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Warezed SoundForge Files In Windows Media Player
An anonymous reader writes "German PC-Welt magazine reports that Microsoft used an illegal copy of SoundForge 4.5 (Google translation) for editing Wave files shipped with Windows Media Player. You can check that yourself by opening any file in the [Windows location] \Help\Tours\WindowsMediaPlayer\Audio\Wav\ folder in notepad or other editors of your choice and looking at the last line. There you will find a reference to SoundForge 4.5 and also a user called 'Deepz0ne' who happens to be one of the founders of an audio software cracking group called Radium."
So when does it stop being 'opinion' that big companies don't give a shit about anyone else's "IP rights".
We bash MS, and get MS defenders countering with idiocy that makes it seem like it's all a battle of opinion over whether MS is a big bad company or simply misunderstood, or whether MS is a monopoly, or just highly talented, whether MS doesn't give a shit about IP rights while enforcing their own or they're just working within a business realm that they need to survive.
Sorry, It just keeps going on and on like this. MS using pirated software to develop & promote their media player. Indefensible from a company that professes to rely so much on IP, unless they're nothing but greedy hypocrites.
I'm going with the "nothing but greedy hypocrites" thanks
Why is it that you believe MS should be allowed to do this, but that they are allowed to fine or have imprisoned people who violate MS's rights?
MS stole code, they've done it before, and they're doing it now. Given how Ballmer likes to pretend he's some sort of champion of individual IP-holder's rights, he shouldn't have a problem making this "error" right.
Instead, it's more likely this will take a lawsuit.
What makes this newsworthy is the same thing that makes Limbaugh's drug use news. It's not so much that he's a druge addict (although there is a group of the public who likes public scandal), but it's that he condemns other drug users to jail, but demands leniency for himself.
If MS wants a pass on this, then they should lighten up, remove XP activation bullshit, whatever. Otherwise, to hell with them.
Just for kicks, do a content search on all *.wav files on your drive, searching for the string 'deepz0ne'.
You may run across more hits. That doesn't necessarily mean that the author of the software they came with used a cracked copy of SoundForge.
For example, the Digital Eel game "Dr. Blob's Organism" demo has the deepz0ne string in "powerdn.wav", but doesn't have it in any of the others. That makes me think they probably just grabbed a sound effect off of a (presumably) royalty-free sound effects library (CD/DVD/online), and that particular sound effect happened to be authored or modified in a warez version of SoundForge.
Similarly the mediaplayer sounds... whose are they, really ? Were they authored/modified by an MS Employee ? If not - where does MS's responsibility come in ? Do -you- check every asset you acquire in good faith belief to see if they may have been touched by a cracked piece of software ?
I believe Microsoft is not only a member but "THE" Founding member of BSA.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
A couple days ago was one of the college tourneys on Jeopardy. The winner was a Comp Eng/Comp Sci major from Carnegie Mellon. His final Jeopardy wager? $1337
I agree. Also, with the ubiquity of "fat clients", often times developers don't even bother to ask - they "demo" software long before they buy it.
It's easy to blame it on the managers, but the developers don't help by inflating the problem, promoting the piracy of software where an actual demo would have been more fruitful.
Dev: "Hey, I signed up for a demo of this. I put your email address in the form."
Manager: "Ok."
(2 weeks later)
Dev: "I need this whiz-bang feature that the demo doesn't support. I won't be able to continue until I get it working."
Manager: "Write up a PO and put it on my desk."
Often times, that'll get you software by the end of the week. It's worked for me many times... Where as the alternative (which I have done), normally gets the response, "we already have it, why do we need to buy it?".
Does this mean that every file I've created with my (legal) copy of Sound Forge, registered to me, gets distributed with my name embedded in it? What other programs do this? I already know that MS Office docs do -- but I never suspected Sound Forge of something like this.
Software authors/distributors should be required to disclose exactly what personal information is distributed in files which are created with that product. As much as I like to stick it to M$, Sonic Foundry, now Sony, is the one I'm concerned about here.
Oh really? Maybe you should tell that to Ernie Ball. I'm sure that little tiff with the BSA was all just a big misunderstanding.
YooHoo/2U2
I tried that line.
The situation: Deadline for $500,000 contract in two days. Really hard to find memory leak in the code (only happens when there's >5 simultaneous users so you can't single step it). 3 developers had spend the last week trying to find it.
We'd put in a request for Developer Studio the previous month - the request had to be a 10 page report on why we needed it (heck, it's only $1000!).
I went to the manager. Stated that there was no way we could beat the deadline without some software to help us (it would be hard even with DS, but impossible without it). His response... "There's no money for it. Can't you pirate it?"
Penalties for missing the contract deadline by over a week amounted to over $10,000.
I'm glad I left that place...
The question it rasises is how much other stuff is in windows that has IP violations?
I've managed to get out of the IT/Windows side of things and more into embedded development, but, once upon a time...
I do recall that there used to be an admin kit that could be installed with NT 4 (yeah, this goes back a ways) that included a "better" command line interface and some typical tools like vi.
For some now-forgotten reason I "stringed" the vi executable and on the inside it was vim.
Much to my surprise (not) the "About" box listed only MS developers and MS version info -- not a word about the vim project.
So no, it's not the first or only time that MS has "embraced" foreign code without proper attribution.
Trusted by cats.
A couple days later they showed up in person to demand, with absolutely no diplomacy (like asking politely), that I remove my own personal keyboard (one of them old clunky IBMs because modern keyboards suck) because it was against company policy to modify hardware.
I thought this was crazy until you revealed that this was a defense contractor. They have good reasons (government paranoia) to forbid unauthorized hardware and software installs. I used to work at a company whose only customer was Lockheed Martin and which was in fact formed by Lockheed Martin. (They form little companies for themselves like this so they can pay crappy wages with no benefits for doing work that doesn't require a classification. The concept of a company with a single customer comes quite naturally to these people.) When I did work in the actual Lockheed Martin facility I had an escort badge. Every time I needed to take a piss, they walked me down the hall and waited outside the bathroom.
I'm surprised you didn't get fired for plugging in a weird keyboard. They canned me for opening a telnet session one day and sending an email home saying I'd be late.
Has it occurred to anyone else that Microsoft quite likely owns enough licenses for this application, but the developer who needed it for Media Player knew he could get his work done faster by using an invalid license than going through the corporate bureaucracy.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".