Creative says custom drivers are "stealing"

[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/60234...own/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/creativel...cending&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/creativel...ssage.id=24260

http://forums.creative.com/creativel...hread.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/2008/0..._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/2008/0..._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.