LinPlug

Peter from LinPlug · Post by **Peter from LinPlug** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:39 pm

piracy, a survey from IMSTA

http://www.imsta.org/imsta_survey.html

LinPlug is member of the IMSTA, in hope that telling people what they do will help curing the piracy illness on this planet.

I think you can win something there too, maybe some LinPlug software

phazed · Post by **phazed** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:58 pm

Sorry, but these questions are mostly stupid.

It should be clear to everybody that using pirated software is not ok, but I expected that the survey goes more deeply and tries to figure out why people do it nevertheless.

Why don't they offer answers like:

- I like the product but the price is much too high
- I dislike the company's policy and don't want to support them
- No real demo or annoying demo limitations

Much too add...

If you really want to know why your products are pirated then do it in a more intelligent way.

And, very important: distinguish between those who "just" have pirated copies of your products and those who really use them for work.

Just my two cents (also working as a software developer).

Peter from LinPlug · Post by **Peter from LinPlug** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:05 pm

Nice .. but wrong address. Not we do the survey. But yo are free to post your opinions here, sure.

Peter from LinPlug · Post by **Peter from LinPlug** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:09 pm

Ehrm , sorry... the tite of this thread was VERY misleading in that respect, I changed it

Kyran · Post by **Kyran** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 5:12 pm

I took the survey.

I'd like to rephrase the closing comments I posted in there.

I understand that software companies like to protect their investment, but some copy protection schemes are way too annoying, and make me as a paying customer feel like I'm looked on as a potential thief. That's not good.

C/R and dongle protection schemes are really not fun for the end user. They complicate the install process, allow for a lot of potential glitches and (this is the most important part) makes the product dead if the company decides to stop supporting it, or if the companies goes out of bussiness, because you can't get a new authorisation anymore, or because the drivers for you dongle don't work on a new OS versions or something similar.

In that regard I find it very sad that linplug moves away from simple serial protection. Cakewalk proves that it's possible to sell products without big protection schemes. I would have bought RMV without a demo if it would just have had serial protection, now I'm really doubting.

Maybe companies should focus on extra non reproducable content for paying customers (online training sessions for example or closed forums for registered users).
You might want to look at open source businesses for inspiration. They manage to make money out of a free product.

palebluedun · Post by **palebluedun** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:56 am

It was easy enough and you do get a chance to win something. The main thing though is you get a chance to say something to the software producers one way or another. That's important and a very cool thing we can do now.

I don't like that dongle thingy, it's one way thieves put the costs and burden on me for their bad behavior, but I may have to live with it some. It's a discouragement for sure-- for everyone.

Hope they publish the results for us to read. I think it would be interesting to read what justifications for stealing there are out there. There can only be "justifications" as there is really no legitimate argument for stealing a piece of software ever. It seems to me that if you can afford to buy and maintain hardware you have the means to buy software as well. If your budget is tight just wait and save your money and you'll get what you want before you know it and there is some good free stuff while you wait. (Alpha free for instance, Fall in love with sound!)

Assuming we are all musicians of sorts, the most important tool we have is our human hearts, and stealing, and knowing we are doing so, puts a stake right through the best part of our creativity, It's a stigma and an ugly stain to deal with. We are better than that and we don't get over on anyone. Dongles aren't free!

Oh my!!! That sounds so preachy, huh? Sorry.

Please take care, all of you.

joji

JKVisFX · Post by **JKVisFX** » Sun Sep 28, 2008 11:11 pm

I did the survey. I liked the opportunity to say a few things to IMSTA. My main message was that copy protection schemes do not really work. No matter the scheme used, somebody, somewhere figures out a crack for it and makes it available publicly. I know this because there is hardly a piece of software out there that I use that isn't available to me as "warez." All one has to do is search the various bittorrent tracker search sites to see this for oneself. On the other hand, copy protection does cause, at its best, a minor inconvenience to the legit customer, at its worst, major issues that prevent installation or operation of of the software. I also suspect that copy protection has little impact on actual sales of the software. Most people, I suspect, who download software are people who would not likely have ever purchases it in the first place - either because they cannot afford it or, they are just greedy, or are casual "collectors" of warez. I suspect that adding copy protection to software does not results in much increases sales. Perhaps Peter can enlighten us on this a little more. Perhaps, after say three or six months after Sax Lab and RMV have been out for a while with the new copy protection scheme, he can give us some objective data on this. I would be very curious.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:17 pm

I took the survey. Nice opportunity to have one's opinion heard. I am 100% anti piracy, never used warez, never will, end of story. Please keep that in mind while reading the following.

A company can't track the number of sales *lost* by the introduction of a particular copy protection scheme. In this case it has prevented me from upgrading to RMV at least for a while until I see more real world results of using the Syncrosoft soft elicenser. The question is how many warez users will buy a product now that a cracked version may not be available versus how many people won't buy the product because of it's intrusive C/P scheme. I don't think there is any way to tell. A warez user may simply move on to another cracked product or they may be forced to purchase the product, who knows.

I recognize and support the right of a company to protect it's intellectual property but I also recognize the right of users to protect their systems from potentially harmful C/P schemes by choosing not to purchase certain products. In my case I have no desire to use Dongled, Syncrosoft, Pace/ iLock products so any product that uses them can count at least one lost sale.

There are few companies that I respect as much as Linplug and I wish them great success. Maybe someday there will be a way to protect a company's rights without punishing the loyal honest customer.

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:20 pm

Funny thing is I think all the products offered as prizes except maybe Amplitube 2 use the above mentioned undesirable Copy Protection Schemes. Good thing I never win anything so I won't have to figure out what to do with a prize I don't want to install.

ckatrun411 · Post by **ckatrun411** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 2:57 pm

I took the survey. The prizes are AWESOME!!

I'd love to win...

People who care about their music, don't crack their software. People, who just play music, crack a lot of software. We live in a world where not many people are passionate.

At least, the user base of Kvr seems to be very responsible for software.
That is good thing....

I do not crack software because

A) I love to make music, and I care about my music.

B) I write so much music that, all my software MUST work. If I am having trouble with my software, I NEED technical support. I can not risk having a software that stops working, or will not have a bug fix, or will not see a version 2, or 3, or 4, or will be infested with spamware and adware, and viruses etc...

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:45 pm

I do not crack software because

A) It's immoral, wrong, not right.

B) I don't need a B since A covers it all for me.

valley · Post by **valley** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 7:16 pm

What a poorly crafted survey that was.

Brittlestem · Post by **Brittlestem** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:28 pm

I filled it in but got a "Error Saving Answers (Error #00201) SESS_SID= DB_SID=" error message in Firefox 3.03.
Oh well.

Peter from LinPlug · Post by **Peter from LinPlug** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:04 pm

Just to add myself to your statements, I took the survey. i dont think its particularly clever, but I doubt one can make a realy clever one, no matter what. I not give much on the results, as i dont give much on any surveys result.

I dont use cracked software, and i dont steal any other work, in example I buy my music, every single song. If you dont buy your music you are not better thn when you dont buy your software, its the same for everything. One can have all kinds of ideas about this, but i strongly believe than when i take something , that not has been gieven to me for free without paying for it, its not ok. As simple as this, and when I have less stuff than someone else I dont mind but I'm happy with what I have and that i paid for it. Makes a good life, believe me

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 4:09 pm

Peter, gib mir meine Semmelknoedeln zurueck! Und den Schweinsbraten und des Kraut und mei Bier!

tschuldigung ... s'war nur a Witz

Chrimel

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