Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software • Hacker News Board

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#151

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 8:40 PM UTC

FalconCypto wrote: post #128

ylhert wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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...

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#152

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #70

KMag wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stealing it :( 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 disc…

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.

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.

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#153

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

digler999 wrote: post #118

ratsmack wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#154

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:04 PM UTC

cooper12 wrote: post #15

Meh, "people in glass houses...": > @deadmau5 > I used a pirated copy of sylenth on my last 4 albums. #TrueReveal https://twitter.com/deadmau5/status/367265601640603648 Steve Aoki was also caught using the above software in a music video with Linkin Park, though he proved that he had bought the software but his assistants installed a pirated version on his road laptop. http://stoneyroads.com/2013/08/steve-aoki-respon…

From the other tabs, it looks like Kayne isn't smart enough to use an adblocker when he visits Pirate Bay.

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#155

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

soundwave106 wrote: post #36

kdamken wrote: post #18

Not defending him here, he's a professional millionaire musician and should just buy it... But music software is a HUGE pain in the ass to purchase. Pro Tools, for example, is tied to a dongle. It's 2016, and that's still the security method they choose to use. Lose the dongle? You're fucked. It's unfathomably frustrating.

It is 2016, and indeed most of the music software on my computer is tied to no dongle whatsoever. Dongles are understandably thought of as a bit of a pain by many musicians, and I'm sure many developers understand that they'll lose customers by requiring one.

I knew an artist who would wear his dongle around his neck on a gold chain like bling, to show off to all the adoring groupie chicks that he was rich and important enough to have a license.

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#156

Post by mayreck » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:26 PM UTC

hackercooler wrote: post #74

ylhert wrote: post #59

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…

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!!! :)

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#157

Post by DonHopkins » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #138

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. You're entitled to your opinions. There's no need to hide behind a temp account. We can have differing opinions and still be civil. I'm not offended on others' behalf. I'm not a social justice warrior. I'm not demonizing anyone. I just wanted OP to know that the term "midget" is viewed as a derogatory slur by people in that community. I probably wouldn't have brought it up, but it was used in a context that I f…

You can ignore and flag the obvious trolls.

You're confusing trolls with midgets! That's not funny.

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#158

Post by zeitpolizei » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:51 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #117

busterarm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still use Pro Tools? I can't think of a single popular commercial DAW that's worse to use. Pretty much the only people I see use it are all aspiring rappers. I guess it has hip hop cred. Tangentially, I can't think of a single piece of Avid software that isn't a flaming piece of shit. Full disclosure: I used to have to support Avid.

Unfortunately, there are no DAW applications that are really reliable, not buggy, and lightweight. The Open Source attempts are largely laughable, even though JACK represents the most sophisticated audio connection suite/API out there. Pro Tools is shit, I agree, but because of Avid's dominance in the film/TV worlds, Pro Tools is the "professional" choice for audio in support of these industries. I imagine that most…

I don't really know much about Nuendo, but it looks like it's more of a traditional DAW and has specific features aimed at post production, which doesn't seem to be Ableton Live's goal. I might try to get you started on Ableton Live, why do you think Ableton has such "horrifying application development standards"?

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#159

Post by fitzwatermellow » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:54 PM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #43

fitzwatermellow wrote: post #41

Hate to hijack what I am sure is a mind expanding discussion on software distribution, the law of karma, and modern celebrity. But I am curious about something and was hoping to get an opinion from some of the music production experts on here. Of which there appear to be legion. Which is awesome :) How difficult is it to duplicate Serum-esque wavetable generation using ChucK or CSound? It seems in my uninformed opini…

>How difficult is it to duplicate Serum-esque wavetable generation using ChucK or CSound? Serum-esque? Sure, selecting waveforms from a lookup table isn't difficult. However implementing clean sounding alias-free oscillators that can themselves be modulated at audio rate and so on requires years of accumulated domain knowledge. On top of that serum has all kinds of fancy features, such as the ability to import wave f…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply and timeless wisdom that seems to apply not just to music, but life as well ;)

Re: Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software

#160

Post by fitzwatermellow » Wed, Mar 02, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #108

fitzwatermellow wrote: post #41

Hate to hijack what I am sure is a mind expanding discussion on software distribution, the law of karma, and modern celebrity. But I am curious about something and was hoping to get an opinion from some of the music production experts on here. Of which there appear to be legion. Which is awesome :) How difficult is it to duplicate Serum-esque wavetable generation using ChucK or CSound? It seems in my uninformed opini…

@JonnieCache covers a lot of points about the oscillators. It's not just that Serum offers a wavetable lookup oscillator, but one that can scan through a wavetable in realtime, "Warp" the sound in various way (including FM, PWM, hard sync, stretching) without aliasing. Then there's also the tools to draw, mathematically generate or import your own wave files, and make wavetables blending between them (from simple cro…

Yes, I'm beginning to think Serum is quite an incredible deal at $190 retail ;)