Which side do YOU take in this?(Creative and Daniel_K)

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

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.


Thread is 86 pages at last check, and I dont see ANYONE defending creative.

So do you think that Daniel was right or wrong in fixing Creatives broken support?

They should just hire him....

Well, just from reading the letter from Creative, I would have to agree with them. This is without knowing anything about the situation other than what I got from the letter. It sounds like he was offering drivers that increased functionality for creative cards but was also offering drivers that allowed creative drivers (or some sort of creative technology) to run on cards other than creative. Because of this I would agree with them that he should not be doing so. Or at least not doing so and requesting any kind of donations. perhaps if he was doing it absolutely free (without any links to donations etc) it wouldn't be such an issue, but if he is trying to make any kind of money on THEIR basic software, then it's not right. IMO, of course.

And again, I'll say that I have NO prior knowledge of the situation nor do I want to read an 85 page thread to learn of it. I'm only going on the letter in the OP.

jivetrky said:

Well, just from reading the letter from Creative, I would have to agree with them. This is without knowing anything about the situation other than what I got from the letter. It sounds like he was offering drivers that increased functionality for creative cards but was also offering drivers that allowed creative drivers (or some sort of creative technology) to run on cards other than creative. Because of this I would agree with them that he should not be doing so. Or at least not doing so and requesting any kind of donations. perhaps if he was doing it absolutely free (without any links to donations etc) it wouldn't be such an issue, but if he is trying to make any kind of money on THEIR basic software, then it's not right. IMO, of course.

And again, I'll say that I have NO prior knowledge of the situation nor do I want to read an 85 page thread to learn of it. I'm only going on the letter in the OP.

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Based on just reading the letter and nothing else provided I agree with this.

Based on reading the letter and not knowing creative I would agree with Creative.

Considering that creative refused to release Vista drivers for many of their products so that people were forced to upgrade rather then keep using a tried and true soundcard, I say stick it in their keister.

As for using it on other soundcards... I would need to look into it more and see if he added functionality for other cards or simply hacked their software to work on it.

All he has to do is stop pushing it for products other than Creative.

Siding with Creative.

I *think* the fact that he is supposedly asking for donations infringes on it even more.

Creative is in effect using their "rights" to the software to prevent it's use. While this is likely fair under law (although i'm not even sure of that), it's an ******* move by the company.

Thus i would NOT support creative on this front, just as i won't support any company that owns something purely to keep others from using it.

I would support the guy if no money or donations were involved. That would be for no profit, and would be just helping the community. However if he is asking for donations, he is in the wrong and just trying to make a few bucks under the table.

Having gone through Creative's own absolutely ****ty drivers myself, they can go **** themselves. Having my sound switch randomly, with bad playback, random changes of 44.1k-192k, sound only coming out the left speaker, and the inability to record Line In?

And you're telling me the ONLY stable XP drivers for my card are from 2002? Linked from a crazy (awesome) guy on Head-Fi? Bull-****.

If I'm reading this right, he is not only making stable drivers for Vista (which Creative is not doing) but also adding (or re-allowing) features that the cards shouldn't have.***
*** It looks like the features the sound cards had in XP would "not work" in Vista. a.k.a. Creative disabled the features and made inoperable, he just simply re-enabled them.

From a legal standpoint Creative is justified in their decision, but I don't like it.

*^ I doubt he's doing this for the money, work like this takes time and effort and it's a way to show appreciation and support for the guy. However, it adds another thing that Creative can justify.

Creative sucks and I'm glad that I'm just using onboard sound now. No crappy driver issues to deal with. I'm totally on his side.

I would also like to add, that he is supposedly refunding all of his donations and taking a fee hit from Paypal.

All he did was enable the features the cards were supposed to have in Windows Vista.

Hazaro said:

Having gone through Creative's own absolutely ****ty drivers myself, they can go **** themselves. Having my sound switch randomly, with bad playback, random changes of 44.1k-192k, sound only coming out the left speaker, and the inability to record Line In?

And you're telling me the ONLY stable XP drivers for my card are from 2002? Linked from a crazy (awesome) guy on Head-Fi? Bull-****.

If I'm reading this right, he is not only making stable drivers for Vista (which Creative is not doing) but also adding (or re-allowing) features that the cards shouldn't have.***
*** It looks like the features the sound cards had in XP would "not work" in Vista. a.k.a. Creative disabled the features and made inoperable, he just simply re-enabled them.

From a legal standpoint Creative is justified in their decision, but I don't like it.

*^ I doubt he's doing this for the money, work like this takes time and effort and it's a way to show appreciation and support for the guy. However, it adds another thing that Creative can justify.

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Word... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132005
^My next card

It's a morality based decision, and when one man can rearrange and fix what a team of developers, that are paid on a regular salary, is doing wrong, you know something's wrong in that company.

Creative's developers obviously suck and they might have wanted to offer this guy a job instead of snubbing his whole operation. This is what happens when HARDWARE companies consider themselves as software companies. I was mad at Creative within a year after Vista was released, it doesn't take a year to produce a driver. For a company, it should take no longer than a week.

I don't see Nvidia or ATi trying to kill RivaTuner or ATiTool... Creative blows, no more products from them.

Creative ousts Daniel K.(driver modder)

http://forums.creative.com/creative...hread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Ok now a bit of a change to the question

Do you all object to his releasing the drivers themselves or to the fact that he requested donations?

Damn Geforce radeon above me beat me to my next question.

Do those who object to his actions use Rivatuner or similar?

Daniel K is really a cardboard box with a drawn on face + sunglasses.

Legally Creative has the right to demand he stop since he took donations. They probably also disallow redistribution or reverse engineering of their software and IP, say what you will about EULAs and such. What's sad is they probably reverse-engineered his stuff since they obviously couldn't do the same thing heh.

I think it's great the guy did those things and also tihnk that Creative could have made something very positive out of it but in terms of law Creative is in the right here.

This may well be the correct location for the thread, I am doing my thread based on the fact that the vendor will not (claims, can not) release drivers that are fully functional for older hardware.

MadMan007 said:

Legally Creative has the right to demand he stop since he took donations. They probably also disallow redistribution or reverse engineering of their software and IP, say what you will about EULAs and such. What's sad is they probably reverse-engineered his stuff since they obviously couldn't do the same thing heh.

I think it's great the guy did those things and also tihnk that Creative could have made something very positive out of it but in terms of law Creative is in the right here.

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ok so what about the optimized drivers for Video cards? I have not heard about Nvidia or AMD coming out against the optimized drivers.

I am assuming that Creative didnt like the slap in the face of saying that "We cant get them working in Vista" or "we are working on it" but yet one guy in his spare time managed to do what Creative's entire driver team had not done in a year?

Adragontattoo said:

This may well be the correct location for the thread, I am doing my thread based on the fact that the vendor will not (claims, can not) release drivers that are fully functional for older hardware.

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Ok