Deathbliss wrote:
You know so far I am seriously discouraged. This has been a lot of work to turn up nothing very good. And this forums just isnt't actove enough for me - I'm not getting the answers I need at my other threads here. So far it's looking like the best solution is to just pirate what I want.
But apparently, you do.Deathbliss wrote:OK. In the first place I do not condone or support piracy.
No, you buy cheaper brushes. You don't NEED expensive brushes to make art. You may WANT them, but you don't NEED them.Secondly let me ask you a question... Should an artist be forced not to paint simply because he can't afford brushes, paints, and a canvas? Somebody put a lot of work and money into making those supplies. Certainly they should be paid. But can you honestly say that the needs of the artist must be ignored simply because he can't afford to pursue his creative path?
How does this in ANY way mean that it's alright to STEAL from another hard working person who put together the tools and the things you want?This is an integral flaw especially in American society. People need things, from simple things like food and clothing to advanced things like replacement hearts and artificial limbs. Yet there are millions of people who can't afford to buy what they need. People who are hard workers, who struggle to support themselves and their families, but who just never have enough money. Our country wastes its resources, and it's particularly harsh to artists. Ever meet a wealthy one?
Prices go up because costs go up. Inflation, gas prices, cost of living, etc. How do you know they have made every penny back? You seem to believe that the devs and marketing guys at these companies are rich. They aren't. You are wrong. It's NOT pure profit. Are you aware of just how many hours go into coding and supporting a full featured product? It's apparent that you have NO IDEA how much work it is. Companies aren't making a ton of money off of these purchases, I promise you that. You are wrong.Thirdly with a few exceptions the software companies, especially the big ones, who have been making audio tools have been doing so for 10 years or more. The price has gone up from that time. For the initial effort, their initial code, they have made back every penny they spent. All these companies are receiving now, outside of what they pay to their employees and for advertising, is pure profit. I'm not about to go feeling sorry for the crew behind FL Studio (for example) because I know all the work that has been put into the program has been paid off, probably 10x over.
Then why do you dog them and say you're going to go pirate the expensive products? Where is your support? And why do you expect so much work for free? Go try and code a program and ask for "donations". You'll be surprised to see how very FEW people actually donate. Why? Because EVERYONE is short on money these days. The people who you want to code a host for you for free also have to pay bills and eat. It takes thousands of hours to code and maintain a legitimate host. The community isn't to blame. That's just the way it is. Blaming the community is just a big cop-out.Last but not least the community is ignoring their responsibility. Sure making a DAW takes a lot of time and effort. But there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of coders out there, who would be more than willing to make a fully functional professional DAW for free as long as the community using their product supported them. I don't mean just by donations. Video tutorials, written tutorials, suggestions, bug reports, feature requests, positive support - good, useful feedback of all kinds will keep a program alive and healthy for years. Where's the community behind RaxNTrax, Macaw, and these other excellent free programs I found?
Ok, so tell us exactly what you "need" to create music that you can't do in one of the free programs? Not features you WANT to use, but features you NEED to make music in them? Name one.These are the things I think about - the questions I ask. They are only my opinions. I have put a tremendous amount of effort here to find a legally free solution to my particular need - the brushes, paints, and canvas I require. I have not given up just yet. My statement regarding piracy was a man that has looked down the road and is not seeing any other solution. It is not of someone on a vessel on the sea somewhere pointing a cannon at some poor defenseless merchant ship. I still have a handful of free, and free version, software to play with. I'm pretty flexible, and will try to use any brush that does what I need.
But what am I supposed to do if the free software available to me does not have the features I need? What if it is too hard to learn, and there are no really good tutorials to teach me? What if they are counter-intuitive to use, taking far too much effort and time to create a simple song? What should I do then? These questions, to my mind, are far more important than, "What if I can't afford it?"
And if you don't earn the money? Sorry, but once the demo is up, you either pay or pirate. One is right and one is wrong.All this said Reaper, FL Studio and I think Podium - the personal use versions - are all sub $100.00 programs and if somehow I manage to earn the money to pay for one of them I will certainly do so. I definitely want to support software creators who give reasonable prices for their programs. And whatever program I buy I will support and become an active member in the community.
Now we've gotten off topic here so I suggest we get back on...
- Deathbliss
with a stick...and maybe some mud.zmarx wrote:If someone spends ALL of his artistic time sorting through his brushes, trying them out, comparing them to each other, finding problems with each of them, he is probably not much of a painter - perhaps a brush comparer. A painter paints.
How can you think that EnergyXT (60€) inst overpriced but something like SonarX1 PE (400€) is? I mean the latter easily offers 20x more features and advanced ones, and it does have more than 10x people working on it..hseiken wrote: But back to the piracy reason...the companies shoot themselves in the foot when they do this pricing/marketing sham. Reaper's got it right on th money. They sell a non-commercial license and a commercial license with no difference between the two. It seems to work. I used to pirate programs here and there. I won't get into software names, but they're ones everyone knows and knows even better how easy to obtain a pirated version is. I decided that by NOT pirating that kind of software and strictly boycotting it would be my contribution to them to say, "Look, I don't give a crap what you're offering anymore. Your price is stupid and I'm not going to use it". Currently, all my software is (and will remain) under 100$ (Reaper, XT2, ReNoise, Orion).
It would just be nice if non-commercial use software was more...friendly.
Oh, the other reason I stopped pirating was so that I could use customer service. It certainly beats KVR boards in the face with a spiked club.
Well, except for Orion. I hate Bones. He's a dick.
This argument is so flawed.hseiken wrote:This is by no means my explanation of why piracy exists. However, it IS a reason that I have pirated and frankly, decided not to at the end of it all as well...
Let's look at it from a realistic perspective and we'll keep it in the realm of music production.
When a company (say, Korg for instance...cause I like them) creates a piece of kit, like a synthesizer, it must be physically replicated. This involves labor, parts, quality inspection, testing, packaging, shipping, marketing, etc. This is a lot of stuff to do...for each and EVERY item they sell, it must be put together which includes all of the above AS WELL AS paying back themselves for investing the developers and testing. Thus, a high price is pretty much a no brainer. Good synthesizers go from 500+ dollars with many sitting happily at the 4 grand range and I hear even some of those companies eat a bit of their profit to sell more.
Now, we look at software. There is NONE of the overhead. ALL of the costs are simply research, development, programming and other items consisting soley of near one-time labor. Then it is mass produced simply via mouse clicks. There's no factory mass producing 1's and 0's. You simply paypal up your money, get a special key or download site and you're done. Technically speaking, you kind of have to pay someone ELSE (isp provider) to get their item delivered. Server costs are anywhere NEAR that of hardware production costs. And it's not like the programmer has to repeatedly hand code each and every copy that ships out the door (so to speak because there's not much shipping involved). Even still, if the software is sold in a box, disc production costs are next to nil on a large scale (something like 1$ a disc which includes custom labelling) and a buck or two for a box and another 3$ for a nice manual. Again, compared to production of a synthesizer that you can pick up, drop and break, it's virtually work-free. So why is it that a program that has almost ZERO OVERHEAD TO KEEP IN STOCK AND PRODUCE can cost more than 100$? WHY!? It seems very likely to me that if you lowered the price, you'd sell more and that companies seem to think that by selling something with pretty marketing and 300$ price tag, they somehow instill 'value' into their software that may or may not have been there before.
Sorry to post again but I did a gig in January and we had a film projected behind us that I put together using the free software that came with my laptop.There were one or two limitations but nothing too serious for my needs.spacedad wrote:i wanted to do a bit of video,so i bought vegas 9 cheap version for about 25 quid.
it doesn't have a feature set like premier,or whatever,i can't do super hd blueray shit,
but if i'd got a big 3000 dollar program,it would have been to complex for me.
vegas is nice and easy for a beginner and gets decent results.
i too tried all the freeware video editors,some of which are good for certain things,but in the end i took peoples advice and i'm getting along with it fine.
It's always pathetic how people love to jump on their high horse about piracy yet if I had to hazard a guess I'd say around 1% of people on this forum have never been guilty of piracy at any time in their lives.michi_mak wrote:it's always pathetic how people try to justify stealing in an elaborate way with no point at all ... some whine about filthy rich devs some whine about political reasons and so on ... in the end it's plain stealing anyway!
I'm sure a good number of KVR members have, you're right. But that doesn't mean they are now, or that they haven't grown up and seen the light. So what's wrong with shooting down flawed arguments about why piracy is right? So people who feel piracy is justified can go around defending piracy and JUDGING DEVS, passing around false information, and you think nobody should be able to refute those arguments? I don't know what world you're living in, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander, so to speak.ZChris wrote:It's always pathetic how people love to jump on their high horse about piracy yet if I had to hazard a guess I'd say around 1% of people on this forum have never been guilty of piracy at any time in their lives.michi_mak wrote:it's always pathetic how people try to justify stealing in an elaborate way with no point at all ... some whine about filthy rich devs some whine about political reasons and so on ... in the end it's plain stealing anyway!
And that's commendable of you. It's a story that is a common one. Sometimes, people do the right thing in the end. It doesn't justify the actual piracy though. All you are doing is coming up with one more argument to support piracy, and that argument itself is severely flawed. It's wrong. Doesn't matter if you did it in the past, or if you ended up buying. It's not noble or justified.I pirated FL Studio, I used it tons... I bought XXL version (and several of IL plugins) when I could afford it. If I hadn't been able to pirate them I never would have bought them. Am I a thief? I don't think so.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...
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