Creative goes after Vista driver modder...

saw this on slashdot. they could have handled it a lot better really.
 
Im just thinking if this happened in the car world:

I buy a car... I put some new rims on it, some blue lights on it... and get it all ready for Boksburg, .. then the creator of the car sues me for modding it!

Or is that analogy not fair? Cause it looks fair to me.
 
Wow, Creative needs to catch a wake up already, that Daniel dude accomplished in a few months what an entire of team of coders could probably not do. ;)
 
Can anyone give me the low-down on the story? ( international cap finished and only getting more on tuesday ).

Im assumng creative is suing someone for modifying their driver so it works with vista. Is that roughly it?
 
No,not suing..

Message to Daniel_K








Viewed 143,116 times
Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O'Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.



Forum Moderator
Creative Labs

03-28-2008 08:02 PM




They have unearthed the wrath of the customers here...a lot of them are teenage adolescence replies ..
The best is the reply from within Creative`s lab from the driver developers themselves

They hit back saying lay off cause your buying a low end card so expect low end drivers and service !!

This from one of the developers himself !! ouch....
 
This the reply from the lab tech guy...
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=Vista&message.id=23909


I've been on to the beta drivers website

http://connect.creativelabs.com/default.aspx

looked at the 'report a driver issue' for the latest beta drivers

http://connect.creativelabs.com/beta/Lists/Driver Issues/AllItems.aspx

There is some angry people leaving abusive messages which is not on, but look at a reply from the creative coders after someone left a load of abuse

'Ok, I see a lot of negativity here. Please lets cut the bad talk. We try our best to get working drivers and sure we might not be the best coders but god knows you're really only paying for the low end cards anyway, if people want the professional stuff they would be getting the true pro stuff, its a get what you pay for thing, so don't complain so much, we'll get the drivers working eventually.'

I know they have a hard job but that response from the coders is just a bad as the abuse that people are hurling at them, and what do they mean 'but god knows you're really only paying for the low end cards anyway, if people want the professional stuff they would be getting the true pro stuff, its a get what you pay for thing, so don't complain so much, we'll get the drivers working eventually'

That just sounded terrible and has left me with an even worse perception with them who develop the drivers ....

Can someone from creative or a coder elaborate on this statement ?






09-01-2007 02:06 AM



Re: Huh ....

Moderator Dale-CL
Moderator
Posts: 2395
Registered: 07-13-2006

Dale-CL

Message 2 of 2

Viewed 915 times


My guess is someone had a bad day at the office. I passed along the feedback to the appropriate management.

Dale


Forum Moderator
Creative Labs
 
Last edited:
Thanks for uploading that article. It is shocking how Creative is handling it, although I must admit the modder was a fool asking for donations.
 
wow, that thread has over a 1000 replies now, lots of unhappy people. Luckily I stopped using creative sound cards a while ago, that and I'm not using vista, so it doesn't really effect me :P
 
ah so the dude was asking for cash. that does change things a bit.

the reply about the low end cards not on though.
 
w1z4rd said:
Im just thinking if this happened in the car world:

I buy a car... I put some new rims on it, some blue lights on it... and get it all ready for Boksburg, .. then the creator of the car sues me for modding it!

Or is that analogy not fair? Cause it looks fair to me.
Click to expand...

That depends, do cars come with a EULA?
 
I agree asking for money maybe was puching it, but if you take you car to an aftermarket modding shop to improve the performance you pay the mechanic for his services, so it seems fair to me.

The creative statement that they are deliberately removing functionality is shocking, and the fact that their coders suck (and that they blatantly acknowledged it) raises some serious alarm bells.

Since I don't use Vista or Creative products I'm not directly affected BUT atleast I can now inform customers and friends not to waste their valuable cash.

Cheers
Slayer
 
slayerza said:
I agree asking for money maybe was puching it, but if you take you car to an aftermarket modding shop to improve the performance you pay the mechanic for his services, so it seems fair to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah but remember, a single car doesnt come with an EULA, whereas software does. What car manufacturers do, do is void your warranty if you have it modded.

Creative, imo, has every right to do what they do, especially since the guy is charging people for stuff that creative mostly did themselves.
 
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