2009 IMSTA Piracy Survey

[mellotronaut]

and again: the only way to protect software is a good protection scheme that doesn't hurt legal customers. Try to develop it and join forces with other devs to get it done!
Everything else is an illusion.

[Paulie Phonick]

With regards to the prizes, as I understand it IMSTA will try and collate the 100 best comments submitted after the survey ends.

I wonder how will they define best - i.e. will anything that challenges their point of view in any way have a chance of being selected? Guess we'll see, I wrote what I think anyway.

imo, one should buy a license for the software one uses, but our nice entrepreneurs shouldn't think, they'd sell considerably more licenses, if there were no pirates and crackers. They should concentrate in making bug and hassle free software and offering their stuff for reasonable prices and then they'll sell more and get all the love from their customers. Let pirates be pirates and live more happily!

That's pretty much what I wrote in the final comment field. Who knows, we might actually get the message through if everybody writes the same thing, but it may become hard to win anything.

By the way, did you guys get any sort of thank you or confirmation message after submitting the survey? It just dropped me to the IMSTA homepage after I clicked the "Finish survey" button and I'm not sure it worked correctly.

[Aloysius]

By the way, did you guys get any sort of thank you or confirmation message after submitting the survey?

Surprisingly no! The whole exercise struck me as being a rather amateur affair.

[mellotronaut]

By the way, did you guys get any sort of thank you or confirmation message after submitting the survey?

Surprisingly no! The whole exercise struck me as being a rather amateur affair.

right

i'm sure, nobody of these IMSTAs had Statistics at school. "Reliable, objective, valid"????? AUM

[Compyfox]

IMSTA won't find out anything useful with this survey except email-addresses from/of G.A.S.sy pirates.

I have to agree here.
I even dare saying that nobody really has a white vest - from hobbyists to big studios. And I think this survey is only to punish people (especially those who use warez for "test purposees") rather than doing anything good or being "anonymous".


As example:
In the music industry, it's always talked up and down, how illegal filesharing damages sales. I tend to agree on some ends (example: crappy music for horrendous prices). It was however CONFIRMED (and this several times now), that thanks to filesharing, sales went actually up rather than down. Some people even got famous thanks due to the internet "sharing" (Miss Gaga being the most recent example).

Why?

Hard to describe, but I say people want to take a peek first, and then go for the full version in the end just to show support if it's really their thing. In terms of movies, you pay almost 10 bucks over here now, and what do you get for it? 90 minutes of crap as of late (yeah, I blew a lot of money in the last years), snacks not counting. This is definitely not like the available trailer has shown me before. On the long run, it turns into dissapointmend and simply ignoring going to the movies anymore and rather revert to "other sources".


I guess the same applies to cripled demos.

In my case, I had experience with several firms where their (cripled) demos worked great to a certain extend, but turned to be totally unusable after I got the full version. If I would have had the chance to check that beforehand, I wouldn't have had any problems discussing a refund or something like that. On the other hand however, I had great experience with uncripled 30-40 day trials or even beta versions (if I was quick enough to jump on these offerings). Didn't mean that I jumped the shark though (which is the very reason of demos - to find out of the stuff is for you or not).


Or take samples as another example.

Audio demos can sound great (if the right person created it), yet you get an expensive sample pack and it sounds like nothing at all like it was portraied in the audio demos, not to mention simple usage (some tools are definitely NOT simple to use). Still there are barely any suitable working demos or free stuff (which thankfully changed over the years). Sometimes I really wish I hadn't blown out money for certain sets that nobody wants anymore today or are "online licenses" which are generally NFR. Especially in times of "the more samples, the better the samplepack". Now I mainly use freeware stuff from the KVR Sample-Section - and what do you know, I still catch myself using Kontakt 2's stock material only, on top of StylusRMX and Linplug's RM4 (with random drum machine samples).



It's a two edged blade, true that. But always blaming it on warez users (especially the casual ones, who usually do not share stuff) alone is not really helping (here I totally agree with mellotronaut). It's different however for those who act big and are just 15-20 years old and will probably never pay for anything.

There is more involved than this survey is actually asking for. It's too generalized IMO. I'm against warez as much as possible, but sometimes you're just like "heck no, not like that" and you jump over to the "dark side".

Or what about the constant thing with "you don't use highend plugins, you're worth nothing". Personally I mix with a handful of the best freeware tools available on the market (bootsie, TAL, TbT), still I'm not considered equal since I'm not using Waves or something similar.


Theoretically you could also say I'm a warez user, since I grabbed TV rips from "Avatar" before it was even in talk being ported into a (IMO very bad dubbed) German version, or "Doctor Who" (which is like 6 years old now, yet we slowly get these episodes now?!), or my recent dive into "Stargate"'s latest release (since it's far from being released over here, and if, then cut up and with tons of commercial breaks). Or, like Columbia did it with Hellboy here in Germany... if you got the US version "before" the official German release, you got it "illegal" (some copies were even confiscated at the German premiere in Berlin while doing autogram hunting), since it was not the localized version. Sony did a similar stunt years ago if you imported videogames outside of your country location. They still say "if it's not made for the specific market, it's inferior and also illegal - you damadge the local market".


You also have to take that into consideration, not always the "is it okay if you steal a car and drive around with it" argument. Sad however that this discussion always turns out the same way in the end...



Congrats to the arrival btw, and I still love your SR-202 drum sampler (Robert Miles Kit).

[Zombie Queen]

Agree with Mello, this survey seems quite pointless, except for giving away some software in the process, which is a novel and promising tool for fighting piracy. I took it anyway, I like filling surveys for some reason.

[Ben H]

One thing I particularly don't like is the restrictive policy of some sample developers, where if you don't like a product you can't resell it. I mean these things aren't cheap, and there's nothing worse than purchasing a "dog" that you have no use for and that you are stuck with. Surely they should allow some sort of transfer, if even for a nominal fee. I'm not talking about your small "copyable" libraries, I'm talking your larger EWs and VSLs that are dongle protected anyway.

One thing that gets a BIG KUDOS is initiatives like trysound, that actually let you demo these sample libs remotely before you purchase them.

[Aloysius]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if the prizes turned out to be cracked copies? To be honest, I don't think I'd be too surprized! Just a thought!

[UltraJv]

Surveys usually have profiled questions designed to lead to one outcome. Thats why it dosnt work with people who think for themselves.

[Muon Software Ltd]

Guys,

I have my own thoughts on the validity and reliability of the survey (and I did stats at college). I passed these thoughts on to Ray, who's the head of IMSTA, at the last AGM. I was disappointed to see that the '09 survey repeats some of the same mistakes IMHO. However, some of the data collected last year was extremely interesting, so I'm still in favour of giving it a go even in its present form.

I'd ask anyone coming to this thread to simply fill out the survey and pass on your opinions. IMSTA members just want to know what you think - they don't need your email addresses, the prizes are not cracked and it is nothing really more than that.

Kind regards
Dave

[Rock Hardbuns]

I've tried three times, I just can't get through it! Question 6 is particularly nebulous.

[UltraJv]

I've tried three times, I just can't get through it! Question 6 is particularly nebulous.

Yes - on that question alone, it could be used to detemine piracy.

[Rock Hardbuns]

Yes - on that question alone, it could be used to detemine piracy.

Or is it? The combination of "own" and "license" makes it dicey. I don't own the GPL. What about stuff I've been given for beta testing? What about my own stuff.

I.e I use plenty of music software for which I do not "own a license" but at the same time it is not pirated.

[UltraJv]

Yes - on that question alone, it could be used to detemine piracy.

Or is it? The combination of "own" and "license" makes it dicey. I don't own the GPL. What about stuff I've been given for beta testing? What about my own stuff.

I.e I use plenty of music software for which I do not "own a license" but at the same time it is not pirated.

They will assume youre pirating.

[Compyfox]

If you don't want to be brandmarket, you loose out on the prices. If you want the prices, you risk to be brandmarket.

Like earlier said: two edged blade.