Creamware is considering charging for key transferring

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed May 12, 2004 6:28 am

On 2004-05-12 01:46, powerpulsarian wrote:
...I support a better, more-efficient and user-friendly copy-protection system from Creamware, ...

Compared to many of the current schemes (I assume Gigastudio isn't exotic...) I find CWA's approach a rather user friendly solution.
More and more companies are going to implement unique hardware checks as the the pure software based methods are quickly removed.
Anyone remembers those infamous up-and-down installer keydisks to authorize your HD ?

And in fact, the fee is of course also intended to regulate a certain amount of of plugin sales by those smart customers who need a DSP expansion and want to finance it (partially) by splitting up the software bundle

Since that is mostly based on the current situation of product launch it won't be a true issue in the long term view.

cheers, Tom

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed May 12, 2004 6:45 am

On 2004-05-12 07:17, remixme wrote:
...I don't have to pay Microsoft when I give my copy of XP to a friend because I have linux installed instead.

(The above is just an example, a bit of a bad one because you have to pay them for lot of other things! Before you say it!)
...

yes, got your point

and while it's indeed a direct violation of the XP license policy (imho), I'll extend the point even more off topic as it shows exactly the common use (or acceptance) of software licences.
They are ignored.

How many OEM software bundles are sold every day even though the license explicitely binds the product to a certain hardware configuration ?

Of course the big companies tolerate that because it enforces their market 'penetration' as they call it - and since it's an obvious hypocracy customers ignore them even more

cheers, Tom

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Wed May 12, 2004 7:04 am

hi

i have pay for fine plugin and are mine right?
now i would sell or exchange or give for free this is must free.

or in my case,would like to sell one of my cards (pulsar 2) and transfer the plug
(orbitone transient attacker proone 2.02
optimater psyq) to my powerpulsar
and i must pay for this.
time consuming? find a solution for satisfied the community without
ask money for anythin.

give us other good devices or good updates
and i give you money for your serious works.

ale

rhythmaster · Post by **rhythmaster** » Wed May 12, 2004 7:12 am

I totally disagree with CW.
This a very very bad move - inacceptable.
Creamware change your mind and cancel this degradation.
I'm a long time customer and purchased a lot of HW and SW but this fact makes me think the whole thing over.

I planned to move some plugins from one fo MY cards to another of MY cards.
But now I can't do it for free - this can't be true Creamware!

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed May 12, 2004 7:32 am

if I want to register MY wife's car on MY name it costs me 20 Euro, if I want a favourite number it's another 10.20 Euro
and that is done in 2 minutes - bingo ?

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Wed May 12, 2004 7:59 am

we doesn't speak about car
or government tax
or other
please read the topic

Post by **hubird** » Wed May 12, 2004 8:38 am

too easy, Cannonball.
the analogy is correct, in my opinion.
try better

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed May 12, 2004 8:54 am

most of the complaints are about justification of the amount of the fee

terrence · Post by **terrence** » Wed May 12, 2004 8:58 am

I agree with Canonball on this.

CW is a commercial company to which u payed money already when u bought their products.

When u want to rereg your car u dont pay the car company, but a "3rd party" that has nothing to do with either u or your car, and therefor need to get payed.

When I bought my Pulsar I payed indirectly for support. IMO transfering keys now and then should be part of basic support u might expect from CW.

Again, I dont have a problem with a small fee to cover the costs, I only have a problem with CW making money out of this.

T.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed May 12, 2004 9:19 am

if you really expect them to have 20 re-registrations a day for 200 workdays a year you somewhat overestimate the plugin market.
It was, is and will be an occasional service and is dealt with as such.

cheers, Tom

cannonball · Post by **cannonball** » Wed May 12, 2004 10:13 am

i think they have
a lot of reregistration
because the support
is returned on line
2 or 3 weeks ago
i haven't see in ebay so much plugin
only one

maybe some people just do some private
marketin
anyway this sort of "tax" isn't a great idea
analogy or not analogy if the problem is only the time consuming
take your time and listen the userbase

Post by **garyb** » Wed May 12, 2004 1:12 pm

i've already expressed my opinion about the fee(it's kinda high and maybe not a great idea relations-wise), but i also think(w/ all due respect) that some users are very hard headed and that they are not paying attention to the FACTS.

most important fact: you did not BUY anything but a LICENSE to use the device.

important fact #2: you agreed to the license terms and those terms give you the right to use the devices under very specific circumstances. you did NOT buy the right to do whatever you want with such devices. as i have reminded people in the past, when i purchased my first cwa card 5 years ago, it was NOT possible to sell devices AT ALL.

i know that that is an unpleasant reality for some and really, i do feel for you who doesn't like the situation. but you're gonna have to get over it. not one person who has posted in this forum since this action by cwa has the authority to affect the policy in any way, with the exception of spending money or not.

poisoning the platform is NOT an option imho as i wish to continue to use the BEST solution around for music production in my situation, scope platform.

less hate more music.

Post by **garyb** » Wed May 12, 2004 1:18 pm

On 2004-05-12 09:58, terrence wrote:
When I bought my Pulsar I payed indirectly for support.

not true. you bought a card and the license to use the software with that card. if you check most of your computer hard and software today, you'll find that most companies charge for support.(well, email-crappy support is often free)

read the use agreement.

*edit* once again, i DON'T like this policy.(35 euro charge) it is within cwa's right to implement it though...

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2004-05-12 14:21 ]

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Wed May 12, 2004 1:28 pm

I recently tried to get some support for a Flash-related graphics program I bought and the company wanted to charge me $US150 an hour just to start talking.

With some VSTis and sample software you can't change ownership at all.

The issue of 35 euros doesn't even wobble the seismograph for me, but I suppose it's different for all the full-time professional plugin traders whose earnings and business and now affected.

Post by **Guest** » Wed May 12, 2004 2:05 pm

1. this policy needed to take place to minimize abuse and cover downtime. It should not have been made free from the beginning because as we are seeing some got the hang of it and now don't accept to be charged for a service that CWA was kind enough to offer.
I don't believe they trying to screw anyone but time =money and CWA admits that by creating a well protected software it take time to undo what is necessary for key swapping.
If 1 or 2 requests for swapping keys hit their box per day probably they would not bother putting a trasfer charge on the site. this actually cost them money too.

But many users have taken this offer and abused to the point that CWA need to somehow recoup from it or make it less attractive to do this on a regular basis.

I was told that some users who bought PulsarII tried to sell what ever they don't use in that software including mixers/samplers even single effects, and by emailing and floading cwa mailboxes with such requests. I guess they gave you the answer.

2. I agree that 35-Euro is way too much per device and that someone @ CWA should be debating this and adjusting it. We hope they would reduce the per device trasfer at least to about 10 euro that may be OK by most.

Would not be better than completely cancelling the transfer. I mean they put this up and now it is too much for them to cater to it due to the amount of key transfers.

Would taking this service completely off and making every plugin stick to a specific board be a better choice? I would go with the painfull fee as long as I don't trasfer keys on a regular base.

[ This Message was edited by: antar on 2004-05-12 15:37 ]

valis · Post by **valis** » Wed May 12, 2004 8:22 pm

Excellent point antar. Compared with the option of reverting back to the 'original' scheme of not being able to even transfer keys I would think this is an excellent comprimise.

Personally I have a Pulsar1 & Pulsar2 and entertain ideas of replacing my Pulsar1 with a Scope Pro someday. I have EVERY Creamware plugin (except Arp02) and ALL the Orbitone plugins and Flexor etc etc etc--all registered to my initial Pulsar1 (although the pulsar2 did come with an extra propack). This means that I face the 35EU fee ($40 USD for me) in the event that I choose to sell my Pulsar1 to help finance the Scope Pro. I can't say that I am completely in love with the idea but I do understand that Creamware is a company that has recently been reminded of the need to stay in the green financially and I am glad I will still be able to do that transfer when the time comes, even with the fee.

powerpulsarian · Post by **powerpulsarian** » Thu May 13, 2004 8:20 pm

On 2004-05-12 15:05, antar wrote:
I was told that some users who bought PulsarII tried to sell what ever they don't use in that software including mixers/samplers even single effects, and by emailing and floading cwa mailboxes with such requests. I guess they gave you the answer.

I can understand that issue for sure (it is an abuse and taking advantage without a doubt). But why not just make it a policy that you cannot transfer any plugins that come bundled with a card? That makes total sense to me - and it is something I think most people could buy into.

If you buy a plugin separate from your card (not bundled), you should have the ability to transfer it to someone else for free (or at least a more reasonable cost than what Creamware has implemented).

It is a customer-relations issue at this point, and Creamware really needs to look at it that way (there is more to consider than dollars and cents of doing a transfer - a perception by users of a bad policy could ultimately negatively effect their sales as a result of bad word-of-mouth, costing them a lot more than providing free transfers).

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri May 14, 2004 4:44 am

On 2004-05-13 21:20, powerpulsarian wrote:
... But why not just make it a policy that you cannot transfer any plugins that come bundled with a card? That makes total sense to me - and it is something I think most people could buy into...

it makes sense to you, but obviously not to a (general) majority of customers.
A bundled Photoshop is considered a full Photoshop, a cheap one though, the buyer has been smart to get it that way

a bundled M$ Office is (was) NOT licensed with different hardware, yet people continued to use it when getting a new PC or even sold it.

...It is a customer-relations issue at this point, ...

it may be a good idea (and pay off later) to have the divorce in mind on your wedding day, but few people really dare to...

imho the cases against the suggested fee are either misunderstanding of the rules (one doesn't have to transfer single plugs when selling the board) or pretty exotic - and who can tell if customer support doesn't deal on a special base with it then ?

The majority of complaints seems to be related to the heavy bundling (due to competition aspects imho) of current products and will be self regulating...

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-05-14 05:49 ]

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Fri May 14, 2004 5:10 am

On 2004-05-12 09:58, terrence wrote:
I agree with Canonball on this.

CW is a commercial company to which u payed money already when u bought their products.

When u want to rereg your car u dont pay the car company, but a "3rd party" that has nothing to do with either u or your car, and therefor need to get payed.

That's only because the car manufacturer is not the one who you register your car with. In CWA's case there is no 3rd party but they still have to provide you the service so I don't see the difference.

When I bought my Pulsar I payed indirectly for support. IMO transfering keys now and then should be part of basic support u might expect from CW.

It doesn't matter what you think "should be", because that's not what's in your licence contract when you bought the thing. It isn't free for them to transfer those keys (in fact it takes a lot of time) so to expect them to do it for free is kinda silly.

Again, I dont have a problem with a small fee to cover the costs, I only have a problem with CW making money out of this.

They're not making money out of this. Unless Frank is a liar, which I don't think he is. Yes the cost is high, as a result of the level of copy protection which was not meant to allow for key transfers at all. The only thing you can really hold against CWA here is that they implemented this copy protection system all those years ago. Sadly it can't be changed anymore now so it's kind of pointless to keep going on about it.

valis · Post by **valis** » Fri May 14, 2004 8:21 am

Developing for a Creamware dsp card requires you to have a computer (obviously), then buy a Creamware dsp card and manage to work out some terms with Creamware to get the full Development kit.

Developing for VST/VSTi requires (a computer again and) and the SDK which is a free download from http://www.steinberg.net/Steinberg/Deve ... angue_ID=7 .

It is true that the coding environment needed for VST/VSTi on Win/Mac isn't typically free (tho there are some options) but is probably less expensive than ScopeDP. It is definately more flexible in *general* terms to a programmer than a dsp audio card and creamware's ScopeDP in terms of an investment. Tack onto that the fact that the Creamware dsp card userbase is a much smaller market than the 'VST/VSTi' (or AU) market so its essentially a niche market within the overall audio market.

I can certainly understand why Creamware would offer copy protection as an incentive to its developers (and to itself) to believe that their market can remain a niche market and still be profitable. The idea that a creation of labor could wind up readily available to someone who just pays Creamware for their card and then heads over to Soulseek, Kazaa or heaven forbid a BitTorrent link to fill out their plugins list isn't very comforting I'm sure.

It is understandable that from a casual user's perspective draconian copy protection measures often get in the way. Seemingly the user who legally purchased the program is in some way being punished and forced to deal with the copy protection, while 'warez' users use the software without strict copy protection and hence don't suffer from its mechanisms.

But whats the solution? USB dongle? A complicated online registration system tied to your system id? (Ok we have that). Most Dongled devices not only don't offer free updates they also don't typically open the dongle to 3rd parties for copy protection. They only protect the parent application (and often other products from the same company.) Imagine if Steinberg/Emagic/Cakewalk had to be the arbiter of every VST/VSTi or AU activation and transfer. Want to bet they would leap for joy at the thought of the KVR userbase demanding that a free massive online database be created to facilitate the moving of 'used' plugins *entirely at the expense of Steinberg/Emagic/Cakewalk?

I'm sure we all know how well a simple serial number would work.

Don't despair however. I haven't heard Creamware mention that you can only 'reregister' a certain number of times (although there may be a hardware limitation here due to burning the code). Most other systems that I know of that use hardware id's base the id off your system and limit the number of 'transfers' that you can do to system changes. Of course most of these are also immediately cracked.

round & round & round.

[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2004-05-14 09:56 ]