Ethics question about Receptor plug-ins

[rtucker55]

Actually, I don't feel that this is the correct forum for this discussion and it is just wasting peoples time that come here to discuss/read about what this forum is really about, "Receptor Discussion & Support"

I think that it was explained that what the user was debating will not work even if he chose to go that way. So what is the point of continuing a debate about something that will not work and has little or nothing to do with this forum? I can't believe the number of people that have jumped on this thread and I really wonder how many even own a Receptor?

I respectfully request that the administrators close this thread and lets get back to the Good Stuff, The Receptor!

Thank You,
Rick

[eduardo_b]

Actually, I don't feel that this is the correct forum for this discussion and it is just wasting peoples time that come here to discuss/read about what this forum is really about, "Receptor Discussion & Support"

I don't own Receptor, but doesn't it host VST instruments and effects?

[aciddose]

should be in "everything else", but beside that point, a licence for most software specifically states "the owner is granted licence to use ONE (1) copy of said software ..." blah. so, if you were really technical about interpretations here, we're all criminals already. that said, i've never had to buy licences to operate my lawn mower on another properity, thank shit, because the lawn is too tall atm, and my neighbour is away and asked me to mow his too. although if i were lazy "its against the law" would make a good excuse.

[CrownRoyal]

Actually, I don't feel that this is the correct forum for this discussion and it is just wasting peoples time that come here to discuss/read about what this forum is really about, "Receptor Discussion & Support"

I think that it was explained that what the user was debating will not work even if he chose to go that way. So what is the point of continuing a debate about something that will not work and has little or nothing to do with this forum? I can't believe the number of people that have jumped on this thread and I really wonder how many even own a Receptor?

I respectfully request that the administrators close this thread and lets get back to the Good Stuff, The Receptor!

Thank You,
Rick

Hi Rick,

I do apologize for wasting your time in reading this thread. Ben should go ahead and delete it.

It really did grow out of a Receptor question, though. It got out of scope, quickly, and that's my fault. I was pushing the envelope. Let's drop the whole thing.

You're right the Receptor IS the focus of this area. I got mine this morning and I have been playing with it for almost four hours. I had a friend come over, too. She's a damn good guitarist. We're stunned at what this thing can do. She called Sweetwater and left a message to order one. I've been punishing it like no other piece of hardware I've ever owned. It's ROCK SOLID. This thing needs NOTHING. It's professional grade stuff and I haven't even loaded any of my "purchased" software, yet. We're just running thru the demo presets and banks. It's fast and crisp. I have a Keystation 88 plugged into it and works fabulous. Zones, layers, slider mapping... it all works perfect. No pops, no drop-outs... rock solid stuff. Nancy plugged in and jammed away while I played bass and melody/lead on the keyboard.

So, with that... I'm outta here. It's going to be a late night. I'm going to write a little praise letter and leave.

Best wishes to you, fellow Receptor owner.

[DanTimis]

OK. This has gone way past being anything about Receptor so I moved the topic to "Everything Else"

[CrownRoyal]

OK. This has gone way past being anything about Receptor so I moved the topic to "Everything Else"

Dan,

Go ahead and delete it. People don't need to waste their time.

Also, thanks for your support. I'm delighted with my Receptor. My friend just ordered one, also.

Best wishes and good night.

[DanTimis]

Dan,

Go ahead and delete it. People don't need to waste their time.

You may be right, but I can't help it. I have to reply.

[DanTimis]

So you go to a record store regularly. You notice that they have 5 copies of a CD you have absolutely no intention of buying. You notice that week after week there are still 5 copies, which clearly means nobody is buying the CD. Is it OK to steal it, then?

Yes, things are sometimes gray, they are not always black and white. I don't think that the couple who gave away 120 CD's are horrible people or that they should be put in jail.

What I don't understand is how anybody can justify this clearly illegal act and say it's OK. It's not OK. In the grand scheme of things it may be a small thing. Still it is wrong.

[DanTimis]

I find this sort of argument tenuous because it assumes that H20, Paradox and others are not going to crack software if there isn't an audience for their work. That's simply not true. If nothing else, they do it just to prove they can.

If nobody cared and everyone would completely ignore them, would they still do it just to prove to themselves that they can do it? I seriously doubt that.

I think they do it to show the world how smart they are and to get adulation.

[CrownRoyal]

Dan,

Go ahead and delete it. People don't need to waste their time.

You may be right, but I can't help it. I have to reply.

I just looked back and totally missed a page of discussion. Oops! I didn't see that. I thought, for a second, that you were taking me to task about stealing CD's! Yikes! Is this about that Columbia House thing back in 1993? Look man, I paid for those 13 for the price of 1!

I just thought I'd mention something to you. I don't know if anyone has done this or not but I run a iMac G5 and I picked up Virtual PC last week and installed W2K on my system. I thought I could load my cross platform plug-ins on that drive and move them over via the network. Well, it worked! It was kinda slow installing those plugs but I loaded one plug to test it out and it worked great. I'll load more later. I need to get back to playing around with this thing. It's great. I totally geeked. I'm not U2 or anybody you've ever heard of but FWIW this is a great piece of equipment.

Cheers!

[eduardo_b]

So you go to a record store regularly. You notice that they have 5 copies of a CD you have absolutely no intention of buying. You notice that week after week there are still 5 copies, which clearly means nobody is buying the CD. Is it OK to steal it, then?

Your example of the five CDs doesn't make sense to me. I've never said it's okay to steal. If I am given a copy of a CD to listen to, and it turns out to be something I would never buy, don't care for and will never play again, what's the problem? If I like it, then I'm obligated to purchase a legal copy because I'm going to listen to it. If I borrow a copy from someone and make a copy for myself because I want that CD, that would be stealing.

What I don't understand is how anybody can justify this clearly illegal act and say it's OK. It's not OK. In the grand scheme of things it may be a small thing. Still it is wrong.

If you think about it, the reason it's illegal is because it deprives the copyright owner or developer of being paid for his or her work. But if he or she is paid, but the customer uses a cracked version to avoid copy protection schemes, then the use of the cracked version is only illegal in terms of the EULA (maybe), and a lot of people take issue with the claims made in many EULAs. I'm not condoning stealing because, in this case, nothing was stolen.

[DanTimis]

So you go to a record store regularly. You notice that they have 5 copies of a CD you have absolutely no intention of buying. You notice that week after week there are still 5 copies, which clearly means nobody is buying the CD. Is it OK to steal it, then?

Your example of the five CDs doesn't make sense to me. I've never said it's okay to steal. If I am given a copy of a CD to listen to, and it turns out to be something I would never buy, don't care for and will never play again, what's the problem? If I like it, then I'm obligated to purchase a legal copy because I'm going to listen to it. If I borrow a copy from someone and make a copy for myself because I want that CD, that would be stealing.

The example with the 5 CDs in the store was in response to the justification that it is OK to give away 120 CDs because the 120 recipients would not buy the original CDs anyway. Just because the CDs in the store don't sell is no justification to steal one, the same way just because none of the guests would buy the CDs is no justification for making 120 copies of copyrighted material that you have no right to distribute and giving them away. Not even if every single guest threw away the CD in the dumpster as they left the wedding.

And how do you know that nobody would buy a CD? Let's say that instead of giving away the CDs they played some of the songs during dancing. It is very possible that one or more guests would like one or two songs, ask about them, and buy the CDs.

I understand that you are agaist stealing. I don't understand how you can think that burning 120 CDs of copyrighted material that you do not own, and that you have no right to re-distribute is OK. And we are not talking about 1 or 2, we are talking 120. That's a lot.

If the technology did not allow them to do this, they would have bought 120 compilation CDs, or just 120 copies of one CD with some of their favorite songs. If they could not afford, they would have offered a small bag of candy or something. Just because 1) the technology allows them to do this, 2) they have no clue that it's wrong, and 3) they could not afford to buy 120 copies of each CD that contains one of their favorite songs, it's not an excuse to steal. Yes, it is theft.

This proves my point. Even decent people like yourself who are against stealing a CD from a store don't understand that offering to someone else a copy of material that you have no right to distribute is also stealing. Even if the recepient never uses the CD, DVD, or software.

[eduardo_b]

The example with the 5 CDs in the store was in response to the justification that it is OK to give away 120 CDs because the 120 recipients would not buy the original CDs anyway...

Ahh, I see. I agree that the letter of the law would prohibit what the couple did, but the spirit might be kinder.

I understand that you are agaist stealing. I don't understand how you can think that burning 120 CDs of copyrighted material that you do not own, and that you have no right to re-distribute is OK. And we are not talking about 1 or 2, we are talking 120. That's a lot.

I fall back on the intent aspect of my viewpoint. Let me ask you this. If they had been able to assemble the compilation by purchasing all the songs on a music site that allows them to be burned to CD, and then they made copies for their guests, would that be less offensive to you?

If the technology did not allow them to do this, they would have bought 120 compilation CDs, or just 120 copies of one CD with some of their favorite songs. If they could not afford, they would have offered a small bag of candy or something. Just because 1) the technology allows them to do this, 2) they have no clue that it's wrong, and 3) they could not afford to buy 120 copies of each CD that contains one of their favorite songs, it's not an excuse to steal. Yes, it is theft.

<sigh>Your just a black and white kind of guy. That's your comfort zone. I think, in the big picture, it's just not a problem. Yes, it pushes fair use to the edge, but I'm not going to accuse them of stealing, because that's not their intent. Let's just call it a wedding present from the often clueless record business, which fights technology at its own peril. There's probably a market for making it possible for this couple and others to do this at a reasonable cost, but the record companies would fight this in the same way they didn't want to sell songs online.

[fake]

I think a lot of people hear should start to read the law regarding Software and not take note of "interested parties" views.

EULA's are a joke!

Software in the UK and some other countries is classed as a "Product" and is protected by copyright law and not a license. A license, EULA, in most cases will be classed as a restriction of your rights. That is why there is a copyright law.

You must agree to any licence conditions prior to purchase to make it legal. These are the terms under the UK sale of goods act, and the supply of good implied terms act. No restrictions can be imposed after a sale as once the money is handed over the contract of sale ends and the item becomes your sole property. This means you can also legally resell the item if you wish.

So now it become a matter of copyright!

Check out ICL vs St Albans City Council where the judge made it very clear what the law is. Rejected the license agreement and ICL had to pay over £3 million in compensation.

Try returnig software because you don't agree with the license... you will then find out how the law works.

Having said that....
Pirating and using cracked software is illegal whichever way you look at it as it infringes copyright.


fake

[DanTimis]

I fall back on the intent aspect of my viewpoint. Let me ask you this. If they had been able to assemble the compilation by purchasing all the songs on a music site that allows them to be burned to CD, and then they made copies for their guests, would that be less offensive to you?

Absolutely. This would be the ideal situation. Unfortunately, the record companies are not smart enough to offer something like this. There was a time when you could go to record store, choose the tracks you wanted and have a custom CD made on the spot. But, you had to pay for it. On top of that, there should be discounts for quantity.

A song on iTunes is about $1. If you choose 10 songs, it would be $10. If you could get it half price for 120 copies, it would $5 per CD, which is probably close to what you are paying for one slice of wedding cake. If I wanted to do this for my wedding and I couldn't do it legally, I would be really mad at the record companies, but I would not break the law.

<sigh>Your just a black and white kind of guy. That's your comfort zone. I think, in the big picture, it's just not a problem. Yes, it pushes fair use to the edge, but I'm not going to accuse them of stealing, because that's not their intent. Let's just call it a wedding present from the often clueless record business, which fights technology at its own peril. There's probably a market for making it possible for this couple and others to do this at a reasonable cost, but the record companies would fight this in the same way they didn't want to sell songs online.

I don't think I am black and white. I drive sometimes over the speed limit, but I know that I am breaking the law, I am not proud and bragging about it, and I am not trying to justify it.

I am mostly appalled by the lack of awareness. This whole example about the wedding started with me saying that we should educate the public. If someone would tell me that they were at a wedding and every guest received a custom CD, I would still think it was wrong, but I would not be appalled.

This couple was trying to be generous with their guests. Their intent was to share their joy with friends and family. I admire that, but what I found disturbing was that they were totally oblivious to the fact that they were breaking the law, and as a result they were very proud of what they did and bragging on national TV. They should be proud about their generosity, but they should understand the law, and try to find other ways of expressing it.

I do understand that sometimes it is very hard to follow the exact letter of the law. Sometimes it is hard to follow even the spirit of the law. But, returning to my original point that got lost in the debate: honest people who would not steal a wallet full of cash, make copies of CDs, DVDs, and software all the time, completely unaware that they are breaking the law. If these honest people understood both the law and the ethics, they might make a copy of a CD that's out of print and give it to a friend (still it would be an illegal act), but buy another CD if it's in print. Instead, many otherwise honest people make copies of CDs, DVDs, and software in any situation. Not because they are dishonest, not because they feel that they have no choice, simply because they do not understand the law and the ethics of intellectual property.