Creative vs. daniel_k

[Djizasse]

Creative threatened Daniel_k with legal action. This guy was modding their drivers for windows vista. It seems that creative deliberately disabled some features on their sound cards, just to make people buy new supported products. Daniel_k successfully modded the drivers and reactivated the missing features.

The post that started it all

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.

Daniel_k response sums it pretty nicely:

I do know what is right, so I'll stop developing and distributing Creative softwares and drivers.

I'll leave a comment, though.

The funny thing is that you are faster "protecting" your technologies and intelectual properties than providing improved drivers and softwares for your customers.

You purposedly crippled and ruined the Audigy/Live! (Emu10kx) and the Audigy LS/SE/Value/Live!24-bit (P17) drivers for Windows Vista.

This just proves you don't really care about what your customers and what people think about you.

Ars Technica has a nice comment on this situation: link

At this moment, the thread already has more than 2000 posts bashing creative and promising not to buy any more products from them. The forum was flooded by angry customers that decided to wreck havoc in the forums.

This is getting a lot of attention from many tech sites and even wikipedia has a reference of this incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Technology

How can creative be so stupid and pull such a bad stunt like this? The amount of flak they're getting is unbelievable (but deserved).

No more creative products for me, this was the last straw.

 

[Sheep]

I'm not going to swear off a creative because of this. I just warrantied my MP3 player from them, and Both were(and are) fantastic units.

Do I think Creative is being stupid? Yes.
Will I stop buying they're products because they want compensation? No.

This would be like Honda Suing a shop that turbo's their engines and gives the cars more power. Sounds pretty dumb.

SheepStar

 

[10010011]

Interesting, but it's been a game in the computing industry for a long time.

Microsoft releases a new OS and instead of just writing new drivers the hardware vendors need a boost, so they stop supporting a product.

It's not just Creative that looses from me, it is also Microsoft

From the checking I have done I will need to replace my sound card (No Vista support PLANNED for SB-Live! series) and my video cards (SLI support disabled in Vista).

So I do not see myself purchasing Windows Vista anytime soon.

 

[Djizasse]

What makes me ditch creative is the fact that they built a driver for vista and disabled a lot of functionality. Creative also lied when they said that they could not enable the functionality.

Daniel_k only activated the disabled stuff, he didn't had to program new stuff, it already was there, but turned off.

It's clear that creative want people to upgrade to new "supported" cards, but this is not the way to do it.

 

[Sheep]

What makes me ditch creative is the fact that they built a driver for vista and disabled a lot of functionality. Creative also lied when they said that they could not enable the functionality.

Daniel_k only activated the disabled stuff, he didn't had to program new stuff, it already was there, but turned off.

It's clear that creative want people to upgrade to new "supported" cards, but this is not the way to do it.

Honestly, this is the only one you KNOW about. I'm sure a lot of companies do it too.

Example: On my car, if I get a check engine light, I can solve it a couple ways.

1.) Take it to Honda.
2.) Read a page on the internet, and install a toggle switch on a jumper harness. Flip the switch when you get the light, and it will flash the CEL number.

Do I hate Honda for making people who are not technically savvy go to the Dealership? No. It's their product, and they can do whatever they want with it.

SheepStar

 

[Hi Ho]

I think the move was stupid but It's not going to make me boycott them. I have an X-Fi card in my Vista machine and it took them over a year to release any semi decent drivers. Still, they aren't very good. They're resource hogs. My motherboards' onboard sound has better drivers.

I'll be buying a different kind of sound card at some poing mainly because Creative has terrible driver support. I decided that long before this recent incident.

I have no problem with their MP3 players. I love my Zen Micro Photo.

 

[sparky77]

It's not just in Vista that they do this with, I have an SB live 5.1 card in my 98se machine, I was able to mod the driver to use higher than 24bit sample rates with it and haven't had any problems yet.