Creative just keeps digging their grave...

Mar 30, 2008 at 6:16 AM Post #16 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by 1117 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
As much as I hate to say it, Creative is right. The guy can't get any money from it. Period.


Hosting isn't free, especially for popular files.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 6:42 AM Post #17 of 54
It's true that creative has every right to stop the guy given the current situation.
However there's other problems the users/customers are angry about, and it seems they have the right to be. The users on the creative forum bring up alota good points, guess I'll wait a bit before thinking about getting a sound card.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 6:55 AM Post #18 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arainach /img/forum/go_quote.gif
It's hilarious, really. You're a company that makes a product. People are pissed because they can't use your product. A lone man with more coding skill than every developer you've hired in the last decade comes by and write drivers that work and let your customers use your product, making them incredibly happy. Do you:

(A) Thank him and offer to host his drivers
(B) Offer him a job
(C) Offer him a job and lay off the rest of your incompetent staff
(D) Tell him to never let anyone see the drivers again under threat of legal action

If you picked (D), you may be qualified for a management position at a rapidly failing tech company!



That's the thing though. He didn't write any drivers! Everything he has distributed was developed by Creative Labs themselves (most of his modifications would probably qualify as cracking security or enabling disabled features). They could have packaged most of this stuff together months ago, although a few things started working only in SP1 so that's another story altogether. The whole situation is just incredibly fishy.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:30 AM Post #19 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rempert /img/forum/go_quote.gif
That's the thing though. He didn't write any drivers! Everything he has distributed was developed by Creative Labs themselves (most of his modifications would probably qualify as cracking security or enabling disabled features). They could have packaged most of this stuff together months ago, although a few things started working only in SP1 so that's another story altogether. The whole situation is just incredibly fishy.


Disassembling a program and modifying it without access to the original source code can be just as tough as writing it.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:31 AM Post #20 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by Creative Labs VP Phil
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.


As the Creative Labs executlive stated, it was their business decision to provide the poor drivers. And that Daniel messed with their business decision by providing those "processing features" that were supported by the hardware but not by the drivers. These features were also advertised to be functional.

It is a very shady busniess decision and maybe not the best one...
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:32 AM Post #21 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by Arainach /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Hosting isn't free, especially for popular files.


It is if you are selling the files and have to control them on your own server, if it is donation based then he can host them on a huge number of free file hosting service. AND there's bit-torrent.

Strictly speaking Creative did the right thing as a corporate but they should have foreseen this decision would piss off a whole legion of people and that makes it the worst decision they could have made.

Oh yeah, their driver had a reputation for being slow on the release and buggy as well.

I bought my EMU 0404 USB knowing their history but the EMU is pretty solid, with XP, Vista and Mac drivers working. It can also be used as stand-alone DAC so no problem.

Got to mention that I bought mine used so I can say I didn't contribute to the evil empire (lol).

But yeah, Creative need to seriously reconsider how it is being run.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:36 AM Post #22 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by xzjia /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Strictly speaking Creative did the right thing as a corporate


It appears that they crippled their hardware on purpose, removing advertised features. How is that the "right thing"?
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:40 AM Post #23 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by DefectiveAudioComponent /img/forum/go_quote.gif
It appears that they crippled their hardware on purpose, removing advertised features. How is that the "right thing"?


To ask a guy who is getting money off their IP to stop, as any big corporate lawyer worth his salary would be doing. Of course in this case they didn't examine the circumstances surrounding the case carefully and really landed themselves in the ****hole.

The other crippling hardware stuff was dragged out as the aftermath of the whole fiasco, and then people started to focusing on that, but that wasn't how the incident got started.

Edit: and yes I agree that it is bad form to cripple hardware on purpose, but Creative isn't the only one doing it so its not like the crime of the century or something (well maybe it is if you're only into audio).
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:43 AM Post #24 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by xzjia /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The other crippling hardware stuff was dragged out as the aftermath of the whole fiasco, and then people started to focusing on that.


No it wasn't. The VP posted that "business decision" sentence that I quoted in his very first post. It was there right from the start.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 7:56 AM Post #25 of 54
I went to the original thread and followed that... and indeed they - the posters - focused on whether or not Creative should shut him down in the beginning, and then questioned their motive (what prompted the decision)...

Does it matter how it played out as long as we got all the facts? Creative has the right to do what they did legally for this incident, but their motives are definitely disheartening.

On another note, I am now 100+ Head-Fi'er!
biggrin.gif
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 8:59 AM Post #26 of 54
73 pages * 10 posts on each page in the creative forum thread about this. All angry, most quite long. All appearing during two weekend days, since friday. The news has also reached several major sites during the weekend. And there is still lots of weekend left.

This event has exploded at an amazing speed.

Edit: At 12:00, the count is now 76 pages and the news has hit the Digg front page.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 9:25 AM Post #27 of 54
I don't really get the whole "donations" argument in favor of Creative.. sure, in legal terms, creative owns the rights to sell the technology...
Creative is a multi-million dollar company..
What Daniel_k received in donation is pocket-change.. $54... and a big majority of that donation is from people who have been using his tweaks since they came out.
Why do they insist on taking this publicity shot in the arse just to prevent the guy from earning a couple hard-earned dimes and quarters? They don't like that Daniel's providing working drivers that wasn't offered by Creative.. suck it up!
Are they hoping by shutting down Daniel's operations, they can get people to purchase new cards that will support working drivers?
Anybody who owns creative cards and have these drivers, and everybody who plans on buying creative cards and would find about these drivers will instead read about the happenings back at creative forums.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 9:33 AM Post #28 of 54
Yes, but since friday? Aren't the Creative executives in church right now, praying and singing, rather than monitoring their forum? How could they possibly react fast enough to this?

That first message from their VP has been viewed 119,499 times, according to the Creative Forums counter. How about that, in about three days?
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 5:35 PM Post #29 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesL /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I don't really get the whole "donations" argument in favor of Creative.. sure, in legal terms, creative owns the rights to sell the technology...
Creative is a multi-million dollar company..
What Daniel_k received in donation is pocket-change.. $54... and a big majority of that donation is from people who have been using his tweaks since they came out.
Why do they insist on taking this publicity shot in the arse just to prevent the guy from earning a couple hard-earned dimes and quarters? They don't like that Daniel's providing working drivers that wasn't offered by Creative.. suck it up!
Are they hoping by shutting down Daniel's operations, they can get people to purchase new cards that will support working drivers?
Anybody who owns creative cards and have these drivers, and everybody who plans on buying creative cards and would find about these drivers will instead read about the happenings back at creative forums.




Well, the $54 the guy is getting is not really what bothers Creative. Well, not the amount at least, but in principle it does. However, look at it this way: you are a company selling products. You come up with new products every now and then to put out into the market. You decide to cut support for the old ones so that people buy your new technology.

Some kid comes out of nowhere and writes code that makes all your old technology resuscitate from the land of the obsolete.

People don't have to buy your new widgets anymore because, hey, they don't need them. The old stuff works!

See why Creative is upset now?

This kid isn't costing Creative $54. He is costing them waaaaaaaay much more than that.

I'm looking at this from a business perspective.
 
Mar 30, 2008 at 5:59 PM Post #30 of 54
Quote:

Originally Posted by 1117 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
However, look at it this way: you are a company selling products. You come up with new products every now and then to put out into the market. You decide to cut support for the old ones so that people buy your new technology.


I have not followed that thread or their company history, but if that is true what you're saying, that is just outrageous.
Whatever happened to "standing behind the product you made?"
I was aware that they had poor driver support, but still.

I'm surprised that people are buying their stuff at all nowadays, and that that X-fi card is so popular.
I mean, what will stop them from supporting those cards once they release something new, if what you are saying is true.
That is not to say they are the only company who works like this, there are probably many more, but Creative is one of the most well known names for mainstream gaming soundcards.
 

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