Native Instruments Layoffs?

[chk071]

there has always been a corporation looking to increase their profits

Well, this happens when you sell your company, which delivers valuable products, to anonymous stakeholders who are only interested in net income.
Selling expensive, empty boxes might be very profitable for seller, but not for customers and people overall.

Then they’re welcome to purchase from other, more ethical companies.

Just wondering, because i always read it here... what exactly is a "ethical" company? Really, i don't understand that at all.

As far as i'm concerned, "ethical" is merely a illusion. Especially as everyone seems to understand something else about it. It's also not very ethical to ruin your business by bad business decisions. In the end, the CEO's over at NI can much better judge what's good for the company than any of us experts here.

[masterhiggins]

I mostly agree. I meant “ethical” by whatever criteria you see fit. It’s not anyone’s company besides the owners and investors. I’m not defending NI. If they fail, then they fail. I’ve been laid off before from large corporations. I moved on. Feeling entitled to things only make you more resentful when reality kicks you where it hurts.

[chk071]

Yeah. As far as i'm concerned, keeping the employees they laid off could well have the opposite effect of what people here expected. But, again, i really don't know remotely enough about the situation there to be able to judge that.

[v1o]

What was unethical was employing people that were surplus to business requirements in the first place. The type of stuff that NI makes is stuff that can be made using external subcontractors. You know things like designing GUIs and even some coding.

[chk071]

What was unethical was employing people that were surplus to business requirements in the first place.

Sounds easy. Easy enough that i would think that they surely considered how many people they need at which time. I don't think there's any business which willingly throws money out of the window.

Anyway, i'm really out now. This kind of speculative "I know so much better although i don't know anything" is really not for me.

[glokraw]

Filing papers of incorporation has no effect at all on ones creativity.
When the self-entitled petty elitist people refuse to buy artists CD's/DvD's,
preferring to scrounge warez versions of the hits for free, it limits the
financial profitability of the artists. This effects the career decisions
of otherwise talented people, who cross the music business off their
list of choices. The talent pool begins to evaporate, mediocrity
becomes the norm, and the diversity of art itself is diminished.

Ones chances of success in business are improved
when you love your work. When you love making music, but your
music market has been severely damaged by normalized petty thievery,
it's a tough row to hoe. In the comfy cozy 1st world, stealing art
is socially accepted, if not expected. It's the cool thing, everybody does it.
No papers of incorporation needed.

[kevvvvv]

[CasualHobbyist]

@glokraw At the risk that I am aware of being caught at possible flamewars or an extended argument, or that I may have repeated this like others (so what I say isn't particularly innovative or new things), I will have to state this.
Download of wared or "pirated" audio cd's =/= Thievery or stealing.

I don't believe that artists are going to have a secure path in the world if they sell or not the discs, in fact, their revenue does not comes from that, several interviews (including from Motorhead's Lemmy, RIP) point that their money comes from merchandise and live concerts. While the record companies who sell those discs are the ones who profit from that, not the artist itself. (That isn't to say that record companies can't help an artist promote if it does sells well, as that could get more people to discover the artist and go to their concerts. But they have never been a primary source of income for the artists and nowadays, with the ability to publish your music on several existent platforms like Bandcamp or iTunes, record companies have gotten less "useful" or "relevant" by per se)

Now going back to the first point. When you download an album or copyrighted song without the license holder's permission, you're not committing "thievery", you are copying and taking for yourself files that are already available on the internet. If someone were caught doing that on say, the US for example, they could be sued for copyright infringements. Because neither "piracy" nor "stealing" are acceptable arguments on a court to hear, so legally speaking, what you say does not holds water.

I am not going to encourage or promote "piracy" as that has been something that a lot of other people do already, I do not care. But I want to get things straight and not let a thread fall under wrong assumptions or falsehoods, that's all from me.

[v1o]

What was unethical was employing people that were surplus to business requirements in the first place.

Sounds easy. Easy enough that i would think that they surely considered how many people they need at which time. I don't think there's any business which willingly throws money out of the window.

Anyway, i'm really out now. This kind of speculative "I know so much better although i don't know anything" is really not for me.

That's what you think. And honestly I didn't say I know better than anyone. I just said its unethical to hire more than you need.

[digitalboytn]

That platitude salad press release statement from NI makes decision easy.

Times are different. I have Absynth 5, love it, use it, obvs. lot of great NI stuff but I have a lot of great stuff already. Corporatocracy is killing creativity nowadays, big reason why per capita music today has no HEART relative to the preceding decades.

The rise of the bean counters ...

What is interesting,is the rise of the machines

What was unethical was employing people that were surplus to business requirements in the first place. The type of stuff that NI makes is stuff that can be made using external subcontractors. You know things like designing GUIs and even some coding.

Yes Sir...

Like sample libraries and instruments for Kontakt and Reaktor...

Those are the two engines that NI would most like to focus on...especially Kontakt...

Kontakt is a big money spinner for NI...

You only have to maintain the framework and update it from time to time to introduce "new features" and that effectively forces the user base to upgrade to the new "improved" version..

For a small fee of course $$$

Personally,I find the sound of samples to be static and fairly boring...

And let's not forget the logistics that are required to maintain those large sample libraries...

It can be a bit of a nightmare...

NI should release another standalone synth

[dionenoid]

Don't know if this was posted already. Statement from NI : https://www.native-instruments.com/foru ... ts.361065/

[Hink]

@glokraw At the risk that I am aware of being caught at possible flamewars or an extended argument, or that I may have repeated this like others (so what I say isn't particularly innovative or new things), I will have to state this.
Download of wared or "pirated" audio cd's =/= Thievery or stealing.

I don't believe that artists are going to have a secure path in the world if they sell or not the discs, in fact, their revenue does not comes from that, several interviews (including from Motorhead's Lemmy, RIP) point that their money comes from merchandise and live concerts. While the record companies who sell those discs are the ones who profit from that, not the artist itself. (That isn't to say that record companies can't help an artist promote if it does sells well, as that could get more people to discover the artist and go to their concerts. But they have never been a primary source of income for the artists and nowadays, with the ability to publish your music on several existent platforms like Bandcamp or iTunes, record companies have gotten less "useful" or "relevant" by per se)

Now going back to the first point. When you download an album or copyrighted song without the license holder's permission, you're not committing "thievery", you are copying and taking for yourself files that are already available on the internet. If someone were caught doing that on say, the US for example, they could be sued for copyright infringements. Because neither "piracy" nor "stealing" are acceptable arguments on a court to hear, so legally speaking, what you say does not holds water.

I am not going to encourage or promote "piracy" as that has been something that a lot of other people do already, I do not care. But I want to get things straight and not let a thread fall under wrong assumptions or falsehoods, that's all from me.

I understand your point, but this is not the place to make said point. No you are not promoting piracy but such discussions tend to perpetuate the topic which in turn invites more of the same. I think it wise that we steer clear of discussing pros and cons of pirating, so suffice it to say it's gonna end here..please and thank you

[mrdoghead]

I don't believe that artists are going to have a secure path in the world if they sell or not the discs, in fact, their revenue does not comes from that, several interviews (including from Motorhead's Lemmy, RIP) point that their money comes from merchandise and live concerts. While the record companies who sell those discs are the ones who profit from that, not the artist itself. (That isn't to say that record companies can't help an artist promote if it does sells well, as that could get more people to discover the artist and go to their concerts. But they have never been a primary source of income for the artists and nowadays, with the ability to publish your music on several existent platforms like Bandcamp or iTunes, record companies have gotten less "useful" or "relevant" by per se)

This is false. Not to agree with the magical free-market word soup to which you respond (though copyright infringement is indeed a crime and not only in the U.S., it came up in this thread for no good reason), selling what we once called records did indeed provide very substantial, primary income to musicians. In fact, lots of musicians to this day still derive income from sales of their work. The income from sales also generated support for financing new work, which is a benefit that no longer exists for young musicians.

Why? Because the music business was very happy to embrace the argument that musicians should make their money on the road (which money they want to control as well). The fact that unauthorized downloading (by people justifying their crimes to one another by saying they were just collecting freely available files despite knowing full well they were screwing the artists as well as the marketing apparatus) did cut a huge hole in record sales made the argument that much more appealing. To say musicians did not ever make money from record sales is just false. You can say plenty of musicians were roped into abusive contracts that left certain people penniless after making hits. You can say there were problems with the music business. But lots of artists (and engineers and producers and salespeople and record-shop owners) - including artists who were/are not in a position to tour except at great expense - made money, "a living" from selling music in song and collection form. To say otherwise is just false.

I encourage you to view your crimes for what they are. If you are going appropriate someone's work knowing that person is selling it, whether to stick it to the man or to enjoy the fruits of your access to the internet via dad's computer, you are violating the artist's right to benefit from that work, you break a trust with the community to behave in a decent and mutually respectful manner, and you violate the artist's copyright, which encodes those principle into a legal framework.

Own it if you want to go down that road, but quoting Lemmy on the value of touring while you are coughing up your lungs isn't going to cut it as an argument in favor of anarchy because, you know, the web wants to be free.

It's not unlike helping yourself, while no one is paying attention, to a visual-art print being sold at a crafts fair and saying no one stopped you, and that the artist should just print more, because she still has the original, so you couldn't be said to be stealing it, really, when you think about it, and hey, it's good for her to get out to more crafts fairs to meet her supporters. It's nonsense to talk this way.

As for NI, getting back to the thread, the owners and their consultants are well within their rights to fire people and to hire more consultants. It is, however, silly to say lack of an MBA and a huge pot of gold - or not owning NI or any similar company - disqualifies KVR participants from recognizing a story played out in business repeatedly in recent decades, or from noting that this addresses none of what customers think NI should be doing, or from saying the posted explanations read like a parody of a corporate layoff press release or an internal memo.

Again, however, I arrive at whatever.

[nusound mind]

Yes, greed has always existed in the music industry. Yes, true creativity comes from love of the music. Yes, other things have influenced why music is not today what it used to be.

But compare the prevailing culture today compared to yesterday. How many companies own every news and media outlet? How much does Jeff Bezos make a day? What are google's algorithms doing? These things cannot be neatly extricated and untangled from one another. Where is today's Pink Floyd? Jimi Hendrix? Radiohead for that matter? Where is this generations version of them? Don't exist that I've heard. People don't buy guitars anymore. Not the only reason, but a big one.

Hip-Hop was born on a movement that was an expression of protest against unfair class conditions, corporate greed & injustices of the justice system (which, in the US IS an industry, a major one) same as Blues. The corporate climate has never been worse in many ways. Say the wrong thing on the wrong major platform? *Gone* That "wrong" thing could simply be the unpopular/unapproved opinion (of the company providing the platform) or just one that enough people whine about. The music that gets pumped on major stations is corporate approved. Less opportunity of exposure over a wider audience = less chance for good artists to break though. (Technology has allowed for faster production and releasing of music in other ways, otoh, tbf.)

Centralized power with this much cultural influence, the capability to effectively erase your digital life from existence *absolutely* has an effect on creativity over a statistically significant population sample size. People have the same opportunity to make great music, maybe more than ever. But how many aspiring artists can go a whole session focused before they're on their phone? How many work 3 jobs to pay rent? Wasn't like that decades ago, not to that extent. People had more time, more money to concentrate of making music. Corporate greed is part of that equation, obvs.

The whole ethos of the rave culture which I fell in love with was anti-establishment, anti corporation, by definition. The vibe of togetherness at a good party beats anything. Now? People head bobbing, if that, staring at a small rectangular screen. Hey, look! The thing that it's all about enjoying I'm capturing for later so I can show everyone what a good time I had. F... that. Everyone is a walking commercial, it genuinely saddens me. And if you think you're free from social or cultural influences which in turn effects, yes, to some degree- your creativity, you're dead wrong, imho.

I don't want to get into a huge nuanced, sophisticated debate using citations of peer reviewed papers and the whole works. Yes, these are sweeping generalizations here I'm making, in the interest of brevity, to make a point that holds true in my experience and the way I interpret it.

Enough said from me, have at it.

[chk071]

That's what you think. And honestly I didn't say I know better than anyone. I just said its unethical to hire more than you need.

You have no idea whether they did that or not, though. I don't think any company hires willingly more employees than they need. Why would you do that? Every company wants to save on costs, and, epmloyees are the biggest matter of expense there is.