Creative Labs Threatens Driver Modder

[Squall-Leonhart]

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.

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Its time to file complaints with your state's attorney generals offices. Creative has not provided the product they advertised. Their support is lacking. And they have intentionally sold a substandard product.

Here is a full contact list for all states. Tell them what you have experienced as a Creative customer.

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

What the hell?

Creative's view of what drivers are is horribly flawed....

[StriderVM]

Well, basically..... Pay creative for newer sound cards, they get paid! And since sound cards aren't as changed as video cards are, planned obsolescense!

...But still though, I think it's false advertising, because the Audigy's have been advertised on the box as Vista capable, although in reality it isn't....

[Squall-Leonhart]

i think this quote sums it up

Dear Creative,
F*** you.
Regards,
The Internet

[Phil]

creative is getting paranoid....especially since Asus started shipping their own soundcards with top of the line ROG motherboards

[Phil]

creative is getting paranoid....especially since Asus started shipping their own soundcards with top of the line ROG motherboards

[Squall-Leonhart]

it gets better :P

Digg - NGOHQ.com Offers Support to Creative Driver Modder

[cottonvibes]

haha, if you go through the pages in the thread in the OP, everyone is saying how they won't buy from Creative Labs anymore :P

[ViperXtreme]

lots o people all over the net are already carrying pitchforks and torches -_-

[skoreanime]

This story reminds me of the one where Ferrari is demanding a guy who customized his Ferrari into a limousine...get rid of his car . These corporate fascists are a pain. Everyone would love a company more if they got involved with their customers more...like, oh I don't know...by supporting customizations of their items ?

[Phil]

Ferrari think they are doing you a favor by selling you a car!. If you walk off the street to a dealership to buy an 599 GTB Fiorano for list price, it aint gonna happen. Unless you throw down $30-$80 grand OVER list price. Ferrari has a "list" of preferred customers.....to get on the list,,,,well the best way is to get a used car. and btw, if you order a new ferrari today for list price, you wont get it for up to 3 YEARS....huh talk about arrogant

[John Aiton]

....actually, it's because he modified creatives own drivers to be used on other (non-creative) soundcards too

so he stole the work of creative essentially

Originally Posted by Phil

Ferrari think they are doing you a favor by selling you a car!. If you walk off the street to a dealership to buy an 599 GTB Fiorano for list price, it aint gonna happen. Unless you throw down $30-$80 grand OVER list price. Ferrari has a "list" of preferred customers.....to get on the list,,,,well the best way is to get a used car. and btw, if you order a new ferrari today for list price, you wont get it for up to 3 YEARS....huh talk about arrogant

creative business thinking, that's all
people want things others can't have. Elitism etc


truth is, if someone wanted the performace and features of ferrari cars then there are waaaay better options

As with performance pcs - building your own is the way to go, ferrari is the dell equivelant to performance cars

[Squall-Leonhart]

[quote]....actually, it's because he modified creatives own drivers to be used on other (non-creative) soundcards too[quote]

No, he didn't, read it properly.

He modifies the X-Fi drivers to work on Audigy cards, infact so do i, and creative doesn't come after me because i host them on ngohq, which they can't touch with a legal pole.

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

The thing is that divers don't quite fall into the category of regular software....it's not some if you have it cool, if you don't o well move on thing.....drivers are actually needed for stuff to run....it's a mandatory thing and if creative are not doing their part they have absolutely no right to complain that someone else is...

to go back to the Ferrari example...it's like buying a car from them.....but not being given the right key.....what the hell? then they complain that someone else modded the key to work propperly...what the ******* hell? Please tell me how that makes sense....

[deamonhunter]

[quote=Squall-Leonhart;1315625]

He modifies the X-Fi drivers to work on Audigy cards, infact so do i, and creative doesn't come after me because i host them on ngohq, which they can't touch with a legal pole.

why wasn't I told about this ??
dude links please to those modded drivers ? and do they support vista 64 because creative drivers suck so hard

are there any more functions other than the ones in creative drivers ?

[KillerShots]

I spent most of yesterday cruising around the creative message board... it looks like it's neatly divided into two camps with nothing in between.

You've got the mob of people cursing creative for their actions, and a few non-conformists all doing the exact opposite of what the mob is doing (in other words, mindless and also mob-driven).

For the most part, their board is spammed with one-post users saying they'll never buy another creative card again (probably slashdot users or similar) which may or may not be serious. Heck, there's probably a bunch of people registering under as many names as they can to spam the servers... but it's clear people aren't happy.

Personally, I'm shocked the whole thing was started by a Creative employee... and even more shocked that the forum thread not only still exists but is not locked. Creative appears to have made a huge marketting mistake here.

As far as the letter itself, I think the only thing wrong here is that Daniel_K allowed donations towards his project. If he wrote the drivers from scratch, Creative wouldn't be able to touch him (whether he charged for them or not). What should have happened (had Creative been serious about the donations being the only problem) is that they should only temporarily have asked him to stop distributing, but allow it to continue if he would no longer accept donations.

On the other hand, apparently his primary means of distribution was through the Creative forums... that's just plain wrong.

At any rate, the way that creative is attempting to handle this creeps me out a bit, whether they are within their rights or not is beside the point. I haven't picked up a Creative card in a couple of years... not due to poor performance or bad drivers, but due to missing capabilities. I would have come back had they eventually filled those capabilities in, but now I'm not so sure... personally, if something doesn't work properly on my hardware, I have a tendency to reverse engineer and fix it. If Creative has such a stance towards this, I really have no interest in taking the chance that I may need to reverse-engineer my card and find I've got a law suit on my hands (one I'm sure I could survive and probably win, but one that would take up far too much of my valuable time).

[Cid Highwind]

Creative can't write a decent driver even if their lives would depend on it. I really hope this guy can continue his good work, because this situation is outrageous. Copyright my arse, I just want my hard earned money to be spend on something that works properly, and in order to do so we will need proper drivers. I'm not one of those kids screaming I won't buy Creative stuff anymore, but I really do hope some company steps up to replace them, since its about time.

This is really one of the worst cases of vendor lock-in if you'd ask me. So many game developers have decided to go with Creative's standards that as a gamer it is hard to get around them. I wouldn't mind to see Nelie Kroes to jump on this and grab Creative to squeeze a few pennies out of them

ps. Squall, do you happen to know where NGOHQ is located?

[Squall-Leonhart]

Originally Posted by deamonhunter

why wasn't I told about this ??
dude links please to those modded drivers ? and do they support vista 64 because creative drivers suck so hard

are there any more functions other than the ones in creative drivers ?

i don't do vista drivers, i only provide packs for XP

In previous builds i included surround mixer but the new X-fi drivers don't support it, so i went through a few install files and found that the creative audio console works on SB Live now, so i decided that audio console + options to control individual speakers in the windows volume control panel makes up for this....

Im also running a 32mb sound font now... i might provide it.. but this would unfortunately turn the drivers into warez since the sound font at one time was sold for $30

another funny thing is i think i can use 24bit audio now O.o

if needs be i can start providing packs for vista,... it'll just take me a week or so to learn the new inf structure.
Its been awhile since i uploaded a pack to ngohq and i think a server crash a few months back lost a few files.... so i'll have to reupload the packs.

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

ps. Squall, do you happen to know where NGOHQ is located?

NGOHQ.com

if you meant physically, all the servers and databases are located in Israel.

[SCHUMI-4-EVA]

What X-FI's don't have a sourround mixer? Even my lowly card has that.... ...but yeah when I updated it it now shows up as 24bit Live in some apps.

[Squall-Leonhart]

Surround Mixer was an application for SB Live and Early Audigies.