Creative says custom drivers are "stealing"

[matkun]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11297

Short of it, Creative is threatening a custom driver writer for creating drivers that enable Audigy sound card features in Vista.

Best thing out of all of this, is that I'm going to grab his custom drivers and use them, because Creative's Vista support is absolute **** for my Audigy 2 ZS.

This also cements it, I'll probably go with on-board sound or something from Asus or some other company for my next build this summer.

Goodbye Creative, your hardware is nice but your software is crap.

[Evil Baby]

I'm surprised Creative is still in the buisness of sound cards. I can't imagine there is a huge market for them.

Hopefully they loose ample customers over this choice. I can't believe the thought this would fly.

It's their own darn fault for crippling older cards to force people to upgrade.

[kramerz80]

Boo on Creative... glad I caught this, I was actually thinking of buying a sound card from them... not anymore! :twisted:

[TruE SkiLLS]

Sometimes, it makes me think how some companies run...
if their driver is ****, obviously there will be someone else to help "take over" that job.

Creative saying no to custom driver is like shooting themselves in the knee.

[i6s1]

Wow, I doubt I'll buy another Creative soundcard again.

[Evil Baby]

Even more encouraging are the post on this page
Link (http://consumerist.com/373901/creative-sparks-customer-revolt-when-it-tries-to-silence-third+party-programmer)



Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: 03-30-2008
newegg
Message 1179 of 1,436
Viewed 2,595 times

To Whom it May Concern:

While it is not our place to condemn the decisions of Creative regarding this issue, our customers come first. That being said, it has come to our attention that many of our customers are not happy with the products Creative has released nor the support for those products. To wit, we have processed nearly 5,000 return orders within the past 48 hours. While it is not normally in our best interest to publically comment in a manufacturer's forum, the overwhelming concensus has left us little choice. As such, effective tommorow morning newegg.com will suspend sales of the sound cards in question, particularly those indicated as "Vista compatible", pending an investigation into the matter. Those of you whom recently ordered such a card will still recieve your product as indicated in any relevant conversations. While we regret this abrupt decision, it has been deemed neccessary to protect the interest of our consumers. We welcome contact from Creative as soon as is possible so that we may resolve this issue.

Thank you,

Newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com





Even more entertaining is a mysterious post that appeared on the Daniel_K thread on Sunday, supposedly from Newegg. It's quite possibly fake, but the email address registered with the account is webmaster@newegg.com, and that address has to be verified before it can be displayed. We'll have to wait until Newegg opens for business Monday morning (7am PST) to verify. [Update 7:42 am PST: Newegg is still selling X-Fi cards this morning, and their chat-based CSR had no information regarding the supposed embargo.] In the meantime, here's the post:

[YLSF]

That sounds pretty dumb... I didn't read the article but maybe they need to take action or they may run into problems if they do want to go after someone for intellectual property issues in the future and they had a history of not doing it in the past.. (like, with trademark issues, companies need to be shown that they will actively sue companies that infringe on trademark abuses)

[bernZ]

What newegg and big **resellers* need to do is step up to defend the little guys. Daniel_K is doing Creative a favour, and Creative is completely banning him (in essence) from doing anything to help. Dumb move by Creative, and they'll feel the effects of even faster dwindling sales soon.

[fitbrit]

This has been posted on other forums too.
Apparently, they were okay with him writing drivers. They took action when he posted a link that allowed people, who were downloading his drivers, to give him a donation (towards download bandwidth). That's where the "stealing" perspective came in. i.e. someone was 'making money' from users who were buying a Creative product.
As long as he can prove that the money is for bandwidth he'll be fine. Still, a pretty crappy move on Creative's part.

[Evil Baby]

This has been posted on other forums too.
Apparently, they were okay with him writing drivers. They took action when he posted a link that allowed people, who were downloading his drivers, to give him a donation (towards download bandwidth). That's where the "stealing" perspective came in. i.e. someone was 'making money' from users who were buying a Creative product.
As long as he can prove that the money is for bandwidth he'll be fine. Still, a pretty crappy move on Creative's part.

Yeah, that's their excuse. I'd support Creative if Daniel_K was making people pay for his drivers, but asking for donations shouldn't be a issue. Creative just wanted to find a way to keep their drivers crippled for the older sound cards so people would buy new hardware for Vista machines.

[TruE SkiLLS]

Yeah, that's their excuse. I'd support Creative if Daniel_K was making people pay for his drivers, but asking for donations shouldn't be a issue. Creative just wanted to find a way to keep their drivers crippled for the older sound cards so people would buy new hardware for Vista machines.

+1 to that... donations are okay, considering the guy did spend time to make the custom driver.

[i6s1]

Daniel_K is probably getting more donations today then ever. I'd never heard of him until today, but I'll be sending him some money and using his drivers. I won't buy another Creative product, but I'll keep using my Audigy 2.

Given the backlash though, I'll bet that Creative backs down pretty quickly.

[ephemera]

If these drivers are released using 'forced donation$' then I side with creative. You shouldn't make money off of it. If its pay what you can or nothing and he still lets people use it, I would support him. Why doesn't he work out a deal with creative? Or work for them?

I guess hardware makers want you to buy the latest and greatest instead of writing new drivers. Microsoft must understand that this is really slowing the migration to vista. People don't want to buy all new hardware for a software upgrade.

[Evil Baby]

If these drivers are released using 'forced donation$' then I side with creative. You shouldn't make money off of it. If its pay what you can or nothing and he still lets people use it, I would support him. Why doesn't he work out a deal with creative? Or work for them?

I guess hardware makers want you to buy the latest and greatest instead of writing new drivers. Microsoft must understand that this is really slowing the migration to vista. People don't want to buy all new hardware for a software upgrade.

If only MS was lucky enought that it was just a hardware issue. Many users just went out and bought new machines for Vista.

Lots of software companies have done the same thing, refusing to make their program compatible with Vista. That is a huge issue with MS

[BlueMax]

This is the way not-so-Creative Labs has been running for years!

Evil, dirty buggers. Anyone remember when they bought Aureal A3D just to dismantle them and remove the competitor everyone preferred...?

[fitbrit]

If these drivers are released using 'forced donation$' then I side with creative. You shouldn't make money off of it. If its pay what you can or nothing and he still lets people use it, I would support him. Why doesn't he work out a deal with creative? Or work for them?

I guess hardware makers want you to buy the latest and greatest instead of writing new drivers. Microsoft must understand that this is really slowing the migration to vista. People don't want to buy all new hardware for a software upgrade.

A donation cannot be "forced" - that's called a purchase, or worse, extortion. No, the deal was the donations were voluntary, and you could still download for free.

[i6s1]

http://consumerist.com/assets/resources/2008/03/con_stormingcreative.jpg

I loved this one.

[i6s1]

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7826/

Wooo, my post was quoted in this article! I'm famous!

"I've bought $1000 worth of Creative products going back to the Soundblaster 16 including speakers and a DVD Rom. I was going to buy the XFi to replace my Audigy 2 ZS on my next build. At a critical time for the company, with descrete sound cards being a dying breed, Creative needs the enthusiast market. So why go and kick us in the teeth?"

[TruE SkiLLS]

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7826/

Wooo, my post was quoted in this article! I'm famous!

"I've bought $1000 worth of Creative products going back to the Soundblaster 16 including speakers and a DVD Rom. I was going to buy the XFi to replace my Audigy 2 ZS on my next build. At a critical time for the company, with descrete sound cards being a dying breed, Creative needs the enthusiast market. So why go and kick us in the teeth?"

LOL, now u gotta go claim money, saying thye used ur quote without permission

[lead]

hypocrites. Way back creative had a video card the banshee. based on the voodoo. A guy started a web page called bill's workshop. Where basically he worked and posted modified drivers for this and other cards to help performance.Came in handy because of creatives less than splendid support. They later hired him to run their tech support newsgroup forums. I guess now they would have just sued him!

[Frankie3s]

http://consumerist.com/assets/resources/2008/03/con_stormingcreative.jpg

I loved this one.

Mine too!

[evanx]

They are underestimating the backlash on this. Internet mimes gain momentum fairly quickly and when there's already underlying anger behind the issue, Creative is just asking for it.

[JAC]

Phil O'Shaughnessy
Vice President, Corporate Communications
poshaughnessy@creativelabs.com

Dear Phil. After reading the following article:

Creative Labs prevents guy from making better Vista drivers
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7826/

I have cancelled my Creative Fatal1ty X-Fi Platinum order from my local computer vendor. I have decided that your products are no longer worth the hassle of poor driver support and infrequent updates. Indeed, given that a) EAX has never been stable, and b) CPU power has made hardware sound acceleration unecessary, I don't imagine I'll be purchasing a discrete sound card again.

Actually, I suppose I should thank you for saving me $180 with this latest show of corporate greed.

[Beradon]

Wow, didn't know Creative was in such bad shape. I haven't bought a sound card in ages as I don't play games anymore and I still have an Audigy. What happened to the sound card market? I thought gamers were still flocking to Creative's 3D audio as a standard. I do however see generic onboard audio becoming the norm but back in my days it was risky to rely on some unknown company for future driver support. That was one reason everyone got a SoundBlaster.


On another note, does Daniel K have a website were we can get his drivers?

[Valek]

I wonder how the owners over in Singapore feel about what's happening to their company.

[Defiant]

Thanks for this info. I sent an email as well to comment on my disgust.


Phil O'Shaughnessy
Vice President, Corporate Communications
poshaughnessy@creativelabs.com

[i6s1]

I don't know if we're allowed to post torrent links, but since it's not copyrighted material I'll give it a try.

http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/38375297/Creative+Soundblaster+Audigy?tab=summary

[Dave98]

switched out my audigy for the realtek alc888 chip on my Gigabyte P35-DS3L. No regrets

[trinh]

That is ridiculous, someone do the job for them, they should thank not threatening. Maybe they feel bad that they are struggling for year to fix this and somebody from nowhere did the favor for A2 people

[stormy13]

I don't know if we're allowed to post torrent links, but since it's not copyrighted material I'll give it a try.

http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/38375297/Creative+Soundblaster+Audigy?tab=summary

No need for a torrent, the driver packages are hosted here,

http://hosted.filefront.com/braziliantech/

[duckdown]

I've always hated Creative Labs ever since I had to go through the extreme hassle of RMA'ing a sound card.

It was truely the worst, slowest RMA I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with..

F**K you, creative labs :)

[i6s1]

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/602343/creative-driver-modder-responds-to-crackdown/page1.html

A few quotes from Daniel_K, the bugs in the Vista drivers were intentional:

"Creative purposefully modified the Audigy drivers to disable some features when Vista is detected, and also purposefully introduced some bugs to prevent some XP utilities from running."

"They purposefully ruined the Live! support in Vista...with ‘2.1 speakers' setting resulted in distorted sound."

[sxz]

There's no reason to get a Creative sound card when the AuzenTech cards (especially the Prelude which uses Creative's X-Fi tech) are much better in terms of sound quality. I don't know about support though.

[i6s1]

Finally, a response:

"We have read the strong feedback about Creative's forum post regarding driver development by Daniel_k and other outside parties. Creative's message posted on our behalf by our Company spokesperson tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties. The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products. Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies' property. We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers."


http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

[DirtyLude]

So, they support third party development as long as the third party does not try to distribute it to anyone else. Ya that makes sense.

[Beradon]

No need for a torrent, the driver packages are hosted here,

http://hosted.filefront.com/braziliantech/

Is there any description to all the files listed there?

[kay188]

Check out the thread itself at Creative forums for the drivers lol

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=Vista&message.id=24260

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=Vista&thread.id=30403

[Sgt_Strider]

Yeah, that's their excuse. I'd support Creative if Daniel_K was making people pay for his drivers, but asking for donations shouldn't be a issue. Creative just wanted to find a way to keep their drivers crippled for the older sound cards so people would buy new hardware for Vista machines.

I'm going to defend Creative on this because I think they have a point. They had to pay to license the technology that goes into the drivers. The point here isn't about Creative writing bad drivers which is crippling their cards, but the problem is that Daniel_K is looking to benefit financially from using Creative's licensed technology. It's amazing at how this incident is flipped into the issue of Creative not writing good drivers and Daniel_K is a victim of a corporate giant trying to help X-Fi users instead of Daniel_K profitting off Creative's property. Regardless of what Daniel_K's intentions are, you can't profit off other people's work. It's one thing to do a community a favour by writing good drivers, but it's another to profit off another company's assets. This is just unacceptable. However, I know my message will fall on death ears as the internet has already decided. Daniel_K is an innocent victim to Creative's law enforcing assassins.

[i6s1]

I'm going to defend Creative on this because I think they have a point. They had to pay to license the technology that goes into the drivers. The point here isn't about Creative writing bad drivers which is crippling their cards, but the problem is that Daniel_K is looking to benefit financially from using Creative's licensed technology. It's amazing at how this incident is flipped into the issue of Creative not writing good drivers and Daniel_K is a victim of a corporate giant trying to help X-Fi users instead of Daniel_K profitting off Creative's property. Regardless of what Daniel_K's intentions are, you can't profit off other people's work. It's one thing to do a community a favour by writing good drivers, but it's another to profit off another company's assets. This is just unacceptable. However, I know my message will fall on death ears as the internet has already decided. Daniel_K is an innocent victim to Creative's law enforcing assassins.

You are right about the IP to some degree, but at least according to DK, he asked for money to pay for hardware. There's nothing wrong with that, at least in my book.

There's also nothing wrong with him asking for donations for modded drivers, even that money is for profit. People can get the drivers for free, so they're paying for the improvement that DK provides. Again, nothing wrong with this.

But asking for donations to 3rd party apps work on devices that they weren't licensed, that's wrong.

Some of his mods were donation-acceptable, some were not.

There are two sides to every story, so I do respect the fact that you're showing us the other perspective.

[Sgt_Strider]

You are right about the IP to some degree, but at least according to DK, he asked for money to pay for hardware. There's nothing wrong with that, at least in my book.

I'm absolutely right on the issue of IP. You can't just profit off someone else's assets. Period.

And how can you tell he was telling the truth? Read the post that Creative made and you'll see that it suggests Daniel_K was lying at one point about not solliciting donations.


There's also nothing wrong with him asking for donations for modded drivers, even that money is for profit. People can get the drivers for free, so they're paying for the improvement that DK provides. Again, nothing wrong with this.

If he owned the IP then sure. Some companies are probably fine with this, but others aren't. You have to respect that. You can't have double standards here. This is not up to you, me, or even Daniel_K to decide. This is for the IP holder to decide.


But asking for donations to 3rd party apps work on devices that they weren't licensed, that's wrong.

Some of his mods were donation-acceptable, some were not.

There are two sides to every story, so I do respect the fact that you're showing us the other perspective.

I'm just annoyed that people have already painted Daniel_K as a Saint. I know what he was doing is good, but he seemed to be trying to profit off his work by promising to release drivers faster if donations were made faster. I understand that he used his own valuable time to fix the drivers, but he never owned the property to begin with. If the patent holder wants him to stop, then he has to stop. There is no way around it. I'm not sure if he has fully acknowledge the mistake there. It seems to me that he is turning this whole incident to Creative picking on him which is just wrong. If he wasn't trying to profit off this then fine maybe Creative is being a dick about it. Nonetheless, we live in a society where the rule of law is supreme.

[i6s1]

I'm absolutely right on the issue of IP. You can't just profit off someone else's assets. Period.

And that's where you're absolutely wrong. You can if the IP owner allows it. Creative is allowing DK to profit from driver improvements.

DK quoted from Wired:

"I've been told they will allow me to continue with my mods, except the "forbidden" ones.
I'm also allowed to receive donations."

And in CL's eventual response:

"However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties.

Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies' property. "

It's clear as day to me: He's allowed to profit off driver development, but he's not allowed to profit by enabling ALchemy, Crystalizer, and the DLL encoder, or the P17 mod.



I'm just annoyed that people have already painted Daniel_K as a Saint.

People didn't care about the ALchemy/p17 thing.

Without a doubt, the reason that he's painted as a saint (I tend to think it's more a David/Goliath thing) is that he made the Audigy work under Vista, while CL intentionally crippled it. He worked for us, while CL worked against us.

Read the comments. See how many people are complaining that they have to pay for ALchemy again. You'll likely find none.

People are mad because Creative was heavy-handed, and because it's now come out that they intentionally cripple software.



I'm not sure if he has fully acknowledge the mistake there.

See the wired article.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/04/daniel_k-who-fi.html


It seems to me that he is turning this whole incident to Creative picking on him which is just wrong.

I disagree. Audigy owners have been waiting well over a year for CL to make functional Vista drivers. They haven't. Then a guy in Brazil (without hardly any hardware) goes and does it in 3 days. Eventually, CL deletes ALL the software that he's improved, under the guise of protecting partner's IP. Creative gets caught screwing it's customers, then bullies the guy who outed its practices. While the bullying is an issue, the main point is the poor driver support, point in case the intentional crippling of the Audigy line in Vista.

[Sgt_Strider]

And that's where you're absolutely wrong. You can if the IP owner allows it. Creative is allowing DK to profit from driver improvements.

DK quoted from Wired:

"I've been told they will allow me to continue with my mods, except the "forbidden" ones.
I'm also allowed to receive donations."

And in CL's eventual response:

"However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties.

Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies' property. "

It's clear as day to me: He's allowed to profit off driver development, but he's not allowed to profit by enabling ALchemy, Crystalizer, and the DLL encoder, or the P17 mod.

And I was clear in that post. Did you not notice it? I said some companies will be okay with it and some won't. You'll have to respect that. Creative have the final say on this matter, not Daniel_K.

Perhaps this is related to exactly what I'm talking about here. Creative had to license certain patents and technologies from other companies for the drivers. I'm sure there are terms in the contract that Creative has to obey.



People didn't care about the ALchemy/p17 thing.

Without a doubt, the reason that he's painted as a saint (I tend to think it's more a David/Goliath thing) is that he made the Audigy work under Vista, while CL intentionally crippled it. He worked for us, while CL worked against us.

Read the comments. See how many people are complaining that they have to pay for ALchemy again. You'll likely find none.

People are mad because Creative was heavy-handed, and because it's now come out that they intentionally cripple software.




See the wired article.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/04/daniel_k-who-fi.html



I disagree. Audigy owners have been waiting well over a year for CL to make functional Vista drivers. They haven't. Then a guy in Brazil (without hardly any hardware) goes and does it in 3 days. Eventually, CL deletes ALL the software that he's improved, under the guise of protecting partner's IP. Creative gets caught screwing it's customers, then bullies the guy who outed its practices. While the bullying is an issue, the main point is the poor driver support, point in case the intentional crippling of the Audigy line in Vista.

The issue is about driver support only because public opinion have turned it into a case of bad driver support from Creative. This case very much has to do with IP and the use of it without Creative's knowledge. It is perfectly valid for the copyright holder to request that an individual stop using its own property for free and profit off it. Like I said earlier, there is no evidence that any of the donations people made were going towards purchases of older Creative cards.

Fixing bad drivers is one thing. Using someone else's IP for one's own financial gain is another. This is what I have a problem with.

I'm not disagreeing with you that Creative's drivers have been terrible under Vista. I read news article about it from time to time so I am familiar with it. It's unfortunate, but that doesn't justify what Daniel_K attempted to do.