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Creative Backs Down on Vista Driver Debacle
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:07 PM
from the three-black-eyes-and-a-bloody-nose dept.
from the three-black-eyes-and-a-bloody-nose dept.
In the wake of last week's driver debacle, Creative has finally decided to back down for PR purposes. Modder Daniel_K, author of the offending Vista drivers, has had his posts on the Creative forums reinstated. According to Creative the move was to avoid infringing on other company's IP. "Daniel_K is incensed by Creative. 'They publicly threatened me, just to show their arrogance,' he told El Reg by email. He told us that Creative contacted him on a chat session. 'They were sarcastic, ironic and asked me if I wanted something from them, as if I were expecting something,' he wrote. 'It was my protest against them and would like to see how far it would go.'"
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FreedomFighter writes "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. Creative insisted that features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(TM) signals and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on windows Vista. With Creative releasing less than one new driver a year, things seemed bleak. Fortunately, a talented user, Daniel_K, was recently able to 'fix' many of the drivers, enabling the incompatible features and also fixing many bugs. Just today Creative has decided to put a stop to this. They removed all links to his modified drivers, and banned several users who were posting links to the now banned drivers."
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Creative Vista Driver Modder Speaks Out 318 comments
hol writes sends a followup on Creative Labs shutting down the modder who made their drivers work with Vista. Wired is running daniel_k's response to the contretemps."
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News: $90 Asus Sound Card Whips Creative's Best 387 comments
EconolineCrush writes "Sound card giant Creative caught plenty of flak for its recent driver debacle, and has long been criticized for bullying competitors and stifling innovation. But few have been willing to compete with Creative head-on, allowing the company to milk its X-Fi audio processor for more than two and a half years. Now the SoundBlaster has a new challenger in the form of Asus' $90 Xonar DX, which delivers much better sound quality than the X-Fi, PCI Express connectivity, and support for real-time Dolby Digital Live encoding. The Xonar can even emulate the latest EAX positional audio effects, providing the most complete competition to the X-Fi available on the market."
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first post! (Score:5, Funny)
Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
I kind of wish they would die, if only so we wouldn't have to let down so many disappointed people who bought Creative's X-Fi and Audigy hardware thinking it would be a good card for home recording only to find out that it utterly sucks at it. Between the high latency and all the post-processing it does to make the sound "better" (much of which is apparently hard to turn off), it's about the worst possible choice for that use, yet Creative seems to market it as though it would be good for that. Not to mention that the sound quality on the inputs just isn't up to snuff compared to even the cheapest M-Audio hardware.
At a minimum, the company deserves the corporate equivalent of life in prison without parole for the number of people the company has harmed with their product claims.
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Interesting)
Still no true 3D positional audio through EAX either, just some hackneyed binaural cues. It's a shame, but I guess that's just how the stone rolls.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good for him (Score:4, Informative)
The thing is, at the time of Ensoniq's implosion, they were eating Creative for breakfast in the soundcard biz. Ensoniq was first with PCI soundcards which were "Soundblaster compatible" (meaning they worked with old DOS games that talked directly to the SB16's ISA-bus register space; that's completely irrelevant now but a big deal back then) and Creative couldn't get their own stuff to work. And Gateway was buying Ensoniq's cards by the boatload, and other PC vendors were looking at doing the same.
It really is too bad that Ensoniq had issues that lead to Creative buying them. Basically, Creative didn't care about the musical instrument side of Ensoniq; Creative just bought Ensoniq to shut down their better competitor.
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
An important thing to note here is that a dedicated soundcard is no longer a necessary component of a computer due to onboard sound. A large part of Creative's market are going people who decide on their own to buy a soundcard for some reason, and which card they choose will depend quite heavily on some geek's opinion.
Parent
Onboard sound = poor ASIO (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Interesting)
Last time this subject came up, I said that onboard sound was more than good enough: multiple people proved me wrong, and indeed, i was, so I'm not going to try and argue that. However, point is, for 90% of people, the computer will be functional as is. Games will run fine, their MP3s will play fine (and I can't hear any noise introduced by the board during playback, and its quite limited and hard to notice during recording... of course, not viable for professional work), everything will be "good enough" to the average joe (as opposed to videocards, where even Joe will realise really quickly that his onboard video isn't good enough when he can't even run a 3 years old game on his machine).
So that means that ALMOST EVERYONE who buys a sound card, knows what they want. Low noise, professional features, instrument ports, specific encoder/decoders support, and they'll want quality (and the tone of your post is quite in line with this statement).
So Creative cannot sell shitty feature-less cards easily. They have to have a LOT over an onboard card for someone to want it.
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:4, Interesting)
The amount of ppl doing recording on their home PC is likely below 1%. Those might need multichannel low-latency ASIO, but for the rest of us, onboard auio is more than good enough. It's not like the crappy AC97 of 10 years ago anymore.
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Insightful)
IOW, it is just an enthusiasts upgrade.
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Informative)
So I doubt it's just a few angry kids.
Parent
Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Interesting)
Either way, the Internet has yet again handily shown another large corporate entity that 'do no evil' is a pretty damned good motto.
That once letter to the local paper editor gets millions of reads these days. Despite their efforts, many businesses and their practices are transparent to the public whether they like it or not. The "blowback" from that is what some like to call 'market forces' at work
Google was rather bright to call everything beta, and only put a line through the word when everyone was happy with how it works. When you produce products and make claims of a general nature and have no clear plan with how to deal with those inevitable questions from reviewers and users... well, blowback is the natural response.
Trying to hush up the competition is
It's just a shame that the folks at Creative had to fsck it up like this when they could have created a PR positive experience of it.
Parent
Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Interesting)
They only care about not getting caught when they do evil. Creative was caught, and now they are back-peddling to try to avoid the consequences of their actions.
Parent
Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? (Score:5, Funny)
Think about it...
Where would Slashdot be if Microsoft was not an evil monopolistic corporation ?
Where would Slashdot be if the RIAA were not suing grandmothers and college students ?
Where would Slashdot be if Jack Thompson was not suing video game manufacturers ?
Where would Slashdot be if Creative released Vista drivers that work ?
You see, by being evil you effectively bring life to the Internet. Without evilness no one would have anything to bitch about and everyone would be too busy watching porn and looking up peach cobbler recipes. FUCK THAT!
Parent
This doesn't happen with free software (Score:4, Interesting)
Daniel_k had no right to modify Creative's software. They did not grant
him the right and he was not using an OS that granted him any rights.
People need to start purchasing products which give them the freedom to
use the product. What I'm saying is that when you buy a product you
should especially look for one feature: freedom.
http://fsf.org/ [fsf.org] For more information about software freedoms please see
the Free Software Foundation's homepage.
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you, I think Creative was a complete asshat over this, but the legal basis still intrigues me.
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not how copyrights work. By default, you have no right to do anything with someone else's copyrighted work. It's only through a license agreement that you have any right to even use Creative's code. If the EULA is entirely null-and-void, then there's nothing else that gives you right to use it. Note that certain portions of an EULA wouldn't necessarily hold up in court (technically, they could say that you must sacrifice your firstborn on the Temple of Sho'ka'rei, but that doesn't mean it'd hold up in court), however there has to be something that gives you the right to use it.
Mind you, that all means nothing in the court of public opinion. While Creative might have had the legal right, their actions made them look like senseless bullies. It would have been far more productive to give the guy a job and release his changes officially.
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:5, Informative)
Now, he doesn't have a right to distribute the software, but he probably has a right to distribute changes to it. If i tell my friends to read a book, and come up with a different ending, I'm allowed to tell them about it. I wouldn't be allowed to sell the book with one chapter replaced or anything.
What he should have done is release a program that changes a few bytes in the original file, not release a modified file. But your notion that you need a seperate license to use something you bought is obsurd, and I can modify the software all I like in the privacy of my home.
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:4, Interesting)
From here
http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332 [creative.com]
2) I firmly believe that Daniel K has caught the flack because of the Dolby Digital feature As far as I am aware Auzentech paid a lot of money for an exclusive licence with Dolby to have their cards support this. Now, Creative would get into trouble if they allow a means for this to be "cracked" to run on non-Auzentech cards.
3) Accepting money (even in the form of donations) for someone elses copyrighted material is a big NO NO.
Now Daniel_K comes along and enables the code on Creative cards. Dolby finds out and complains to Auzentech since they probably signed a contract that only allows them to use the technology on their cards. Auzentech complains to Creative who've signed a contract to enforce this in the driver. And things look bad for Creative, since they allowed him to post the crack on their forum.
So it's not the Vista driver he's in trouble for, it's unlocking Dolby on Creative cards.
That said, the traditional way to handle this is to negotiate in private not on some internet forum, offer the guy a job and so on. And release the missing Vista drivers.
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:4, Informative)
This is, of course, complete nonsense and exactly what the media companies want to to think. The mere act of an entity "publishing" i.e. making something available to the public, gives "the public" certain rights to that material. These rights are embodied by "fair use."
If you want more rights than fair use provides, then you need an agreement.
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to explain how constitution, or a constitutional law of Daniel_k's states prohibits him from distributing patches to Creative's drivers, provided that he neither distributes patched drivers directly nor do the patches contain Creative's copyrighted code in excess of fair use amount needed for interoperability.
Now, it's possible that Daniel did not release his work properly, but he sure has "powers" to modify Creative's code.
Parent
Re:This doesn't happen with free software (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I partially agree with you. (Score:3, Insightful)
screw creative (Score:5, Insightful)
An apology and an announcement of a policy change from here forward would also work.
Otherwise, all I see is that they got caught and decided they'd just try other means to shut down unauthorized, uh, "unbreaking". There's also the whole deliberate breakage to begin with.
As things stand right now, my only outstanding question for resolving the Creative debacle is "Turtle Beach or m-Audio?"
Too little, too late (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just me that won't buy your products it's every computer I build, it's every person I talk to, it's every decision my company makes that I can sway against you, it's every law I can turn against you.
Miserable excuses by Creative (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen more than a few companies simply bypass vista's certification process and release their updates, with instructions on how to circumvent Vista security checks. Good for them, bad for vista.
An Excuse Breathes Its Last and Croaks (Score:4, Insightful)
Lord knows I'm no fan of Vista, but it seems to me that Creative was trying to lay their own incompetence or dishonest marketing plans off on Microsoft. They must have been pretty embarrassed when this guy came along with a set of working drivers to blow their alibi out of the water. I sincerely hope the people who made the decision to harass him are shown the door in a very public way. Proper damage control requires on less.
Let's be clear here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The actions of Creative may have been business motivated. Cripple the hardware so you have to buy new hardware. Bad idea.
No leg to stand on anyway: Tortuous Interference (Score:4, Interesting)
Since the drivers he made available were generally available anyway, he did not run afoul of copyright for making his changes available. (assuming he uses the words "for support work" and not "for the drivers") He could use "patch" just to be 100% sure.
As a consultant I can (and have done) modify third party hardware and software for the benefit of a customer who has proper ownership of the hardware and license to the software and I may change for that service and there's NOTHING the third party vendor can do about it.
The relationship Daniel has with the user of a driver with his modifications is of no business to Creative. In fact, Creative may be worried that they are interfering with Daniels business. If you are curious look up "Tortuous Interference."
Daniel *did* make money from his work. He could have a case against Creative's very public accusation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't even though these drivers existed (Score:4, Insightful)
They ought to start by... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who gets this heavy-handed in today's internet society is far out of touch with his/her customer base, and has no reason to be employed by a company that makes computer equipment.
In other words, incompetent to the point of being actively harmful to the well-being and even survival of the company itself.
Re:Liars or idiots (or both) (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW with the exception of creative reinstating the forum links, all of this information was in the first article... about how he got mad at creative and did stuff to really piss them off, and even how he dec
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I gave up on Creative a couple years ago. I've had tons of trouble with their drivers and eventually just decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
Since all I use my sound for is gaming, and I've just g
Not really (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)