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Creative Labs Goes After Driver Modder: Daniel_K


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#1 othman11

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 06:00 PM

images/news/hardware.jpgThis is interesting as how a company SHOULDN'T be run:

Since the release of Windows Vista, Creative has promised their Sound Cards as being "Vista Ready". Unfortunately, as many unlucky customers did discover, this is not true. What the users actually found were buggy, feature crippled drivers.

A Message from Creative Labs to Daniel_k:

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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.


Original Posting
Via: TomsHardware


#2 Sphere

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 06:01 PM

repare your link, but if I read your topic description, I'd say don't go after him, hire him!

#3 m.oreilly

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 07:00 PM

thanks for posting this. they just lost a potential customer...

#4 Nvyseal

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 07:08 PM

Yes, this guy did use some of Creative Labs code to produce BETTER drivers than Creative had released. But I find Creative Labs stealing our money by not supporting its hardware with working drivers. I have an Audigy card, and it has always worked terrible in Vista. Creative has even dropped support for this card. I only wish i had known Daniel_K made a driver for my card sooner, before the links were pulled by Creative. I would have given them a shot.

Its companies like this that really get my blood boiling, and really I would like everyone to boycott Creative Labs. This company needs to go UNDER I will not buy any more Creative Labs Products

Now, heres a twist for you... Can GM sue you for taking a 1969 Camaro and modding its engine to give you more MPG and Horsepower. Can GM sue you for making those engines and giving them to the public and asking for a donation in return? ...I think not

#5 brewin

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 07:37 PM

Shows how out of touch they are with their customers.

#6 Sphere

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 08:51 PM

View PostNvyseal, on Mar 30 2008, 09:08 PM, said:

Now, heres a twist for you... Can GM sue you for taking a 1969 Camaro and modding its engine to give you more MPG and Horsepower. Can GM sue you for making those engines and giving them to the public and asking for a donation in return? ...I think not
You're making a fatal flaw in your thoughts:
Software never changes owner!!!
Your license for any software is a license to USE it, the software is still owned by the creator of the software.

It is strange indeed that software is the only thing that does never change owner, but sadly, it is

#7 Nvyseal

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 09:16 PM

View PostSphere, on Mar 30 2008, 01:51 PM, said:

You're making a fatal flaw in your thoughts:
Software never changes owner!!!
Your license for any software is a license to USE it, the software is still owned by the creator of the software.

It is strange indeed that software is the only thing that does never change owner, but sadly, it is
Sphere, i think your missing the point here...
If you were to look at some code, and found flaws in it, made it better and told the maker of the flaw, but they didn't do anything about it, because they feel its old, outdated legacy, and they didn't support it anymore wouldn't you tell the world about it??

From the inq:

Quote

CREATIVE LABS JUST can't stay out of the news this week, unfortunately for the company it's all bad.

We've been following Creative's lacklustre support of Vista for some time now, including this piece from February 2007 which not only prompted a response from Creative but also prompted readers to mail us asking for further prodding of the sound-card producing behemoth. Earlier this week Creative released an involuntary adult movie cleanser, which didn't go down to well with some of our other readers.

Last month the company released X-Fi specs to open source coders, having promised Linux drivers for two years and only releasing a half-crippled beta driver - for the X86-64 architecture only, compiled with a 'back level' version of GCC. Basically this release enabled people with spare time to do the hard work for Creative, which the company couldn't be bothered with, to ensure their products worked on their choice of operating system.

You might not find it so surprising the company doesn't product much in the way of Linux driver support, not all companies do, but more surprising is the quality of support offered for the mass-market operating systems used on the majority of new consumer PCs -Windows Vista.

The driver packages on offer for various Creative products are so poor, that a lone hero by the name of 'Daniel_K' has produced a variety of altered drivers and packages that allow users to utilise their cards successfully on Vista, without a sub-standard feature set and continuous crashing.

Finally, after allowing Daniel_K to offer this service to Creative customers for a lenghty period - something Creative should have been doing from the start - a Creative spokes person demanded the user removed all links to his packages and stopped posting any more. You can read the forum announcement here.

As another poster points it - there's no doubt what Daniel_K has engineered violates the EULA that comes with Creative drivers and products, nor is it acceptable to accept money donations for other people's IP. However, if Creative won't offer customers the same feature set on Vista that appears on XP, and if Creative will not offer satisfactory driver support to a multi-million selling operating system, what does the company expect?

The furore on the forums saw a plethora of customers state they'd never touch a Creative product again:

"As for Creative, this is the worst attitude to the customers I've ever seen. I will certainly never buy any Creative product in my life and will advice against doing so any people I know. Bye Creative!" said alniks.

Toronto699 followed up with: "Bye Creative , your vista drivers are awefull , ill not buy or recommend any Creative product to anyone after reading your reaction to some very good drivers that creative is unwilling or unable to write...your support is terrible". Spelling mistakes left intact.

Phyltre's comments share similar sentiment with many other posts: "With this, you've lost another customer, Creative. I've been using this X-Fi in Vista for over a year now, and putting up with the glitches and the badly written software. Because your development team (although I can't imagine you're paying even a single person full-time for what we're seeing) would not work with us, the community was forced to work together to clean up your mess."

Creative has once again produced a master-stroke of bad publicity (at the time of writing the forum announcement appeared on Slashdot) and a potential massive backlash from its own user community. Who is to blame? Only Creative, whose ineptitude at producing and releasing drivers has caused the company only further misery in the long run.

One of Daniel_K's closing comments summarised the situation for us all:

"The funny thing is that you are faster 'protecting' your technologies and intellectual properties than providing improved drivers and software for your customers." ยต


#8 Sphere

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 09:33 PM

View PostNvyseal, on Mar 30 2008, 11:16 PM, said:

Sphere, i think your missing the point here...
If you were to look at some code, and found flaws in it, made it better and told the maker of the flaw, but they didn't do anything about it, because they feel its old, outdated legacy, and they didn't support it anymore wouldn't you tell the world about it??
Ok, then, I misunderstood. My bad

#9 brewin

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 09:42 PM

View PostSphere, on Mar 30 2008, 04:33 PM, said:

Ok, then, I misunderstood. My bad
No, you got it right. The issue here is Intellectual Property.

#10 Nvyseal

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:04 PM

View Postbrewin, on Mar 30 2008, 02:42 PM, said:

No, you got it right. The issue here is Intellectual Property.

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Intellectual property (IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights. Under intellectual property law, the holder of one of these abstract "properties" has certain exclusive rights to the creative work, commercial symbol, or invention which is covered by it.

By all rights, GM patented the engine that goes into the Camaro, but i dont see them suing the modders of thier engines.

As with the Audigy platform, they have no intention on making it work with Vista and dropped the project, leaving it as abandoned.

Now im calling this one as i see it, Im not going to throw away something that is in perfectly good working order just because the company who makes it decides its outlived its usefulness. If i can continue to still make it perform with a generic device, i will. Thats just human nature

#11 chriso_86

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:16 PM

Another reason to never buy from Creative ever again! I am so sick of their bull!!! I hope their company dies a slow painful death!!!

#12 brewin

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:31 PM

View PostNvyseal, on Mar 30 2008, 05:04 PM, said:

By all rights, GM patented the engine that goes into the Camaro, but i dont see them suing the modders of thier engines.

As with the Audigy platform, they have no intention on making it work with Vista and dropped the project, leaving it as abandoned.

Now im calling this one as i see it, Im not going to throw away something that is in perfectly good working order just because the company who makes it decides its outlived its usefulness. If i can continue to still make it perform with a generic device, i will. Thats just human nature
A car engine is physical property. Like Sphere said, when you buy it you own it. That's the difference. The patent has nothing to do with it.

No one is saying Intellectual Property makes sense. It doesn't.

#13 stormrosson

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:33 PM

:chriso: creative sux so bad........I think I will go for the much more expensive Asus pcie soundcard....even tho I just got an X-fi extreme pcie.........what a bunch of a'holes :roadrunner:

#14 Sphere

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 10:54 PM

Ok, so, for a short, property ain't property if it ain't hardware still.
Thus, even old property is illegal to edit, because the driving behind it is intellectual property?

Anyway, I still think hiring would be the smarter move by Creative

#15 Guest_scaramonga_*

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Posted 30 March 2008 - 11:36 PM

Maybe Creative doesn't want to bother with making drivers for an OS that will be short lived?....neither would I frankly :chriso:


:)


Great support for my 'Prelude' here in XP :roadrunner:




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