Freesound Forums

Just being philosophical, and wondering what you guys thought about this.

duh ta hell mang im 16 years old i cant afford a $500 DAW. besides i think the bigheads from NI and friends know very well about warez, and im sure they know that the warez industry is always gonna be out there and it actually benifits and promotes them anyways

No one forces you to use software you can't afford. NI is not the only one. There are so many. They offer demo's. Pay the maker the money he is kindly asking you if you really think you need the stuff. After all, modern software is ridiculously powerful compared with what you pay for it, it's a steal really. Some makers of software and music offer the stuff for free, some don't. It is up to them to make that decision, not you. A no brainer imo.

Most demos of some big software packages are not fully functional and are very limited, but there are many "alternative" developers that offer extended periods of demoing, full functionality, etc.

But still - if you intend to use some very serious DAW like Steinberg Nuendo - it is a lot to ask 1700EU from a 16 year old kid (or his parents) to start learning it... but I know quite some of such kids that started using pirated software and when they became more PRO they bought the software.

I guess some sort of silent agreement is going on.

When you debate it publicly there is no way to sound moral or ethical while supporting something the developer (and owner of the work) is against.

So my vote is - there are instances where the use of pirated software could be "ethical" or at least justifyed (poor and in crisis countries (I know that pirated software contributed a lot to computer literacy of young generations in Bosnia for example), non commercial - learning use of teenagers, etc.), but it is never really moral or ethical to use something against the will of the producer of the work.

Now, another question for any pirate is - do you need to be ethical and moral all the time and even in such cases when your actions don't harm anyone (you wouldn't buy the software anyway, you don't make money with it, you don't re-sell it, etc.) ? Do you need to be moral or ethical just out of the principle? Well, only your conscious or/and religious/spiritual belief can answer that for you.

BUT - there is enough of free and share scene around that you can support, use, participate without being a pirate... although we all want to be pirates sometimes - at least for the masquerade, hehe.

thats another major thing to look at, most of the "bedroom idm/techno/experimental" producers, such as myself, arent getting rich off of the stuff we make with it.

i think if somebody wants to express themselves musicaly/artisticaly they have the _right_ to use software like that. and as satoration said, the pirates who use those warez are almost always only using them until they can get the money to buy them, or that when they become more "proffesional" they will buy them. it makes me wonder if aphex twin himself has used warez, i wouldnt be surprised.

another thing id like to put out there is that the people who use these warez arent running around saying "haha ive got this and this application and i screwed over the people who made it", just because i use warez doesnt make me a dishonest bigheaded arsehole.

There's a **LOT** of free software and even free linux distributions JUST made to do music: http://ubuntustudio.org/ for example.

And sometimes the free stuff makes even nicer results than the expensive stuff.
People do CRAZY things with PD ( http://puredata.info/ ).
Many free things have a steeper learning curve, but are worth the investment.

- Bram

PS: hello_flowers, you should really check out PD. It's a bit of a brainfuck (well, ok, it's a total brainfuck, but you're young ), but I think it suits your style more than Reaktor:
check http://puredata.info/downloads and http://www.crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/Pd_documentation/
it looks really lo-fi but it's crazy powerful.

Ah, PD, but if you are more a musician and less a programmer (or let's say more of an Audiofucker than Mindfucker) there is also Audiomulch by Ross Bencina - not totally free, but almost (89$) and it has 60 days full functional demo and another 30 days of limited demo... CRAAAZYYYY application!

i actually have PureData, i just havent gotten around to learning how to use it ^^' as for reaktor, i got a warez of it and it pretty much sucked D: