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Comment by ylhert | Hacker News Reader

Xfer records is very small, its just 2 people really (Steve and I). It's nice seeing this get so much attention. We are a very small company (if you can even call it that, I'm not even full time). Every sale is a big deal for Xfer, and piracy definitely hurts us. We don't have the resources to combat it, and we don't put restrictive copy protection on our software because we don't believe in hurting paying customers to slow down piracy.

It's always a sad reminder for us when we see people (who can obviously afford our software) stealing it :(

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As someone who has purchased most of your products, I just wanted to say thank you!

I admit I've pirated a lot of software in order to try it over time, but I end up buying what I start using in my workflow. I don't make money producing music (yet!), so I definitely use trials or pirate expensive plugins (I'll often try to re-trial something if my trial lapses and I haven't yet used it enough).

Serum? I downloaded the trial, used it, then bought it. The same with LFO Tool. It is a complete steal at its price point, and an absolute beautiful piece of software. I hope Kanye gets more flac for this.

Keep up the great work! I'm constantly blown away at the work you and Steve do.

> I hope Kanye gets more flac for this.

I see him as more of a 128 kinda guy.

Thanks dude! You rock! And I bet the music you make with Xfer products rocks! :D

I'd like to hear the music you made with these tools please.

> stealing it :(

<rant> While I empathize with most of your comment, you lost me at the end. Let's not use hyperbolic rhetoric. The crime is copyright infringement (unlawful copying), not stealing (theft), and not plunder and murder on the high seas (piracy). Yes, the sheet music publishers back in the day were able to convince people to use the language of the terrorism of their day (piracy). The hyperbole still harms discourse. </rant>

Color it by any technicality you want, but it is taking something from somebody and in common vernacular, that is theft.

I agree that someone is making money using a tool acquired illegally and the creator of the tool needs to be paid.

> but it is taking something from somebody

Here is where the inaccurate language harms discussion. Nothing is taken from the author. The author still has just as much as they had before the unlawful copying, apart from lost opportunity. They have lost a potential sale.

The analogy with theft breaks down quickly, and using the language of theft (or worse, insisting that it is really identical to theft) hinders clear thinking about the issue. Yes, it's a useful rhetorical device, since infringing on someone's physical property rights produces a strong emotional reaction. However, that strong emotional reaction doesn't foster rational discussion.

The only thing actually taken from the tool creator is opportunity cost. If you set up a cluster of two machines that illegally copy back and forth as fast as GigE allows, things aren't taken from the tool's creator at a higher rate.

It's hyperbole and good on you for calling it out, hopefully we'll see more shifts away from such behavior.

Here's a relevant quote on winxp's 'pirated' audio,

-- According to Benjamin Kern, attorney at Chicago-based law firm Gordon & Glickson LLC, the use of a pirated version of Sound Forge can result in a copyright infringement claim : "Other legal issues, such as patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation and contract breach may also be relevant, but copyright infringement is the most prominent," --

No high seas murder or plundering involved.

Two things being different doesn't make one of them irrelevant.

Consider if you made ... something to sell. Something great, that you know people want. But no one bought it. But they want it, they just waited you out until you gave up and threw it away, and then yoinked it from your trash.

It's a violation of social decency, as much as pilfering something from your home -- maybe more so. The mere act of physical appropriation can't be the most important thing, since we don't complain about stealing some dirt or water from your property, and we don't complain about, say, chopping down a tree.

Perhaps a better word for copyright violation is vandalism, not theft. It destroys the value of someone's work, the taking isn't the important part.

> pilfering

excuse me, I'm a representative from the Word Industry Association of America (WIAA). My client actually owns the publishing rights to the word "pilfering", as his 8x-previous ancestors were the first recorded authors to use that word in print.

We take our IP very seriously, and it appears you are using a word to which you do not own the license, which is, as you know, theft. We can settle this now for a small $3800 license fee plus a 20% attorney's fee or we can risk going to trial which on average costs 5x as much.

Please consider this legal notice and send an official response withing 7 business days to avoid a protracted legal battle. Thank you.

I'd LOL'd.

> They have lost a potential sale.

Which isn't a very strong argument, since you also lose a potential sale if someone decides to purchase your competitor's product rather than your own. And hopefully no one would call that "stealing."

Except in this example, there is no competitor making the sale because of a lower price or higher quality product. The choice of product remains the same; the only difference is that the copier pays nothing to ANYONE and is the only person receiving a benefit.

I used to be in the camp in philosophical support of piracy, and I still pirate some of my media. But, I no longer try to excuse the behavior behind a thinly veiled philosophy.

Maybe it's not stealing, but it sure isn't harmless.

> Except in this example, there is no competitor making the sale because of a lower price or higher quality product. The choice of product remains the same; the only difference is that the copier pays nothing to ANYONE and is the only person receiving a benefit.

That's true, but the firm's bottom line is the same regardless of whether they lost a sale to piracy or lost a sale to a competitor.

> I used to be in the camp in philosophical support of piracy, and I still pirate some of my media. But, I no longer try to excuse the behavior behind a thinly veiled philosophy.

Then either I'm on the same philosophical road as you but further back, or my philosophical support is stronger than yours was.

>That's true, but the firm's bottom line is the same regardless of whether they lost a sale to piracy or lost a sale to a competitor.

Yes, the firm's bottom line remains the same. But the difference between losing a sale to a competitor and losing a sale to piracy has vastly different consequences. When losing a sale to a competitor, there is competition and money continues to flow into "Product Market X", fueling competition and innovation. When a potential purchaser in "Product Market X" gets the best firm's product for free, it hurts competition and innovation by decreasing the sale to the best company.

>Then either I'm on the same philosophical road as you but further back, or my philosophical support is stronger than yours was.

Only time will tell. I totally agree information should be shared and spread for the good of humanity, but there needs to be some returns for people that seek it (to a reasonable amount of money... Adobe can get bent).

So, if the "victim" here has a swell in popularity due to Kanye's high profile, and gains a TON of new customers and interest, he better pay royalties or license to Kanye for attracting that kind of attention. Otherwise he's "taking something" in exchange for nothing, which, in common vernacular, is called theft.

"Otherwise he's "taking something" in exchange for nothing, which, in common vernacular, is called theft."

So every time I download Linux, I am stealing?

Kayne pirating software and showing everyone where to get it for free instead of acting like it was worth paying for is hardly an endorsement.

While I wanna agree with you, I feel like once you start making money off of someone else's unlawful copied software you're stealing.

Perhaps it's close to stealing if you're making money by directly selling someone else's work, although that still wouldn't be legally true.

Once your legal team is making money off of talking with you about suing the pirate bay, if it's not technically stealing then at least it's clearly hypocrisy.

A kid in his bedroom who hasn't saved up enough allowance to buy Serum yet is unlawfully copying our software. Kayne stole our software

Thanks, a healthy perspective.

Stop crying, just be grateful for the free exposure you are getting from this. You really think he's trying to get your software for free and not eventually pay for it? He probably has already purchased it and licensed on another computer at home.

The same way Kayne is grateful for the free exposure he got for his "The Life of Pablo" album and his "Tidal" subscription-based music streaming service, by meeting with his legal team to discuss the possibility of suing The Pirate Bay? [1]

Do you think a kid in his bedroom who hasn't saved up enough allowance to buy Serum, start his own subscription-based music streaming service, and hire his own legal team to sue pirate bay, probably has a mom who has already purchased it and licensed on another computer at home, too?

[1] http://arstechnica.co.uk/business/2016/02/kanye-west-reporte...

Avicii and others have been spotted with cracked software, and some claim to have the licence on other computers but not on the one they were filmed with.

https://torrentfreak.com/avicii-and-other-djs-produce-hits-u...

I am almost embarrassed to fanboy-out on you, but Serum is utterly amazing, and I must admit I am happy to be telling its author this directly.

I have never heard anything like in my 35 years of playing, writing, and producing music, and altho I am sure there are other synths that perform as well, given the low price and accessibility of it as a VSTi, it constantly blows me away.

Thanks for developing it.

Thank you so much! I will relay your message to Steve as well!

Not to knock you, but if they wanted to demo it for a studio session length then 15 minutes is a pretty limiting amount of time. VSTs have varying quality, take a while to learn the workflow, tons of features and are very expensive. It's like Photoshop, but you have no idea if it will be useful to you.

Kanye is probably bad with money, but he remembers what it's like to be a poor musician.

If you haven't already come out at him outraged, maybe you can talk to him about your product and get some good publicity. Or start a temporary 'Kanye' discount and offer it to him first.

Serum is by far the most fun to use synth I've tried out. Nothing else compares. The UI is just joyful. And the sound; well, it goes without saying that's it's the best sounding synth on the market. Seriously, every time I adjust that wavetable, I smile.

I actually came here expecting this to be a story about production on the road, dongles (iLok), and "look, even the pros don't put up with that garbage".

But it was the opposite.

You're one of the good guys and it sucks that this happened to you.

Surely you can take heart that in this particular case, since he got caught and it turned into a thing, his piracy is going to generate many, many more sales for you.

I've just purchased Cthulhu. Easy purchase process, easy installation (no keys required etc.), and a really nice plugin. Keep up the good work.

Hold on. If you're not Steve Duda, then you're Deadmau5?

Yan Lhert https://twitter.com/yanismydj

hai

Deadmau5 isn't super involved anymore. I suppose we are 3 if you count him, but obviously he's been pretty busy with other stuff the last few years

I reckon this will make you top the charts for VST plugin sales for this day, week and maybe even month.

Even if that means you will top the VST piracy charts...

In fact, is this just a genious marketing stunt..?

It's already arguably the most highly regarded VST synth for modern digital sounds anyway. Serum is basically the new massive. They don't need marketing stunts.

Ah, I see. I've been out of that game for 8+ years.

I assume you can tell if he's bought it or someone at his company has? So when he buys it today, you'd be able to tell?

But little kaka is very poor, the poor little guy has been reduced to begging over the internet. And you expect him to pay you for your work? Monstrous Thénardier. You should pay such a genius to use your lowly software. Don't you know he's, like, totally the third millennium m0zart? Come on, it's 2016 already.

@ylhert I hope you all jump all over this press - have to imagine this could be netted out as an order of magnitude of goodness for you, Steve, & co with some great timely digital campaign/promo work. Maybe you could even find a way to get Kayne in on it?!

love serum and its the first vst that i've bought personally. thanks

Me too. I was compelled to buy it and it has changed my life!!! :)

had never heard of it before, but your software looks awesome.

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