to me anymore (I'm probably blocked). I have asked politely all year long for them to consider fixing some of the bugs their software has with Sonar. They haven't done a single thing. I finally just told them that it was dishonest for them to ask for money from their Sonar users for support when it is non existent. After that, I think they cut all ties of communication with me.

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.

I completely disagree. Cakewalk is not as sinful, nor is any other manufacturer in our industry. Applications crash. Incompatibilities arise. That's normal. This is different.

I'm talking about software that intentionally machine-reboots your computer, by design, regardless of what the machine is doing at the moment. That's irresponsible if it's by accident, but it's just plain unethical if it's intentional. It would be unacceptable even if the software worked as intended and only rebooted the machine if you were actually misusing the software. AFAIC the software ought to play fair with other components in the environment. If the software refuses to operate based on evidence that it is not authorized, fine. But to warm-boot the computer in the middle of an operation? That is clearly jeopardizing the integrity of the user's computer. You can cause real data loss and machine instability that way. That's just plain wrong. FYI Pace confirmed that the rebooting was by design, not an error. They also wrote their authorization keys onto the drive in such a way that they could not be removed except by FDISKing the drive. Since there were terrific interoperability problems with various apps that used the PACE Interlok system, once a computer with PACE became befuddled, often the only way to get back to a stable system was a complete wipe-and-reinstall job.

Compound that with the fact that the copy protection DIDN'T work as intended and rebooted the computer all the time, for no good reason, even when it was authorized; kept my test rigs down for weeks at a time; and caused deauthorization of other plug-ins - and I stand by my assertion that the software was more virus than application. Technically speaking, it's a rootkit.

And, as I wrote in the article, this copy protection was totally ineffective at preventing piracy. It is fairly easy to remove yourself if you have a little application debug experience. So, to summarize, this software, by its very design:

- brutalized people's PCs
- shut down studio machines for days or weeks
- unpredictable behavior caused strange reboots during sessions
- deauthorized itself
- caused other apps to quit working altogether
- cost Waves, their customers, and other SW mfgrs considerable $$
- completely failed to prevent piracy

And, after a year of working with Waves on the issue, the problem was never resolved, Waves never publicly admitted their fault, and tremendous damage was done. I view that as a testimonial to the kind of company Waves is. I call it "customer-spiteful".

According to my Waves rep, they're using the same paceApp toolkit as the other iLok enabled companies do ( McDSP, Digi, Sonnox, Celemony, etc.). Is this not the case? I have found since they retired their hard disk authorization scheme, that I haven't had any problems with the stability of their plugs or their impact on my DAW. I've never run a crack, so I couldn't tell you if they are any more stable . . but I don't believe copy protection has been at the root of any of my (quite infrequent) crashes (to date). Also, I believe Pace has made good progress in correcting some of the more intrusive aspects of the interLok drivers.

I think this is the case. I am sure that Waves software is considerably more stable than it was in the 3.x era.

However, once you've been burned by this stuff, you learn a valuable lesson. Clearly, Waves has not altered its view on customer intimacy. I've been screwed seriously by Waves... and I'm a music software reviewer! If they treat the media this way, then imagine how they'll treat you.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Nope, you won't catch me advocating their software. At least not until they change their MO.

ORIGINAL: Ognis

Weird studio's are using cracked software. Cracked software is of course wrong, but to use it to make money is even worse.

I didn't see from the story which educational institution got busted... Ognis - coolest avatar yet IMHO....
-D