# Why is Nine Volt Audio shutting down?



## Dan Mott

Anyone know exactly why?

It's a real shame. Really nice company.


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## korgscrew

Where have you heard this? Can't find ought!


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## Dan Mott

korgscrew @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> Where have you heard this? Can't find ought!



I just got an email from them saying they are closing down for good and are having a sale before hand.


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## kitekrazy

Probably because they mostly deal with the Rex format. Most DAWs these days will chop up a sample to be used like Rex. I wonder when the last time someone bought a copy of Prop's Recycle?
It could be they just don't want to do it anymore.


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## jleckie

Pirates have had a hand iirc. :(


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## RiffWraith

It probably has to do with piracy. Kyle was on here a while ago, talking about this. I hope that's not it; I'd rather the reason be that he just doesn't want to do it anymore. But alas, that's probably not the real reason.


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## korgscrew

Hmmm, I'm a 9 volt customer. I have a lot of their stuff and use it regularly. I have no email as yet. 

Why close? Move onto new pastures but keep the webshop open! It's not hard goods. All the work is done!


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## RiffWraith

Here's the thread I was talking about:

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28520


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## woodsdenis

Very sad if its piracy has shut him down, I have a lot of his stuff, talented guy who squeezed miracles out of Stylus RMX.


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## stevetwist

Just got the email myself.

Such a shame. I've not purchased a lot of their products, but I own both of their Taiko sample libraries, and ABSOLUTELY love them. Especially Taiko 2, it's probably my favourite percussion library (and that's saying something, what with 8dio, Soundiron and Cinesamples percussion finding a place in my template, too).

Especially sad if piracy was one of the main reasons for them shutting their doors :( 


I wish everyone at Nine Volt Audio the best for the future, whatever that may hold for them.

Steve


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## Dan Mott

*"One pirate site currently lists 13,699 illegal downloads of TAIKO 2. If each person had paid $1.00 for his or her copy from this site, it would amount to more than the library has grossed so far"*

That is extremely depressing.


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## korgscrew

Dan Mott @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> *"One pirate site currently lists 13,699 illegal downloads of TAIKO 2. If each person had paid $1.00 for his or her copy from this site, it would amount to more than the library has grossed so far"*
> 
> That is extremely depressing.



Jesus :x


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## paulmatthew

That's really bad news and sorry to hear it. :( 

I was planning to get Stylus Rmx and pick up some of Nine Volt Audio's percussive libraries next year. Taiko 2 is one of my favorite Epic perc libraries for Taikos. I hope another company will make an offer to pick it up and update it in the future , maybe Impact Soundworks or Soundiron (they don't have taikos yet). :wink: :wink: 

I hope piracy wasn't the main factor in this , but if it was shame on them .


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## quantum7

Dan Mott @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> *"One pirate site currently lists 13,699 illegal downloads of TAIKO 2. If each person had paid $1.00 for his or her copy from this site, it would amount to more than the library has grossed so far"*
> 
> That is extremely depressing.



Very sad, but I refuse (or just don't want) to believe that piracy could be the sole determining factor that they are going out of business. I thought I read somewhere that a successful library, such as from Spitfire or Cinesamples sold between 500 and 1000 copies per library, even with piracy that has been spreading like the plague since the dawn of sample libraries. Nine Volt Audio apparently sold no more than 100 copies I'm then guessing ($130 each x 100 = $13k). I realize that piracy does hurt, but nearly every sample library these days it seems like is out on the Internet, at least for Kontakt. Even so, new libraries keep being released, and with increased frequency it seems. How are they making money then with piracy so out of control? I guess what I want to know is why do companies like Nine Volt go under while others like Spitfire seem to thrive? Is it advertising, quality of the product, participation on specific forums? I've purchased the original TSAIKO from Nine Volt and used it for years along with a couple other products from them, but I haven't seen a lot else over the years from them that has been as interesting as perhaps some other developers. Spitfire, for example, seemed to come out of nowhere and has flourished into perhaps one of the most successful sample devs out there. If I were in the sample business I would be looking at the business model of companies such as Spitfire and try to follow suit. Even with the rampant piracy I still want to believe a company can succeed if the business model is sound. Perhaps I'm way off base, but those are just my thoughts on the matter. I sincerely wish Kyle the best of luck and hope that he finds his way back into the business again one day.


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## 667

Yeah I'm not sure I'd release Kontakt libs if I was starting out today. UVI Player is only option left I guess (iLok2 protected).


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## Dan Mott

Has an ilok library or plugin ever been cracked? If not, then if I was a dev, I'd just use ilok. ilok is really not that bad.


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## quantum7

I'm not sure why Native Instruments wouldn't consider using Ilok. It's not like they would loose any sales by doing so.


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## Dan Mott

quantum7 @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> I'm not sure why Native Instruments wouldn't consider using Ilok. It's not like they would loose any sales by doing so.



Well this would interesting. I suppose more devs would use Kontakt as well if this happened. I know some devs have avoided Kontakt because of this piracy issue.


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## 667

Well, every time it comes up all these people chime in saying how bad it is, they hate dongles in general and PACE specifically.

iLok1 was cracked but iLok2 is still secure as far as I know. Ditto eLicensor (Steinberg key / ViennaKey).


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## gsilbers

Dan Mott @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> *"One pirate site currently lists 13,699 illegal downloads of TAIKO 2. If each person had paid $1.00 for his or her copy from this site, it would amount to more than the library has grossed so far"*
> 
> That is extremely depressing.



i have the feeling that at the end , the big tech companies (isp, seach engines, adrevenue, hardware etc) get a pieace of that illigal action. 

yet, someone shows your work on tv w/o permission or sells iligal goods on a market and they get busted. iligal downloads affects real poeple in a real way and no one cares.


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## Peter Alexander

quantum7 @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> Dan Mott @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> *"One pirate site currently lists 13,699 illegal downloads of TAIKO 2. If each person had paid $1.00 for his or her copy from this site, it would amount to more than the library has grossed so far"*
> 
> That is extremely depressing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Very sad, but I refuse (or just don't want) to believe that piracy could be the sole determining factor that they are going out of business.
Click to expand...


Believe it. And you can argue all you want about your disbelief, but when developer after developer after developer keeps reporting this, and they're reputable devs, with all due respect, it's time to put your disbelief aside and start believing what devs are saying.


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## quantum7

Peter Alexander @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> quantum7 @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dan Mott @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> *"One pirate site currently lists 13,699 illegal downloads of TAIKO 2. If each person had paid $1.00 for his or her copy from this site, it would amount to more than the library has grossed so far"*
> 
> That is extremely depressing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Very sad, but I refuse (or just don't want) to believe that piracy could be the sole determining factor that they are going out of business.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Believe it. And you can argue all you want about your disbelief, but when developer after developer after developer keeps reporting this, and they're reputable devs, with all due respect, it's time to put your disbelief aside and start believing what devs are saying.
Click to expand...


Of course I believe what the devs are saying in that piracy is hurting them, but are you saying that there are only about 100 or less honest people in the entire world that would actually have paid for NVA's TAIKO 2? I'm puling the number 100 out because NVA said they made less than $13.6k and at 130 a pop would mean that they sold under 103 copies. From this forum alone one would think that there would be at least 100 honest people who would part with $130 for some great quality Taiko drums. If Spitfire and Cinesamples only sold 100 copies each for their libraries they would have been out of business long ago. I'm just wondering if a different business model or approach could have kept them in business.....or is it because a smaller operation like NVA cannot compete anymore when you have the likes of Spitfire and Cinesamples to go up against. The pirates suck major ass, but it is in my nature to be curious about EVERY aspect of why a business fails, that's all.


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## Peter Alexander

He gave his stats the day he posted his thread. He has not reported any stats since, as neither do most other devs. The more vertical a library is, the smaller the buyer universe, compared to something everyone needs, like strings or woodwinds where you have thousands of potential customers.


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## quantum7

Peter Alexander @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> The more vertical a library is, the smaller the buyer universe, compared to something everyone needs, like strings or woodwinds where you have thousands of potential customers.



I'm sure that is a part of it. I hope we do not see the small developers go out in the same way as the mom and pop businesses have. Native Instruments REALLY needs to do more in protecting developers. Ilok 2 and the like seem to be the only way to slow down piracy. The pirates will always figure out a way to crack protection schemes, but not that many would spend the countless hundreds and hundreds of man hours to do so. Right now all you have to do is use a stolen credit card or falsify data upon purchase, and then upload it- waaay too easy. :x


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## Mike Greene

My hope is that Kyle is involved in something more profitable and doesn't have time for sample libraries anymore. This business is a tough way to make a buck and given Kyle's talent, I could see him being hired into a pretty cool position at some "normal" company.

Whatever the reason, he'll be missed. NineVolt is IMO by far the best independent REX and Stylus RMX developer out there.


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## quantum7

Mike Greene @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> Whatever the reason, he'll be missed. NineVolt is IMO by far the best independent REX and Stylus RMX developer out there.



Amen!


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## Ed

I dont understand the need to shut down. Aside from keeping up the website and so on, cant it just tick away in the background? I refuse to believe that piracy can be blamed when so many developers are doing just fine, and we have new developers starting as well, like Daniel James.


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## H.R.

On no! Their Taiko's the best.


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## TGV

I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.

Personally, I couldn't find any need the 9V products. I got a library for free when they had a vote up (Textured Guitars), and while the samples were certainly of good quality, it did not appeal to me. I listened to some more of their stuff, and decided it just didn't fit in my style of music making. That was also mediated by the fact that it wasn't cheap. Textured Guitars was priced at $100. That is (in my opinion) quite pricey for a 500 loop library with a limited application. Perhaps loop oriented people look elsewhere (for entire song construction libs), while note oriented musicians look for instrument libs, and 9V Audio is left with a small group of people that need some loops but have enough creativity to build their own music around it.

However, if I would have had to guess which library would be most successful, I would have gone for one of the drum libraries, so it surprises me that they claim less than 137 sales on the Taiko lib. Perhaps they meant "netted", in which case a better copy protection could have made a considerable difference (every converted "pirate" would in essence have brought in $100, and a conversion rate of 1% would have double the net result).


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## JE Martinsen

This is very sad news... :cry: 

I recently bought Shimmer & Shake and TAIKO2, and they're both of an outstanding quality.


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## mk282

quantum7 @ 14.11.2013 said:


> I'm not sure why Native Instruments wouldn't consider using Ilok. It's not like they would loose any sales by doing so.



They would. And their stance is anti-dongle completely, so they will never do iLok, or any other hardware based dongle.


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## Stephen Rees

quantum7 @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> Mike Greene @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Whatever the reason, he'll be missed. NineVolt is IMO by far the best independent REX and Stylus RMX developer out there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Amen!
Click to expand...


+1

There was real love built into those libraries.

Edit: And I just realised I'm posting about them in the past tense. Sad.


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## Peter Alexander

> I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.



They're idiots.


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## zvenx

Mike Greene @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> .........
> 
> Whatever the reason, he'll be missed. NineVolt is IMO by far the best independent REX and Stylus RMX developer out there.



+1.

____________
There is a significant anti-ilok group of people, NI would in fact lose sales. I for one love that I can install on 2 or is it 3 computers currently.

rsp


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## soniccouture

quantum7 @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> I'm not sure why Native Instruments wouldn't consider using Ilok. It's not like they would loose any sales by doing so.



This issue comes up a lot within Kontakt Player developer lists, and the broad answer is that it's pretty expensive for cheaper libraries, and the figures don't really support ilok.

However, I think the key point to consider is that NI do not protect their own products any more than the 3rd party Kontakt Player libraries, and they appear to have no problem with sales figures.

I feel bad for Nine Volt, but I fear that the answer is more related to business model than piracy.

James


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## Tatu

quantum7 @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> I'm not sure why Native Instruments wouldn't consider using Ilok. It's not like they would loose any sales by doing so.



Perhaps they realized, that they would have to buy/pay for that service, because they didn't jump the dongle-ship when they could've. Nobody wants more dongles, especially if they're dev/platform-exclusive.


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## Chriss Ons

Sad news indeed. 

I don't have many 9VA products but I remember when, one occasion where I wanted to buy his KONTAKT library _Stickbreakers III - Sync'd Cymbals Plus_ and asked a few questions about particular sounds, within hours Kyle sent me a short video demo / mini walkthrough with just those sounds. Great product, instant buy.

Look - not that he owes anyone an explanation, but maybe Kyle can chime in? I find it somewhat inappropriate to make assumptions as to why he made this decision - or comment on how he runs/ran his business.


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## Dietz

TGV @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing. [...]



These "studies" have most likely been funded and/or conducted by people and/or companies having a strong interest to keep the cost for "content" low. ISPs, hardware manufacturers, advertising companies, political pressure groups ... you name them. After all, the "creators" are a small, almost negligible bunch of people, opposed to the vast number of "consumers". 

Piracy harms the creation of any kind of digitizable (if that's a word) content and applications. Period.


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## TGV

Studies cannot be fully trusted, true, but Sony and EA Games and co. cannot be considered "a small, almost negligible bunch of people".


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## cc64

quantum7 @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> I'm not sure why Native Instruments wouldn't consider using Ilok. It's not like they would loose any sales by doing so.



I for one have refrained from buying many iLok plugs. Even MachV from MOTU in which i'm super interested...

Claude


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## zvenx

and you aren't alone at all.......check kvr....for instance....
rsp


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## 667

I just wish the Konatkt Player (encrypted) libraries offered better security. It's a pretty crap situation for everyone basically.


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## JJP

Everything I've heard from the folks at Nine Volt (one person is a friend) has centered around piracy being a major, if not the greatest factor in them shutting down operations.

Don't bury your heads in the sand. Piracy is a very real problem for developers.


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## Diffusor

I think piracy is an issue but not every "illegal download" equals a lost sale. I suspect a large portion of that demographic just couldn't have ever afforded to buy it anyway, or wouldn't have been interested enough in it to actually buy it. Certainly there is a portion of people that would have bought it if it wasn't pirated and while I think that figure is overstated I do think it has a impact on a company's financial health.


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## synapse21

Looks like Nine Volt posted their Group Buy sale this morning:

http://www.ninevoltaudio.com/?inf_conta ... 41335b9c53


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## paulmatthew

Diffusor @ Fri Nov 15 said:


> I think piracy is an issue but not every "illegal download" equals a lost sale. I suspect a large portion of that demographic just couldn't have ever afforded to buy it anyway, or wouldn't have been interested enough in it to actually buy it. Certainly there is a portion of people that would have bought it if it wasn't pirated and while I think that figure is overstated I do think it has a impact on a company's financial health.



I agree with this to a point. There are going to be pirate users who download and will never use the library , and there are those that could never afford a said library either. The real problem are the ones who download illegally and use them in their works and get paid to do so and never pay to use the library. There are also a handful that will download illegally at first and then pay for future libraries , or pay for the library to get updates. This is all speculation , of course , but just some thoughts.

It's just a simple fact , no matter how much discussion there is , Nine Volt Audio is not going to be around anymore. For all we know , this could have been a personal choice by Kyle for other reasons than just piracy . I wish everyone involved with Nine Volt Audio the best of luck with future endeavors.


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## Jordan Gagne

paulmatthew @ Fri Nov 15 said:


> Diffusor @ Fri Nov 15 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think piracy is an issue but not every "illegal download" equals a lost sale. I suspect a large portion of that demographic just couldn't have ever afforded to buy it anyway, or wouldn't have been interested enough in it to actually buy it. Certainly there is a portion of people that would have bought it if it wasn't pirated and while I think that figure is overstated I do think it has a impact on a company's financial health.
> 
> 
> 
> There are also a handful that will download illegally at first and then pay for future libraries , or pay for the library to get updates.
Click to expand...


I think updates are the key. At that point any customer lost due to piracy (who would have bought the library) will do so anyway to have the smoothest version.


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## RasmusFors

This is just plain sad and depressing. I don't use Rex loops and I don't own stylus, but I still feel a sence of loss. No devolpers deserves to have their work stolen.


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## KMuzzey

TGV @ Wed Nov 13 said:


> I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.



I wonder if the actual developers of these libraries - who poured their own money into them, who hire paid staff and paid musicians as part of their product creation - would agree with this. 

Kerry


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## Ron Snijders

KMuzzey @ Sat 16 Nov said:


> TGV @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if the actual developers of these libraries - who poured their own money into them, who hire paid staff and paid musicians as part of their product creation - would agree with this.
> 
> Kerry
Click to expand...

As much as I sympathize with the content creators, I don't see how being a content creator (and thus emotionally involved and per definition less objective) helps in studying the generic effects of piracy. Studies are no place for subjectivism and opinion.
And yes, I'm thoroughly disgusted every time I read about someone pirating software that others pay good money for. I'm in no way pro-piracy, but suggesting that pirated copies equal lost sales is just missing the mark by so far that any discussion becomes useless.


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## soniccouture

KMuzzey @ Fri Nov 15 said:


> TGV @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if the actual developers of these libraries - who poured their own money into them, who hire paid staff and paid musicians as part of their product creation - would agree with this.
> 
> Kerry
Click to expand...


Hi Kerry,

Yes, I have to say that as a developer I do very much agree with this. We have long been of the opinion that pirates do NOT suddenly go and buy products if they are no longer available for free download. They just download something else that happens to be there to take. People who who steal software just have that state of mind that they don't need to pay, and in many cases are just out for whatever they can get for free. I also think that in many cases they don't really use what they download - it's just about getting as much as they can for free, an end in itself. Because getting cracked or illegal downloads is not generally as easy as many would have us believe - most links on Google are bogus to get people to sign up for sites, so actually getting genuine downloads that work takes a fair bit of work - enough to discourage the casual 'pirate', i would think.

So I fall into the 'few percent' camp - there's a small number of people who look for something illegally and may then buy it if they can't find it.

I think its very easy for a developer to blame piracy if things aren't going well - but the fact is that we are all in the some boat, and some succeed and some don't, which really disproves that theory.

Just my thoughts, based on our experience in this business.

James


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## cc64

zvenx @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> and you aren't alone at all.......check kvr....for instance....
> rsp



Hi Sven,

Not sure what you mean by that but from the bad rep KVR has on this forum i'm guessing you're implying that i'm pro-free-bonbons-for-everyone. 

I assure you most devellopers on Vi-C and then some, have my credit card number and the expiry date.

At the risk of repeating myself i do not hate iLok i just think if they found a way of letting good honest customers authorize 2 iloks per license on the same account, iLok would not be an issue for me anymore.

Best,

Claude


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## zvenx

No no no,
sorry Claude, you read me wrong.
Either on this thread or another thread someone was suggesting Ni switch to ilok and they won't lose sales. And I was saying that they are many people who wouldn't buy software because it was attached to ilok. So when you said you refrained from buying ilok software, I was using that as an example to illustrate that indeed some people do not buy software just because it uses ilok... I have seen many threads on kvr about that view.


re: your last sentence I agree with you 100%, I am like that too. Although I do buy ilok'd software, that I have two systems and would have to move my ilok between them or buy two licenses is usually a hindrance. But you may know that as Slate's VBC demonstrated, you can now have two iloks per license on the same account.
rsp


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## cc64

Sorry for the confusion 

All is good!

Yes Slate have always great with this i guess now they officialized it?

To be fair a lot of companies are good with this but it's a lot of hit and miss and can get pretty convoluted with some devs 1 year nfr that you need to ask to renew each year and the renewel allways happens at the worst time...

Best,

Claude


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## zvenx

ooh, I didn't know slate allows this for some of their other products, of which I have quite a few.
rsp


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## Ed

Well I guess I have to buy it at $199 if this is the last and only chance of getting this stuff.

I just still just don't understand where the logic for this is. Even if people are rampantly pirating it. People are still going to be pirating it if he closes shop since the libraries will always be out there, but now actual customers won't be able to buy anything. So if anything more people will pirate it now. In gaming there's this concept of "abandon ware", many people incorrectly believe this means its legal to distribute, download and use these products. The logic being that if a gaming company is not selling and not supporting a product anymore its perfectly legitimate to consider it "public domain". This is legally false, but you can see why people would see it that way, even if they do actually realise its not technically legal. _So a company wont let me buy their game? Well idiots I would have but since you wont let me I'll just download it for free! How you like dem apples?_ I see no reason at all why this logic wouldnt apply to sample libraries, no matter the legality of it.

Just reduce the prices spend a bit of time with social networking, making some cool fun videos showing fun and interesting ways to use the sounds, maybe get some good composers to do some demos, or even pay or give away libraries to people like Guy Roland who I would bet probably helped sell more Lumina copies to this forums members than Project Sam has sold since it released it, and he hasnt even finished going through all the patches yet.

Sales will just tick away in the background as you get on with other stuff. Occasionally provide some customer support, pay for website hosting. He already has done all the hard work of creating these libs, this part of easy. So ... this is such a bizzare move.


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## zvenx

Please don't forget in all of this that it is speculation that piracy is the reason.
rsp


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## Ed

zvenx @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> Please don't forget in all of this that it is speculation that piracy is the reason.
> rsp



Its speculation yes, but what other reason can there be? It would have to be some kind of serious tragedy that has befallen his family somehow, and even then, I cant see why they would want to close up shop. 

The only logical reason I can see is if he was moving to some crazy place in the middle of nowhere to live in a log cabin and just doesnt have a need for money and doesnt want to deal with paying for web hosting and even thinking about REX files and Takio drums makes him feel sick. Or (and Im really hope this isnt the case...) he has died and they are closing his business because either he didnt write a will and maybe the government has to close all his assets for him, or he willed the business to someone who doesnt understand they can just keep making money with this, or his last wishes was to close up shop for some crazy reason. 

What we do know is that he really is very unhappy about how many people have downloaded his libraries without paying for them. As illogical as it is I think the most likely scenario is that in some irrational act of defiance he is just going to say say* 'So long mother f%$&ers!! Screw you guys!! Im going home!!'* and leave the business entirely. This is terrible business sense, and I'd love to see anyone try and argue differently.

I can understand if he needs to make lots of money quickly, yes do a massive sale, that will bring in lots of customers, nice chunk of money quickly right? ...But... why then also close up shop completely after that? Whats the point? I cant see any sense in it. Can anyone offer, or has anyone already offered, any logical reason why you'd want to do that? I find it hard to believe that he makes so little money from NVA that he cant even afford to keep the business running.


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## EastWest Lurker

I can easily understand why a person who can make as much or more money doing something else would quit because of rampant piracy. I am guessing that seeing that happen to you kills a good deal of the joy of the work.


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## Guy Rowland

zvenx @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> Please don't forget in all of this that it is speculation that piracy is the reason.
> rsp



+1. He was obviously pretty upset last year, and (again, pure speculation) he might very well have come up with something new that inspires him business-wise, either in music or elsewhere. Continuing 9VA when you're starting a new venture I can see being a real burden, I could see the attraction of getting as much for it now as possible and wiping the slate clean. So I'm hoping its a case of something new that's less hassle rather than "giving up".

Just picked up Shimmer and Shake (finally!) - I wish him all the best with new excitements, hopefully.


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## zvenx

Yes, it could be something else.
Here is another speculation. He mostly made Recycle stuff that I am guessing used a lot by the RMX crowd. To some RMX is long in the tooth and they may have moved on to other tools, and therefore demand for REX/RMX expansions may have dropped significantly. And with so many other Kontakt developers and products, the Kontakt side of the business may not have ever been profitable.

equally valid speculation perhaps?
rsp


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## quantum7

zvenx @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> Yes, it could be something else.
> Here is another speculation. He mostly made Recycle stuff that I am guessing used a lot by the RMX crowd. To some RMX is long in the tooth and they may have moved on to other tools, and therefore demand for REX/RMX expansions may have dropped significantly. And with so many other Kontakt developers and products, the Kontakt side of the business may not have ever been profitable.
> 
> equally valid speculation perhaps?
> rsp



I think that is definitely some of the reason why he is throwing in the towel. Nearly every library from Spitfire, Cinesamples, 8dio, and Soundiron has been pirated and they are still cranking out libraries like wildfire. You can still be successful even with all the rampant pirating of libraries, but you have to have products with universal appeal.



soniccouture @ Thu Nov 14 said:


> This issue comes up a lot within Kontakt Player developer lists, and the broad answer is that it's pretty expensive for cheaper libraries, and the figures don't really support ilok.
> 
> However, I think the key point to consider is that NI do not protect their own products any more than the 3rd party Kontakt Player libraries, and they appear to have no problem with sales figures.
> 
> I feel bad for Nine Volt, but I fear that the answer is more related to business model than piracy.
> 
> James



I agree.


----------



## wst3

I'm sorry, but how can it not be a problem that people who would not have otherwise purchased something steal it.

That the libraries are stolen is the problem. And whether or not that person might have purchased it is immaterial. The question of whether or not these crooks even use the libraries is immaterial.

What is material is that people think that it is OK to steal sample libraries. I really can't understand how anyone can justify it.

Now if you are limiting the question to whether or not piracy - read theft - affects a libraries success that is a different question. If the people who stole the library would not have purchased it anyway then the theft does not have the same direct effect on the developer or the success of the library.

I can see that as an argument for the success or failure of a library or developer, but please, can we stop saying that it's ok to steal it if you would not have purchased it?


----------



## Ron Snijders

wst3, can you point out where anyone here has said that it is 'OK' to pirate a library for any reason? I think you're trying to make an argument that no one has actually disagreed with.


----------



## wst3

Ron Snijders @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> wst3, can you point out where anyone here has said that it is 'OK' to pirate a library for any reason? I think you're trying to make an argument that no one has actually disagreed with.



Look above, or in any of the related threads... the argument is often made that "a 12 year old is not a lost sale" or something to that effect. What that says, to an awful lot of folks (both impressionable youth and folks who ought to know better) is that it is ok to steal... I mean if it isn't a lost sale then no one lost anything. And that is far from the truth.

Piracy is a complex issue already, we don't need to muddy the waters further by suggesting that it is ok to steal if you weren't going to buy it anyway. 

IMHO - what we need to do is separate the questions...
1) is it ok, under any circumstances, to steal?
1a) is it ok to steal if you can't afford the product?
2) does stealing affect the developer?
3) does the success or failure of a developer or product suffer if it is pirated?

Again one person's view...

1) it is not ok to steal

1a) no again - there are free and low cost alternatives that will get you started.

2) having your hard work stolen will take a toll on the developers mental well being. Some handle it better than others. Even if one developer quits because they don't appreciate seeing people steal their hard work I think the cost is too high.

3) No... I think a product succeeds or fails based on how well it addresses the marketplace's needs, how it is priced, how it is supported, and how it is protected. That last one - sadly - is yet another effect of piracy.

So I respectfully disagree, I think I am merely addressing an argument that is being made, and that I don't agree with<G>!


----------



## Ron Snijders

It's interesting how you oppose 'muddying the waters', yet insist in calling pirating 'stealing'. Stealing means you take something away from someone, implying that the other person doesn't have it anymore. It's not hard to see how the word doesn't cover software piracy.
Note that I'm not saying piracy isn't as bad as stealing, I'm just saying it isn't the same. Calling it the same is just obfuscating the discussion before it has even started.

Also, no one is saying that not having a lost sale means that it's OK. There are tons of other reasons why pirating isn't OK.
Actually, to illustrate that point, there is a thing that has been bugging me for a while. If I want to be unique as a composer or musician, then buying the stuff that all the kids are pirating doesn't cut it. So I personally have a bias towards software that hasn't been pirated, so it'll retain some exclusivity. So no lost sale doesn't mean it's OK, since it will affect other customers.

Another side of the argument, though, is that there are people who buy software (or content, for that matter) after having pirated it. Nowadays that's hardly an argument, because there are tons of free or low-cost alternatives. But 10 years ago Reaper didn't exist. Then again, Cubase SX2 wasn't more expensive than a decent guitar, so I'm not sure if that qualifies.

Anyway, you can have a decent discussion on this subject and be against piracy while still at least trying to see both sides of the argument. By considering reasons why people do stuff, you're not encouraging piracy or saying it's OK. You're just formulating a balanced opinion rather than responding to your gut


----------



## wst3

Ron Snijders @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> It's interesting how you oppose 'muddying the waters', yet insist in calling pirating 'stealing'.






Ron Snijders said:


> Stealing means you take something away from someone, implying that the other person doesn't have it anymore.



on what planet??????

From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
"to take (something that does not belong to you) in a way that is wrong or illegal"
"to take (something that you are not supposed to have) without asking for permission"
"to wrongly take and use (another person's idea, words, etc.)"

or if you do not recognize an old school definition as legitimate then here's the word from the Free Dictionary:

1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.
3. To get or take secretly or artfully: steal a look at a diary; steal the puck from an opponent.

Please show me where ANY of those definitions implies that you have to take something material away from someone such that they no longer have it.



Ron Snijders said:


> It's not hard to see how the word doesn't cover software piracy.



Only if you are a thief trying to justify stealing from others because your moral compass has not yet been aligned, or maybe you are beyond redemption?



Ron Snijders said:


> Note that I'm not saying piracy isn't as bad as stealing, I'm just saying it isn't the same.



And those definitions seem to disagree... but then they don't apply to people that steal software or libraries I guess?



Ron Snijders said:


> Calling it the same is just obfuscating the discussion before it has even started.



No calling it the same is clarifying the point... but that probably won't sit well with someone attempting to justify their behavior. Making responding to the rest of the post an exercise in futility...


----------



## Ed

wst3 @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> Look above, or in any of the related threads... the argument is often made that "a 12 year old is not a lost sale" or something to that effect. What that says, to an awful lot of folks (both impressionable youth and folks who ought to know better) is that it is ok to steal... I mean if it isn't a lost sale then no one lost anything. And that is far from the truth.



-snip-

There are some valid discussions around piracy.... but as I said earlier, this isnt about the piracy debate. It doesn't matter whether every download is a genuine lost sale (which it isnt) even if we assumed it was for the sake of argument, I don't understand why this makes any difference in this case. In fact, as I also said, shutting completely can even encourage more people to pirate the libraries as they will more likely see it as "abandonware" . I understand not wanting to make new libraries, but not just have it tick away in the background? No business sense in that.


----------



## Udo

Talking about Piracy, it appears Nine Volt Audio itself is involved in it! :wink: 

I still have some credit with 9VA (at least $80 remaining from a gift certificate, I think) and I contacted Kyle a few days ago to determine the exact amount, but still haven't had a response.


----------



## Ed

Udo... thats pretty hyperbolic... no need to call that "piracy".


----------



## sin(x)

Gotta side with Ron here. Being precise with language isn't the same as relativizing the consequences of copyright infringement. If anything, throwing around legal terminology designed for completely different motives and offenses is muddying the waters. All those arguments about an illegal copy not equalling a lost sale just point to a simple, irrefutable fact – that it's incredibly hard to quantify the damages of software piracy; to pretend otherwise, for instance by comparing copying to shoplifting, is just a convenient oversimplification. Software copyright infringement _isn't_ theft. That doesn't mean it's better or worse than theft, any more so than blackmail or vandalism are; it's just something different.

Also, just to prevent misconceptions – I _hate_ it with every fiber of my being and I'm pathologically anal about having a proper license for every freaking bit that flows through my IT. I just don't think accusing people who point out the above facts of siding with the enemy leads to a constructive debate.

The common word for pirated software in German established in public discourse is “Raubkopie”. “Raub” is literally robbery; theft with use of violent force. Go figure. That kind of language serves an agenda, and even if that agenda happens to coincide with mine in this case, I'll still condemn the obfuscation.


----------



## Ron Snijders

wst3 @ Sat 16 Nov said:


> Ron Snijders @ Sat Nov 16 said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's interesting how you oppose 'muddying the waters', yet insist in calling pirating 'stealing'.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ron Snijders said:
> 
> 
> 
> Stealing means you take something away from someone, implying that the other person doesn't have it anymore.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> on what planet??????
> 
> From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
> "to take (something that does not belong to you) in a way that is wrong or illegal"
> "to take (something that you are not supposed to have) without asking for permission"
> "to wrongly take and use (another person's idea, words, etc.)"
> 
> or if you do not recognize an old school definition as legitimate then here's the word from the Free Dictionary:
> 
> 1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
> 2. To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.
> 3. To get or take secretly or artfully: steal a look at a diary; steal the puck from an opponent.
> 
> Please show me where ANY of those definitions implies that you have to take something material away from someone such that they no longer have it.
> 
> 
> 
> Ron Snijders said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's not hard to see how the word doesn't cover software piracy.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Only if you are a thief trying to justify stealing from others because your moral compass has not yet been aligned, or maybe you are beyond redemption?
> 
> 
> 
> Ron Snijders said:
> 
> 
> 
> Note that I'm not saying piracy isn't as bad as stealing, I'm just saying it isn't the same.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And those definitions seem to disagree... but then they don't apply to people that steal software or libraries I guess?
> 
> 
> 
> Ron Snijders said:
> 
> 
> 
> Calling it the same is just obfuscating the discussion before it has even started.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> No calling it the same is clarifying the point... but that probably won't sit well with someone attempting to justify their behavior. Making responding to the rest of the post an exercise in futility...
Click to expand...


Actually, I'm quite offended by your post. But because I do believe in discussing in a normal matter, I'll refrain from your kind of name calling.

First of all, let me clarify that I have thousands in legal software and don't pirate anything. Your assumption and statements that I do are misguided, bigoted and downright insulting. As I said before, trying to see both sides of the argument is not the same as agreeing. It's just being able to have a debate with some actual value.

If your argumentation is nothing more than 'It's stealing and that's wrong', than discussing with you is of no use whatsoever. So feel free to take the last word in this 'discussion'. I'm out, as I simply have better things to do.


----------



## Udo

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Udo... thats pretty hyperbolic... no need to call that "piracy".


Wasn't it obvious it was a tongue-in-cheek remark??? :wink: 

(just noticed I used the wrong emoticon and changed it)


----------



## scientist

soniccouture @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> KMuzzey @ Fri Nov 15 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> TGV @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if the actual developers of these libraries - who poured their own money into them, who hire paid staff and paid musicians as part of their product creation - would agree with this.
> 
> Kerry
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Hi Kerry,
> 
> Yes, I have to say that as a developer I do very much agree with this. We have long been of the opinion that pirates do NOT suddenly go and buy products if they are no longer available for free download. They just download something else that happens to be there to take. People who who steal software just have that state of mind that they don't need to pay, and in many cases are just out for whatever they can get for free. I also think that in many cases they don't really use what they download - it's just about getting as much as they can for free, an end in itself. Because getting cracked or illegal downloads is not generally as easy as many would have us believe - most links on Google are bogus to get people to sign up for sites, so actually getting genuine downloads that work takes a fair bit of work - enough to discourage the casual 'pirate', i would think.
> 
> So I fall into the 'few percent' camp - there's a small number of people who look for something illegally and may then buy it if they can't find it.
> 
> I think its very easy for a developer to blame piracy if things aren't going well - but the fact is that we are all in the some boat, and some succeed and some don't, which really disproves that theory.
> 
> Just my thoughts, based on our experience in this business.
> 
> James
Click to expand...


i'm quoting this to for posterity, and to give the obligatory +1. blaming piracy for a business' failure is a pretty good way to ignore more critical - and more fixable - problems.


----------



## Diffusor

soniccouture @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> KMuzzey @ Fri Nov 15 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> TGV @ Wed Nov 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I agree it's sad, but I also find piracy as the single cause unlikely. I've seen studies that find almost negligible effects of piracy on sales, and I'm tempted to believe that a very, very small portion of the illegal downloaders would have actually paid, given the choice between buying or nothing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I wonder if the actual developers of these libraries - who poured their own money into them, who hire paid staff and paid musicians as part of their product creation - would agree with this.
> 
> Kerry
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Hi Kerry,
> 
> Yes, I have to say that as a developer I do very much agree with this. We have long been of the opinion that pirates do NOT suddenly go and buy products if they are no longer available for free download. They just download something else that happens to be there to take. People who who steal software just have that state of mind that they don't need to pay, and in many cases are just out for whatever they can get for free. I also think that in many cases they don't really use what they download - it's just about getting as much as they can for free, an end in itself. Because getting cracked or illegal downloads is not generally as easy as many would have us believe - most links on Google are bogus to get people to sign up for sites, so actually getting genuine downloads that work takes a fair bit of work - enough to discourage the casual 'pirate', i would think.
> 
> So I fall into the 'few percent' camp - there's a small number of people who look for something illegally and may then buy it if they can't find it.
> 
> I think its very easy for a developer to blame piracy if things aren't going well - but the fact is that we are all in the some boat, and some succeed and some don't, which really disproves that theory.
> 
> Just my thoughts, based on our experience in this business.
> 
> James
Click to expand...


A voice of reason and pragmatism!


----------



## PavlovsCat

It's great to see James post some clear and level headed business thinking to the very frustrating problem of piracy with his statement: "I think its very easy for a developer to blame piracy if things aren't going well - but the fact is that we are all in the some boat, and some succeed and some don't, which really disproves that theory. "

The truth is, as awful and frustrating as piracy is -- and trust me, I'm as disgusted by it as anyone (I have a number of friends and clients who are software developers) -- there is no simple correlation that can be made between poor sales or sales declines of small developers and piracy and frankly, some of the posts in this thread where people are making correlations without any support don't pass simple tests of logic and disregard research that already exists about software piracy and its impacts on sales. One would have to make the assumption that a significant percent of this developer's clients switched from legitimate purchasing to piracy or that there was a major shift in the market that occurred between his planning, sales forecasting and implementation of the plan. I seriously doubt that's the case and gut feeling subjective opinions made can be as reasonable as making correlations between sales and lunar phases. (My background includes serving as global director of strategy and head of digital marketing for a Fortune 500 leader in risk mgmt with an anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting consulting practice that included some of the world's leading software firms). Attributing sales declines to piracy without sound correlations is a dangerous practice that can easily result in misallocating resources and neglecting the true underlying causes of poor sales or sales declines. 

I'm writing this to other developers, not really to sample or VST users (and plan to write a formal article on this in the near future; consider this an early draft). Why? Because I'm extremely frustrated with pirates too and empathize with developers. I completely understand these visceral reactions to piracy. I see the work of developers I buy from -- including that of friends and clients -- pirated all of the time and get very ticked off too. I've even helped devs identify and pursue pirates over the years. But software piracy is nothing new and it's pervasive and I've seen it really eat at small developers -- and it can, if you let it. Every developer I've worked with as a consultant has had their work pirated. I've also worked in the idealization through marketing phases of several libraries -- all have been pirated. Still, all have exceeded sales projections and been among these developers best sellers. 

My recommendation to the independent sample or VST developer is to NOT obsess over piracy and not be quick to attribute poor sales to piracy, but instead focus the vast majority of your attention on more controllable factors of the business where you can measure your results. Before attributing poor sales or sales declines to piracy, first perform an honest self-assessment, asking the following questions:

(1) Am I the extremely rare individual that is both a talented developer of libraries or VSTs and also talented at the business and marketing sides? If not, have I identified areas I can delegate to someone or an organization with the appropriate skills? 
(2) Am I able to consistently understand and monitor my user base and target market(s) for the sample platforms for which I develop and the competitive marketplace and dynamics and am I able to adjust my strategies (e.g., product determination, pricing, etc.) accordingly? Am I able to identify the products that are likely to have the greatest sales from those which will do poorly? Can I reasonably forecast sales of new products and make the optimal selections? If not, can I delegate this responsibility to someone or an organization with the appropriate skills?
(3) Am I appropriately pricing my product offerings and making adjustments where necessary? Market dynamics have an enormous impact on pricing. Have I adequately studied the competitive marketplace and considered my product's standing relative to competitors? Should I employ a penetration strategy? Is my brand positioning consistent with my pricing? If not, can I delegate this responsibility to someone or an organization with the appropriate skills?
(4) Am I able to provide great customer support and do these other things? If not, can I outsource customer support and ensure excellent customer support? 
(5) Do I thoroughly understand how to develop and market to my customer base and if not, can I delegate this responsibility to someone or an organization with the appropriate skills? 
(6) Am I able to manage the branding and promotion of the business at a level that creates enough brand awareness through preference to attain a sufficient level of sales to make the business worthwhile and if not, can I delegate this responsibility to someone or an organization with the appropriate skills? 

Before a developer attributes poor sales to piracy, gremlins or anything that cannot be scientifically proven, he should have exhaustively examined each of the above mentioned areas and explored his/the business's strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, this kind of analysis is done when starting the business, or at least, early on in the life of the business, as opposed to the eleventh hour. But even performing this assessment in the 11th hour can have significant value.


----------



## Luca Capozzi

As a developer and entrepreneur, got my products pirated too, I feel sad to keep reading the mantra "piracy is not stealing". Just because intangible goods are not like a bag of potatoes, people seems to feel the right to take other works for free. 

Let's clarify:
If a company or an individual is SELLING his work (an exchange of a good/service for money) and you get that without paying.. well, that's nothing more to say.. that's stealing. Claiming the contrary is only an act of hypocrisy.

Stated that, I don't believe that a download of a pirated copy is automatically equal to a lost sale. Our kind of business is based on trust and respect between artists. Building a solid customer relationship is not only a matter of newsletter and such, but even chatting, listen to their music and support their work too. I believe that now more then ever we have to restore in people that behind a brand there are PEOPLE too... and often individuals or very small groups. Supporting each other just helps all of us, both customers and developers, to improve all of our work. 

My 2 cents,
Luca


----------



## Ron Snijders

Luca Capozzi @ Sun 17 Nov said:


> Let's clarify:
> If a company or an individual is SELLING his work (an exchange of a good/service for money) and you get that without paying.. well, that's nothing more to say.. that's stealing. Claiming the contrary is only an act of hypocrisy.


One last time: Saying it's not the same is not implying any judgement or saying which is worse. It's just making sure the discussion doesn't get muddied because people aren't talking about the same thing.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court makes the distinction, as outlined in the 1985 'Dowling v. United States' case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_(1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v. ... ates_(1985))

Say it's just as bad, say it's morally equivalent, say copyright infringement should be prosecuted as heavily as theft. Most people will agree with you on all those points. Just don't say it's the same, because the relevant laws clearly state otherwise.


----------



## Luca Capozzi

I see your point, Ron. Let's make another instance: assume that somebody hire you to paint his house walls and, then, he just don't pay you a cent. He got the walls painted and you got nothing. I know that this is "not the same", but the feeling is just the same. You are not paid for your work. May be a matter of semantics (so "stealing" may be inappropriate), but means just the same in my opinion. 

Cheers,
Luca


----------



## Ron Snijders

Of course I would be pissed. But I wouldn't go to the police to file charges for stealing. I actually think the feeling of having a library cracked and tossed online for all the world to take would be much worse than having something stolen. I know it would for me.


----------



## Luca Capozzi

Yes, I agree.. but you know, laws can be changed and verdicts can be replaced by new ones. I believe that piracy is more a "cultural" issue than a technology issue becuase there's this firm belief that no harm is made and it's only a bad behaviour like tossing a paper on the street while, in my humble opinioin, is as bad as evading taxes.

Cheers,
Luca


----------



## Jan16

The subject of piracy and the effect it has in terms of a loss of potential sales always will remain a hot topic giving rise to heated discussions.
Personally I think a very large number of illegal downloaders would never have bought for the downloaded content to begin with. 

But aside from that debatable topic, when you're a developer and you see your own hard work being offered as a free download it's a slap in your face, especially when you contact the owner of the site which offers the free download and you receive mockery in return.
It's unfair and unjust, and as such I have great sympathy for Kyle.

Unfortunately there are people on the planet who get a kick out of maltreating others, vampires who love to draw blood to boost themselves, and the best you can do is first to make sure their cruelty does not internalize itself in the form of a painful memory which keeps haunting and hurting you.
Life is too precious to allow the vampires to take up real estate in your mind where they can continue to make you feel miserable.

I wish Kyle all the best for the future, and bear in mind that life's stresses can serve to make you stronger, so don't let the trouble get you down, just endure it to the best of your ability and remember there's always another day ahead.


----------



## GospelMusicians

Just a quick chime in as I am one of the only developers to date or that I know of that has had every scenario: 
1. Unencoded Kontakt Library
2. Encoded Kontakt Library
3. Encoded UVI Library

Option 1 was cracked the first week it was out, but I still made money

Option 2 took a while, but was cracked after 3-months

Option 3: Never cracked

In all options I made income. I have to agree with the other Devs. Perhaps business model has something to do with it, because you can still make a pretty decent living with a good quality library, even not being protected, but YES your sales do drop significantly the minute your stuff gets hacked. I've seen it and experienced it, so maybe that hit was just enough to make it not worth it. 

It seems like these guys we are talking about, put a ton of time and detail into their libraries and perhaps the return is not as good with their libraries being cracked. 

Piracy sucks, but I can say that I am enjoying the exclusivity and freedom of not having my UVI libraries hacked. 

I actually signed up for DMC force for my Kontakt libraries and pay a monthly fee to have them send copyright notices. It has significantly taken down a lot of the sites, but it won't be perfect.

So as you can see and will see in the future that my UVI libraries are increasing more and more. I know UVI is not for every Dev, but as for me. I'm sitting really nice with those guys and have a whole slew of libraries ready to be released, because they are more protected.


----------



## Ed

Look this is all quite redundant. 

The question is what business sense does it make to shut down completely?
I mean if he just doesn't want to deal with the management anymore, all he need to do is just sell it through a reseller like Time and Space or something and just get a check in the mail every once and a while. Remember.... forever more you will *still *be able to pirate NVA products, but no one will ever have the chance to buy them again. So how does closing help? All it means is he won't even have the chance to earn any money from this again. 

Its kind of if I knew my library tracks are being used and Im not being paid royalties or licence fees, and saying screw it Im going to stop licencing them at all... well... the track js will still be used without permission... but now I make income at all.

I really would love to understand the logic here because it just spins my head right round, like a record, round and round....


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Look this is all quite redundant.
> 
> The question is what business sense does it make to shut down completely?



The "business" side may simply be Kyle dying to himself, "Screw this, I can make more money in the same amount of hours without allowing myself to get ripped off, which sucks all the pleasure out of creating sample libraries for me."

Sample library creators I talk to do it as much for love as for money. Seeing their efforts massively ripped off destroys any pleasure for many.


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Look this is all quite redundant.
> 
> The question is what business sense does it make to shut down completely?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The "business" side may simply be Kyle dying to himself, "Screw this, I can make more money in the same amount of hours without allowing myself to get ripped off, which sucks all the pleasure out of creating sample libraries for me."
> 
> Sample library creators I talk to do it as much for love as for money. Seeing their efforts massively ripped off destroys any pleasure for many.
Click to expand...


He doesnt have to create anymore sample libraries, thats my point.

What bugs me is I am listening to some of the demos here of these products and trying to figure out which one to get, or if I just pay the $199 for all of it... but I don't really need this stuff right now. But I know when the time is right I will want to buy it! I just spent a ton of money recently on sample libs, and still need to buy HZ Perc. Im probably going to end up not getting any of the NVA products in this sale because of that, even at the reduced prices. So... oh well... I'll have to find some other alternative. But its Kyle that loses out here because actual customers that would have paid for things, now wont be able to even if they want to.


----------



## Peter Alexander

GospelMusicians @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Just a quick chime in as I am one of the only developers to date or that I know of that has had every scenario:
> 1. Unencoded Kontakt Library
> 2. Encoded Kontakt Library
> 3. Encoded UVI Library
> 
> Option 1 was cracked the first week it was out, but I still made money
> 
> Option 2 took a while, but was cracked after 3-months
> 
> Option 3: Never cracked
> 
> In all options I made income. I have to agree with the other Devs. Perhaps business model has something to do with it, because you can still make a pretty decent living with a good quality library, even not being protected, but YES your sales do drop significantly the minute your stuff gets hacked. I've seen it and experienced it, so maybe that hit was just enough to make it not worth it.
> 
> It seems like these guys we are talking about, put a ton of time and detail into their libraries and perhaps the return is not as good with their libraries being cracked.
> 
> Piracy sucks, but I can say that I am enjoying the exclusivity and freedom of not having my UVI libraries hacked.
> 
> I actually signed up for DMC force for my Kontakt libraries and pay a monthly fee to have them send copyright notices. It has significantly taken down a lot of the sites, but it won't be perfect.
> 
> So as you can see and will see in the future that my UVI libraries are increasing more and more. I know UVI is not for every Dev, but as for me. I'm sitting really nice with those guys and have a whole slew of libraries ready to be released, because they are more protected.



Now THIS is a praise report! Good for you! Which libs are yours?


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Look this is all quite redundant.
> 
> The question is what business sense does it make to shut down completely?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The "business" side may simply be Kyle dying to himself, "Screw this, I can make more money in the same amount of hours without allowing myself to get ripped off, which sucks all the pleasure out of creating sample libraries for me."
> 
> Sample library creators I talk to do it as much for love as for money. Seeing their efforts massively ripped off destroys any pleasure for many.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> He doesnt have to create anymore sample libraries, thats my point.
Click to expand...


Indeed, he does not. But we all lose more than they do when talented developers quit because of it.


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Indeed, he does not. But we all lose more than they do when talented developers quit because of it.



I have yet to hear a rational reason for "going out of business" and not selling any more libs that he has already made. 

There's more devs around now than there was in the past, and yet arguably piracy is even easier now in theory due to faster internet and so on. I mean look how far the Tonehammer creators have come. Troels and Mike and their teams have only gone on to make bigger and bigger more expensive products, if piracy was affecting sales THAT much, they'd have to be completely off their rockers. There'd be absolutely no way to ever make their money back. But most of NVA products didnt even have that kind of initial expense to create in the first place, as far as I understand it its just his own personal time recording, editing and producing most of these libs rather than also paying for halls, musicians, engineers. 

I see no sense whatsoever in not just keeping the website up there, maybe reduce prices a bit to take into consideration similar products on the market these days, do a bit of marketing like make some fun new YT videos showing how you can use them, see if a good composer can make a new fresh demo with them. blah blah blah . Or, just let the money trickle in from products you already have. Close completely? Why?

It makes sense when you see an actual shop close, it costs a lot of money to lease a shop front. It takes a lot time to manage it, either be there yourself, or hire someone to be there, etc. It even makes sense to close an online business if its not doing well if you are required to actually physically ship product to customers. Or if your business involves some kind of customer services product, like if you were selling technical support or maybe Skype-Skype teaching or something. 

But if you have a business where its all essentially automated, where you already have the infrastructure set up and working, where all you really have to do is pay for the website domain and deal with the occasional support email that would mostly involve a really simple installation question or paypal query, then why close? And even if that is too much, he could even get a sub-publisher to do all that shit for him. 

This action just seems like some attempted act of defiance based on emotion. And basing business decisions on emotion is really bad for business.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Emotion and good business are not antithetical. Business is not only number crunching.

There is no point in continuing to channel energy into something young longer believe in.


----------



## KingIdiot

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Indeed, he does not. But we all lose more than they do when talented developers quit because of it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have yet to hear a rational reason for "going out of business" and not selling any more libs that he has already made.
> 
> There's more devs around now than there was in the past, and yet arguably piracy is even easier now in theory due to faster internet and so on. I mean look how far the Tonehammer creators have come. Troels and Mike and their teams have only gone on to make bigger and bigger more expensive products, if piracy was affecting sales THAT much, they'd have to be completely off their rockers. There'd be absolutely no way to ever make their money back. But most of NVA products didnt even have that kind of initial expense to create in the first place, as far as I understand it its just his own personal time recording, editing and producing most of these libs rather than also paying for halls, musicians, engineers.
> 
> I see no sense whatsoever in not just keeping the website up there, maybe reduce prices a bit to take into consideration similar products on the market these days, do a bit of marketing like make some fun new YT videos showing how you can use them, see if a good composer can make a new fresh demo with them. blah blah blah . Or, just let the money trickle in from products you already have. Close completely? Why?
> 
> It makes sense when you see an actual shop close, it costs a lot of money to lease a shop front. It takes a lot time to manage it, either be there yourself, or hire someone to be there, etc. It even makes sense to close an online business if its not doing well if you are required to actually physically ship product to customers. Or if your business involves some kind of customer services product, like if you were selling technical support or maybe Skype-Skype teaching or something.
> 
> But if you have a business where its all essentially automated, where you already have the infrastructure set up and working, where all you really have to do is pay for the website domain and deal with the occasional support email that would mostly involve a really simple installation question or paypal query, then why close? And even if that is too much, he could even get a sub-publisher to do all that [email protected]#t for him.
> 
> This action just seems like some attempted act of defiance based on emotion. And basing business decisions on emotion is really bad for business.
Click to expand...



what if, just what if. The sales are so low that it's just not wort it to keep the site up in the long run? To pay for website, hosting, maybe webshop fees. What if time invested in other things, is more important. What if health has become a factor and budget concerns are very tight? What if it's not just sales, but the need to restructure both budget, and health? We don't know the whole picture, but life isn't just business sense. No one knows what personally is going on, and a lot of these developers are like small cafe/shop owners. Sometimes things come into life that make you HAVE to do the firesale thing, and sell the property. Maybe it's just not healthy, maybe it's cathartic to let it go completely, like cutting off all ties in a relationship.

I'm just throwing ideas out there, but you seem to be thinking that if you just leave it open it will be self sustaining maybe its not, or maybe there are other factors.


----------



## madbulk

Frederick, I can't wait to contribute. Can I request a feature? Something that would say, "Brian, don't waste 15 minutes reading this whole thread on a tiny iphone screen. You'll just wish you had the time back and your eyes won't hurt."


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Emotion and good business are not antithetical. Business is not only number crunching.
> 
> There is no point in continuing to channel energy into something young longer believe in.



On the contrary!

Emotions should not come into business at all if you can help it! All that matters in business is the bottom line. Ethnics and emotions put limits on that, and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit, because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate.

Art and creativity may be the product of your business, but the business itself requires impartiality. Making decisions for your business based on emotion can be tragically bad. This is why artists and creative people can be so bad at business.




KingIdiot @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> what if, just what if. The sales are so low that it's just not wort it to keep the site up in the long run? To pay for website, hosting, maybe webshop fees. What if time invested in other things, is more important. What if health has become a factor and budget concerns are very tight? What if it's not just sales, but the need to restructure both budget, and health? We don't know the whole picture, but life isn't just business sense. No one knows what personally is going on, and a lot of these developers are like small cafe/shop owners. Sometimes things come into life that make you HAVE to do the firesale thing, and sell the property. Maybe it's just not healthy, maybe it's cathartic to let it go completely, like cutting off all ties in a relationship.



I already mentioned some of those things in a previous post. Such as needing a lot of money quickly therefore doing some crazy sale makes sense. Maybe the need for money is SO extreme that he feels he has to say he is going to close completely and say you betta buy now guyz cuz this is the last chance EVAR to buy these sounds!!! 


But... I highly doubt that could be the reason. Especially as if it were, why arent we seeing more marketing news about it? People would buy stuff purely on the basis that they want to help him out, we've seen that before. 

There are really good reasons why sales could be dropping, to blame it all on piracy would just plain be denial, and still wouldn't justify closing the business entirely anyway. NVA used to be way more unique than it is now. Today we have many more choices in this kind of thing. Its would be like if Project SAM didnt understand why Symphobia 1 and 2 might not be as popular as it used to be, could it be because we have now 3 Albions, a Sonokinetic product and probably something else I'm forgetting? When Hybrid Tools 1 came out from 8dio that was really the first of its kind. It was entirely open format, so easy to pirate. Now I wonder if sales of Hybrid Tools 1 have gone down over the years since then? Im sure they have, and not just because of piracy, and not just because people already own it. Its because we have LOTS and LOTS of choices for those kinds of "Hybrid Tools" type sounds now. If people have more choices they are going to be more picky. It also means that someone who may have only really bought 1 of a kind of product (like a "hybrid tools" type product or a Symphobia type product) then as a company with such a product you have much less chances of getting them to choose yours the more choice they have. Several years ago NVA was one of the only choices for certain types of sounds, therefore the chances of people spending money on NVA products was much greater. 

If you look at the list price for NVA products, it doesn't look like they have really changed too much. Sales would have dropped anyway because people would think maybe some of it sounds a bit more dated, or just that they can go to some new product that seems cheaper and similar. 

So there's ideas about repackaging products, making them cheaper, revamping the brand. Making YT videos that show use in context and what cool things you can do with it and post them on VI etc. Maybe try and get a good composer like Bill Brown to do a demo for you or something. All these kinds of things would draw people back to the business. 

How is lowering prices worse than making nothing at all? I highly doubt it costs that much to maintain the infrastructure of the site, and if there really isnt any motivation to do any of that kind of marketing stuff I mentioned above, then Im sure some publisher will take all his libs off his hands either exclusively or just take a share. Then he still gets money, we can still buy the libs, whats the problem? Its not like it would stop people pirating his sample libraries and as I said it is more likely to result in increased piracy!


----------



## wst3

not to be argumentative - but how is anybody's business what NVA does? I think it's a bit selfish, at best, to suggest that you know better than he how to handle the business.

So what if he is just thumbing his nose at the universe... that's his privilege... it is HIS business.

He wants out... I think we should thank him for his wonderful libraries, and especially for giving us an opportunity to pick up more of them before they are gone, and wish him great success in whatever he does next.

It stinks for all of us that a talented developer is throwing in the towel - but perhaps that will be a wake up call for some who still justify pirating? Or not...


----------



## Ed

Well he can do what he likes but that doesnt mean we can't comment on how it makes no sense 
And technically my criticisms would result in him making money not losing it. Being selfish would be to take the $199 deal and not say anything if you think its a bad decision.


----------



## Guy Rowland

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> Well he can do what he likes but that doesnt mean we can't comment on how it makes no sense
> And technically my criticisms would result in him making money not losing it.



I don't think I'm with you on this one, Ed. A) we simply don't know the story here and B) we can't possibly know what makes the most sense in any number of areas - time, health, happiness, all that stuff. Even if it were true that he's missing out on some money from 9VA doing it this way, it might very well still make sense.

I just wish him well in the closing deals, and with whatever he turns to next.


----------



## Ed

Guy Im trying to think of any logical reason from a business standpoint that would ever make sense to completely close the entire business and stop selling the libraries completely.

I just can't do it, or they are extremely unlikely scenarios. 

I wish him well too, but I do think he is in all likelihood making the wrong decision. I've said all I can say about it really so I guess I'll leave it there. We all make our own way!


----------



## Mike Greene

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> I mean look how far the Tonehammer creators have come. Troels and Mike and their teams have only gone on to make bigger and bigger more expensive products, if piracy was affecting sales THAT much, they'd have to be completely off their rockers.


The Soundiron and 8dio business models are a little different from most. They both release a *lot* of products, so profits from any individual title don't need to be as high. Also, by having catalogs as large as they each do, they have a larger customer base, which helps float the boats of all their titles overall. I don't think they're a good parallel for how business works (regarding piracy or whatever other factor) for the smaller developers.

As far as Nine Volt goes, I have no idea what Kyle's reasons for shutting down are. But I can tell you that keeping a storefront open is more expensive and time consuming than you might think. I only have three products and I've tried to make every "How to Install" and "How to Use" video and pdf to make things as crystal clear as I can . . . yet I still spend about an hour a day just answering emails. So I could see there being a possibility that the small income from staying open wouldn't justify the effort. But again, I have no idea what Kyle's reasons really are, so I'm just speculating.


----------



## korgscrew

Would he be open to selling the bussiness? 

The products are digital, maybe they will need updating at some point. 

Isn't this a good opertunity to sell the company along with assets?


----------



## NYC Composer

I noticed that Taikos 2 is not included in the $199 deal, which I find interesting for some reason.


----------



## Peter Alexander

The New Silk Road
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/1 ... f=business


----------



## synapse21

I purchased the $199 Group Buy this morning, and was delighted that several of the Kontakt libraries were included (I had incorrectly assumed the Group Buy was just a collection of the REX / RMX loop libraries). 

I had already purchased 2 or 3 of the libraries that I ended up receiving again during various other promotions or sales. No big deal there.

What I _did _find interesting - is that now all of the downloads are coming through Continuata Connect, whereas before they were simply emailed links you would receive post-purchase via email.

So the question for me is - why pay to have these libraries watermarked now, when they are already pirated? A guess is that Kyle is laying the groundwork to either form a new company, or simply start again with something in place (?).

In any case - I am excited to dig into these libraries - having pulled Nine Volt's samples into RX here and there in the past, I know they are beautifully denoised compared to some products out there (a pet peeve of mine). Great stuff!

- Rodney


----------



## Andrew Aversa

The draw of Continuata isn't necessarily the watermarking; the appeal is in faster, more reliable downloads. Maybe NVA anticipated a huge spike in downloads and decided to switch over to handle them better.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Emotion and good business are not antithetical. Business is not only number crunching.
> 
> There is no point in continuing to channel energy into something young longer believe in.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the contrary!
> 
> Emotions should not come into business at all if you can help it! All that matters in business is the bottom line. Ethnics and emotions put limits on that, and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit, because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate.
Click to expand...

Thank you Ayn Rand. 

Scary that some people actually still believe in that Libertarian b.s.


----------



## Gusfmm

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Emotion and good business are not antithetical. Business is not only number crunching.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On the contrary!
> 
> Emotions should not come into business at all if you can help it! All that matters in business is the bottom line. Ethnics and emotions put limits on that, and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit, because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate.
Click to expand...


Holy shmoke, that is such a ridiculously ill-conceived representation. If all businesses in the world followed such notion, we'd certainly be burning in apocaliptic hell altogether by now (absolutely no religious association intended). So it seems you could care less about ethics, and put profit maximization before any basic human social principle such as respect, compasion, well-being... ahhh??? Well, maybe Goldman-Sachs is still hiring.

I'm glad there is still a few of us around that actually think completely opposite to that and still fair well in business.


----------



## Andrew Aversa

To be fair, he specifically said we don't want to tolerate human rights abuses and environmental impacts, which is why we create legislation to avoid that.


----------



## Gusfmm

It certainly reads far from your interpretation to me.


----------



## 667

I'm not sure enforcing this "primary duty is to the shareholders" thing has really gotten us where we want to be. http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Thank you Ayn Rand.
> 
> Scary that some people actually still believe in that Libertarian b.s.



Feel free to explain how Im wrong then Jay.



Gusfmm @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Holy shmoke, that is such a ridiculously ill-conceived representation. If all businesses in the world followed such notion, we'd certainly be burning in apocaliptic hell altogether by now (absolutely no religious association intended). So it seems you could care less about ethics, and put profit maximization before any basic human social principle such as respect, compasion, well-being... ahhh??? Well, maybe Goldman-Sachs is still hiring.
> 
> I'm glad there is still a few of us around that actually think completely opposite to that and still fair well in business.



Here's the bit you quoted but apparently didn't read:

_"Ethnics and emotions put limits on that, and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit, because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate_. "

We put limits on a free market to stop what you're talking about happening. But that is the primary goal in business, profit. That means it doesn't matter how you get it. If you get a lot of profit, its a good business. It may not be an ethical one, it may not even be a legal one, but it will objectively be a successful one.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

> YES your sales do drop significantly the minute your stuff gets hacked



Also, from what I understand you don't get unprotected software into the big dealers (meaning Sweetwater and Guitar Center). They're not interested if it's not protected.


----------



## dpasdernick

Ed @ Sun Nov 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Indeed, he does not. But we all lose more than they do when talented developers quit because of it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have yet to hear a rational reason for "going out of business" and not selling any more libs that he has already made.
> 
> There's more devs around now than there was in the past, and yet arguably piracy is even easier now in theory due to faster internet and so on. I mean look how far the Tonehammer creators have come. Troels and Mike and their teams have only gone on to make bigger and bigger more expensive products, if piracy was affecting sales THAT much, they'd have to be completely off their rockers. There'd be absolutely no way to ever make their money back. But most of NVA products didnt even have that kind of initial expense to create in the first place, as far as I understand it its just his own personal time recording, editing and producing most of these libs rather than also paying for halls, musicians, engineers.
> 
> I see no sense whatsoever in not just keeping the website up there, maybe reduce prices a bit to take into consideration similar products on the market these days, do a bit of marketing like make some fun new YT videos showing how you can use them, see if a good composer can make a new fresh demo with them. blah blah blah . Or, just let the money trickle in from products you already have. Close completely? Why?
> 
> It makes sense when you see an actual shop close, it costs a lot of money to lease a shop front. It takes a lot time to manage it, either be there yourself, or hire someone to be there, etc. It even makes sense to close an online business if its not doing well if you are required to actually physically ship product to customers. Or if your business involves some kind of customer services product, like if you were selling technical support or maybe Skype-Skype teaching or something.
> 
> But if you have a business where its all essentially automated, where you already have the infrastructure set up and working, where all you really have to do is pay for the website domain and deal with the occasional support email that would mostly involve a really simple installation question or paypal query, then why close? And even if that is too much, he could even get a sub-publisher to do all that shit for him.
> 
> This action just seems like some attempted act of defiance based on emotion. And basing business decisions on emotion is really bad for business.
Click to expand...


Ed,

I'm with you 100% here. if I was Kyle I'd just leave the site going or, as you mentioned, distribute through someone else. The work is all done. The marketing is the website. It seems a little crazy to just shut it all down when there is next to nothing to lose. I would guess that Spectrasonics will eventually update Stylus and that may cause a bit of a resurgence in REX loops. Even without that, if Kyle left the prices as he has them right now I'd bet he'd put thousands more in his pocket over the years. Just a small secondary, diverse stream of income...


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you Ayn Rand.
> 
> Scary that some people actually still believe in that Libertarian b.s.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Feel free to explain how Im wrong then Jay.
> 
> 
> 
> Gusfmm @ Mon Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Holy shmoke, that is such a ridiculously ill-conceived representation. If all businesses in the world followed such notion, we'd certainly be burning in apocaliptic hell altogether by now (absolutely no religious association intended). So it seems you could care less about ethics, and put profit maximization before any basic human social principle such as respect, compasion, well-being... ahhh??? Well, maybe Goldman-Sachs is still hiring.
> 
> I'm glad there is still a few of us around that actually think completely opposite to that and still fair well in business.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Here's the bit you quoted but apparently didn't read:
> 
> _"Ethnics and emotions put limits on that, and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit, because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate_. "
> 
> We put limits on a free market to stop what you're talking about happening. But that is the ultimate goal in business, profit. That means it doesn't matter how you get it. If you get a lot of profit, its a good business. It may not be an ethical one, it may not even be a legal one, but it will objectively be a successful one.
Click to expand...


Financial success, without ethics or legality that comes from your soul, not legal proscription, is not inherently "good" business and if you don't know why that is true, I can't explain it to you, It was your parents' job to inculcate that as my parents did.


----------



## SamGarnerStudios

This is very sad. Someone earlier mentioned the problem is that people think it's ok. The school I go to, people openly talk about piracy and how they downloaded this and that (Waves Platinum seems to be the big one) but they talk about it in the open like it's an accepted part of society. If I were to rob a bank, I wouldn't go bragging about it. It's annoying. Several years ago I pirated a couple things, ( I was 19 years old) but since then I've gone back and bought every library or software I've ever torrented, or just stopped using it, and that's because I've come to respect what lib devs do. I use Stylus quite often, so this is sad news.


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Financial success, without ethics or legality that comes from your soul, not legal proscription, is not inherently "good" business and if you don't know why that is true, I can't explain it to you, It was your parents' job to inculcate that as my parents did.



A "good" business, where "good" means an _ethical _business, is not the same thing as a "good" business where "good" means _successful _as a business. For some reason you want to pretend you don't understand the difference between the two uses of the word "good" where it can mean successful or it can mean ethical. A thief can say they are "good" at what they do, that doesn't' mean they are saying what they do is ethical.

Sacrificing profit for the sake of ethics is "bad for business", ie obtaining profit. You can have an very ethical business operating at a loss and then go bankrupt, would you still call it a "good business"? If a company outsources jobs to another country so they can pay workers less that work in very poor conditions, that's good for business, it increases profit margins. That doesn't mean its ethical. A drug dealer that sells drugs can make a lot of money selling dangerous chemicals, if he profits, thats good for his business. That also doesn't mean its ethical. The primary purpose of a business is to profit. 

You aren't this silly Jay. Don't argue for the sake of it.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

My point is to be truly "good", a business needs to be profitable AND ethical and not just because of the law and its consequences/ As for keeping emotion out, Steve Jobs did not practice that: Bill Gates did not practice that: Warren Buffet did not practice that: ;Eric Schmidt did not practice that.

Maintaing that it is somehow helpful to be unemotional in business is IMHO what is silly.


----------



## NYC Composer

Jobs is probably somewhat of an outlier in all things corporate, but I don't think you could make the case for Gates or Buffet as impulsive or do- gooders at the expense of their businesses, their views on charitable giving notwithstanding.

I have to (shoot me now) agree with Ed here- there's a clear divide between a " good", i.e. ethical, company, and a "good", i.e. monetarily successful company. Publicly held corporations theoretically exist solely to make money for their sharehoders. As a smalltime investor myself, the main thing that upsets me about that is the unspoken codicil that they aso exist to enrich the boards and top management at the expense of those same shareholders.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

NYC Composer @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Publicly held corporations theoretically exist solely to make money for their sharehoders. .



And we have seen the end result of that the last few years, haven't we? Higher and higher stock prices, but largely rich people getting richer, and pretty much everyone else going into the toilet. 

It was not always that way in America. 

Anyway, back on topic, the idea that someone should keep a joyless business getting ripped off massively going just because it makes money when perhaps as much money can be made doing something else that is emotionally satisfying without that frustration, is IMHO at best misguided.


----------



## Gusfmm

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Financial success, without ethics or legality that comes from your soul, not legal proscription, is not inherently "good" business and if you don't know why that is true, I can't explain it to you, It was your parents' job to inculcate that as my parents did.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A "good" business, where "good" means an _ethical _business, is not the same thing as a "good" business where "good" means _successful _as a business. For some reason you want to pretend you don't understand the difference between the two uses of the word "good" where it can mean successful or it can mean ethical. A thief can say they are "good" at what they do, that doesn't' mean they are saying what they do is ethical.
> 
> Sacrificing profit for the sake of ethics is "bad for business", ie obtaining profit. You can have an very ethical business operating at a loss and then go bankrupt, would you still call it a "good business"? If a company outsources jobs to another country so they can pay workers less that work in very poor conditions, that's good for business, it increases profit margins. That doesn't mean its ethical. A drug dealer that sells drugs can make a lot of money selling dangerous chemicals, if he profits, thats good for his business. That also doesn't mean its ethical. The primary purpose of a business is to profit.
Click to expand...



Clearly we have huge differences of opinion on what "good" means. And I get the impression of similar gaps around ethical values and their importance I'm afraid.

You refer to a "good business" that quite frankly, maybe so to you. And most certainly a few other people I'm sure. Certainly in that context, it'd mean "absurdly nonsensical business" to me, and to many others I know.

You argumented your opposition to ethics and emotions being involved in doing business, as they limit what the ultimate business goal should be, maximizing profits. More or less in those terms. And that couldn't be farther from what any business school teaches you in Business 101. And also very far from what my personal experience in a few large multinational corporations has been. The obvious objective of any capitalist business is turning a profit. But that is far from the notion of maximizing profit as the be all and end all, regardless of consequences, which is what you continually imply. As a matter of fact, I almost can't believe you in fact do, extremely sad.

If you need to sacrify your ethics to turn a profit in your business, then probably what you lack is any basic business acumen. Two very different issues there.


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> My point is to be truly "good", a business needs to be profitable AND ethical and not just because of the law and its consequences/ As for keeping emotion out, Steve Jobs did not practice that: Bill Gates did not practice that: Warren Buffet did not practice that: ;Eric Schmidt did not practice that.
> 
> Maintaing that it is somehow helpful to be unemotional in business is IMHO what is silly.



To be a socially accepted and praised business you need to toe the line between profit and being ethical, yes.

"truly good". This is just getting into the realms of your own personal defintions of words. So Im out.


----------



## Ed

Gusfmm @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Clearly we have huge differences of opinion on what "good" means.



I use the dictionary, I don't know what you're using



> And I get the impression of similar gaps around ethical values and their importance I'm afraid.



I never made any value judgments. I was describing the nature of business. 



> You refer to a "good business" that quite frankly, maybe so to you. And most certainly a few other people I'm sure. Certainly in that context, it'd mean "absurdly nonsensical business" to me, and to many others I know.



So a business that makes a lot of money... is an "_absurdly nonsensical business"_ just because it happens to be unethical? What would be nonsensical about it? Being unethical doesn't follow to nonsensical. It is not nonsensical to cut corners that might harm the environment or some people if its going to get you more money. Being a criminal or being unethical doesn't require you to have no sense and making decisions that are irrational. You may be very sensible, your decisions may hurt lots of people, but all your behaviours may have a perfectly rational motive. The fact that you might not care about hurting people doesnt make a difference, it doesn't make your motivates suddenly "nonsensical".



> You argumented your opposition to ethics and emotions being involved in doing business, as they limit what the ultimate business goal should be, maximizing profits. More or less in those terms.



Right so you still don't understand...

We were talking about NVA and how I said this just seems like its some emotional based decision to shut down the business, as some kind of futile act of defiance, that business decisions shouldn't be made with emotions because that will be bad for business. Jay decided to start saying no no no, thats rubbish. Jay would be a terrible bank manager. _"Oh sure I'll lend you this money, you've got a twinkle in your eye!"_ The point where business decisions start to put you into an ethically troublesome area, that is when you should start allowing that to influence your decisions. Before then, it is absolutely a terrible idea to allow emotions to guide or be the basis for business decisions. And caring about the ethics of the thing still has no bearing on whether something is a successful business or not.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

You are right, I would be a terrible bank manager. I am not amoral enough for that gig.

Although years ago banks in America DID routinely lend people money on the strength of the bank manager's assessment of the person's character and will to succeed. 

But of course, in recent years the banks have done so well with their current business practices, haven't they?  

Almost brought down the entire world economy. I doubt I could have done much worse.


----------



## Ed

Jay, here's an idea, how about you go find a political forum and argue with someone who actually is saying what you seem to really want me to be saying. 

edit: and as much as I could get into the ins and outs of motivations toward profit and ethical considerations being a little complicated sometimes, especially regarding the banks and what got them into trouble etc, I feel it would be a wasted effort on you, when you don't even want to use the dictionary everyone else uses for words and pretend you don't understand simple concepts.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Jay, here's an idea, how about you go find a political forum and argue with someone who actually is saying what you seem to really want me to be saying.



Ok, for clarity then, answer which statements you disagree with.

1. Money is not the only reason to run a business. Passion for what you are doing, providing employment and treating your employees well (as Google does) are also legitimate considerations.

2. It possible to run a business that is profitable and ethical and it is better for an individual's life to do so than merely to run a profitable one.

3. Even if a business is profitable there can be good reasons to end it since money is not all there is to life, nor is to the most important thing. So Kyle may have good reasons to do so, regardless of how profitable it still is or is not.


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## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Jay, here's an idea, how about you go find a political forum and argue with someone who actually is saying what you seem to really want me to be saying.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ok, for clarity then, answer which statements you disagree with.
> 
> 1. Money is not the only reason to run a business. Passion for what you are doing, providing employment and treating your employees well (as Google does) are also legitimate considerations.
> 
> 2. It possible to run a business that is profitable and ethical and it is better for an individual's life to do so than merely to run a profitable one.
> 
> 3. Even if a business is profitable there can be good reasons to end it since money is not all there is to life, nor is to the most important thing. So Kyle may have good reasons to do so, regardless of how profitable it still is or is not.
Click to expand...


All true. Though you are making a value judgement in 2 "_it is better for an..._", however I agree. Now I hope you're really confused. 
If you figure out what my point actually was get back to me.


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## EastWest Lurker

If you ever find the words to actually state it clearly, I will be happy to. A long time issue for you here. Somehow you seem to always end up misunderstood. It must be very frustrating for you.

People here frequently like what I have to say, but they always seem to understand it.


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## Ed

What is so difficult to understand Jay? 

"Business" as a capitalist concept's primary purpose is to make profit.
If NVA wants to make profit then he should not base a business decision on emotions. 
If he values some things more than profit (such as ethical considerations) then thats fine, but its still going to be objectively bad for business.

And btw by my count only 2 people have said they dont understand. Andrew seemed to understand fine and dpasdernick said he agreed with me, even NYC Composer. Also, you're known for arguing strawman. Some people aren't trying to intentionally misunderstand others.


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## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> What is so difficult to understand Jay?
> 
> "Business" as a capitalist concept's primary purpose is to make profit.
> If NVA wants to make profit then he should not base a business decision on emotions.
> If he values something things more than profit (and ethical considerations is one of them) then thats fine, but its still going to be objectively bad for business.
> 
> And btw by my count only 2 people have said they dont understand. Andrew seemed to understand find and someone else said they agreed with me. Also, you're known for arguing strawman. Some people aren't trying to intentionally misunderstand others.



We perhaps we don''t really disagree then. What I took from your statement is that if a business continues to be profitable, it is foolish to shut it down, no matter what the circumstances because all that matters with a businesses profit. Which I totally disagree with because there is far more to running a business than just making money, although clearly, that is its main purpose.

Secondly some of the most successful businesses have been run by people who ran them _very_ emotionally, frequently defying logic and spreadsheets and going on passion and gut instinct, so this image of the "cool businessman"unemotionally making business decisions does not always hold water.


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## NYC Composer

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> What is so difficult to understand Jay?
> 
> 
> If he values something things more than profit (and ethical considerations is one of them) then thats fine, but its still going to be objectively bad for business.



If you're making a blanket statement of this, there are plenty of examples in the history of business where CEO's led with their ethical considerations and business turned out fine because customer loyalty followed, so I think it's way too general.


----------



## Gusfmm

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Gusfmm @ Mon Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Clearly we have huge differences of opinion on what "good" means.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I use the dictionary, I don't know what you're using
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And I get the impression of similar gaps around ethical values and their importance I'm afraid.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> .
Click to expand...


I guess this is the your being the typical you. So let me bite this one time, and challenge you to reference one reputable academic source defining a "good and successful business" as the pursue of maximizing profits without any other considerations of any kind. This really is fascinating.





Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> I never made any value judgments. I was describing the nature of business.



Nature of business??? According to whom, you? Maybe your source above will shed some light on that too.






Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> So a business that makes a lot of money... is an "_absurdly nonsensical business"_ just because it happens to be unethical? What would be nonsensical about it? Being unethical doesn't follow to nonsensical. It is not nonsensical to cut corners that might harm the environment or some people if its going to get you more money.



A business that compromises ethics for a profit is absolutely absurdly nonsensical to me. Yes. The only reason why someone would struggle with the above is simple: lack of moral and ethical values. 

And by the way, reiterating, many modern multinational corporations operate under basic ethical set of principles, implemented by their management board, people with ethics, emotions, and sensibility, whose goal and purpose in life goes beyond that of your "maximizing profit" nonsense. Believe it or not, they think their corporations are extremely successful.






Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> The point where business decisions start to put you into an ethically troublesome area, that is when you should start allowing that to influence your decisions. Before then, it is absolutely a terrible idea to allow emotions to guide or be the basis for business decisions.



So now you seem to come full circle, flip flop, and concede about ethics? 




Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> And caring about the ethics of the thing still has no bearing on whether something is a successful business or not.



But wait, just when I thought, you go back at it... Now I'm really confused. So in the end, I'm sure you're right, I don't understand a word of what you're saying. And I think I'm not alone...


----------



## Ed

NYC Composer @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> If you're making a blanket statement of this, there are plenty of examples in the history of business where CEO's led with their ethical considerations and business turned out fine because customer loyalty followed, so I think it's way too general.


Its a good thing Im not making a binary argument, where you cant be profitable or be successful at all if you are ethical then  



EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> What I took from your statement is that if a business continues to be profitable, it is foolish to shut it down, no matter what the circumstances because all that matters with a businesses profit.



That is not what I was saying at all. I said I can't see any logical reason for stopping selling the libraries at all. If he wanted to be done with it he could just sell the rights to a publisher. 



> frequently defying logic and spreadsheets and going on passion and gut instinct, so this image of the "cool businessman"unemotionally making business decisions does not always hold water.



If those "gut instincts" made no money they'd be very bad for business. If your gut instinct keeps being correct it would be very unsettling if you couldn't figure out the actual reason for it was. Going off "gut instinct" and going off emotions are not the same thing. Going off emotions is lending money to a a girl just because she made sexy cute eyes at you, as opposed to the guy who has a detailed business plan and proof of customer base etc etc. The emotion is playing with fire, and probably wrong. Gut instinct can be based on learned patterns that your subconscious can see but you can't consciously understand, such as someones body language.



Gusfmm @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> I guess this is the your being the typical you. So let me bite this one time, and challenge you to reference one reputable academic source defining a "good and successful business" as the pursue of maximizing profits without any other considerations of any kind. This really is fascinating.



Talking about ethics of a business, talking about what is right and wrong is a value judgement. What a business "should" try and do are ethical questions and will be brought up if you look up what the primary purpose of a business is. Some even say that profit shouldnt be seen as the primary purpose of a business like this one, but read a little further and you see that the reason for not focusing entirely on profit can leave customers neglected leading to - ironically - less profit. Profit is still the end goal. Now if you're looking at your business as a short term gain, then thats different. There will be people who made a lot of money treating customers badly, didnt matter to them, they were successfull. But you can see this writer is talking about huge long term stable growth with 
examples like "Apple" and "Disney". http://successnet.org/cms/business-growth/profit-is-not-the-purpose-of-business (Here's another one), except what he is actually saying is that focusing entirely on profits alone is a poor motivator and poor business plan, that if you focus "_adding value, solving problems and truly serving our customers"_, then _"the profits come almost automatically. If you want to earn a lot of money, then find ways to add a lot of value_". So in other words, the primary purpose of business is still profit, but focusing entirely on profit alone can actually be a poor plan for generating profit.

Now I'd just like to draw your attention to what the word successful means. Its got nothing to do with ethics. Its got everything to do with results.



> Nature of business??? According to whom, you? Maybe your source above will shed some light on that too.



Apparently the idea idea that the purpose of business is to make more money than you started with is a crazy concept for you. Go to a business manager and say you dont care if your business makes money, because you dont believe thats what business is about, and see how funny he looks at you. Even those working in not for profit charities can be considered a business in various ways, but maybe Im now introducing way too many complicated things for someone that is apparently aghast at the idea that business is about earning money and not losing it.



> A business that compromises ethics for a profit is absolutely absurdly nonsensical to me. Yes. The only reason why someone would struggle with the above is simple: lack of moral and ethical values.



This paragraph itself is nonsensical. You're using your own personal definition of words again. The definition of nonsensical has nothing to do with someone's ethics or morals. I recommend you go look the word up.



> And by the way, reiterating, many modern multinational corporations operate under basic ethical set of principles, implemented by their management board, people with ethics, emotions, and sensibility, whose goal and purpose in life goes beyond that of your "maximizing profit" nonsense. Believe it or not, they think their corporations are extremely successful.



Hey look, thats what I said right at the start! :roll: 

_ All that matters in business is the bottom line. *Ethnics and emotions put limits on that,* and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit,* because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate*. . _



> So now you seem to come full circle, flip flop, and concede about ethics?



Realising you were beating up a strawman the whole time is not me flip flopping. Nothing I've said is in contradiction.



> But wait, just when I thought, you go back at it... Now I'm really confused. So in the end, I'm sure you're right, I don't understand a word of what you're saying. And I think I'm not alone...



You really need to go open a dusty old dictionary, or go spend some time with online dictionaries easily found on google so you understand what words like "good" "successful" and "nonsensical" actually mean. 

There have been plenty of very "successful" criminals. Now these criminals we say were not "good" people", but we can say were "good" at whatever it was they did, or good at not getting caught etc. Pirate Bay is "good" at keeping piracy going despite many attacks to try and shut it down, that doesn't mean that pirate bay is ethically "good". See, its the same word, but it has different meaning depending on the usage you see?

NYC Composer from earlier:

I have to (shoot me now) agree with Ed here- there's a clear divide between a " good", i.e. ethical, company, and a "good", i.e. monetarily successful company. Publicly held corporations theoretically exist solely to make money for their sharehoders.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Greed is good.


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## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> 
> What I took from your statement is that if a business continues to be profitable, it is foolish to shut it down, no matter what the circumstances because all that matters with a businesses profit.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 1. That is not what what I was saying at all. I said I can't see any logical reason for stopping selling the libraries at all. If he wanted to be done with it he could just sell the rights to a publisher.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> frequently defying logic and spreadsheets and going on passion and gut instinct, so this image of the "cool businessman"unemotionally making business decisions does not always hold water.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 2. If those "gut instincts" made no money they'd be very bad for business. If your gut instinct keeps being correct it would be very unsettling if you couldn't figure out the actual reason for it was. Going off "gut instinct" and going off emotions are not the same thing. Going off emotions is lending money to a a girl just because she made sexy cute eyes at you, as opposed to the guy who has a detailed business plan and proof of customer base etc etc. The emotion is playing with fire, and probably wrong. Gut instinct can be based on learned patterns that your subconscious can see but you can't consciously understand, such as someones body language.
Click to expand...


1 The fact that you don't see it does not mean it does not exist. It just means you don't have all the information perhaps.

2. A distinction without a difference. Gut instinct is an emotional response. You are giving one example of an emotional response, it does not account for all of them.


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## NYC Composer

Nick Batzdorf @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Greed is good.



and brevity.


----------



## JT3_Jon

cc64 @ Sat Nov 16 said:


> [
> At the risk of repeating myself i do not hate iLok i just think if they found a way of letting good honest customers authorize 2 iloks per license on the same account, iLok would not be an issue for me anymore.



That right there is my problem with ilok. I have my main mac pro, a PC slave, and a macbook pro, all of which can be used on any one project with VE pro (in fact I had all three loaded to the gills on a recent project). Thus I want most of my plugins and libraries available on all these different machines at the same time so I can successfully balance resources between the machines, etc. Thankfully VSL gives you 3 licenses for each purchase of VE pro and Vienna Suite, so I can run all these programs and plugins on all three of my machines, but this is the only exception I've seen in dongle land, and even this this luxury does not extend to any of their libraries! Every other company who uses ilok or any other dongle limits you to one authorization, and this is extremely frustrating, as it can greatly limit my options on large projects, not allowing me to use my available resources to their fullest. I understand why they do not allow multiple licenses (as it would be real easy to be dishonest with them) but as an honest paying customer, if given the choice, I will purchase a library/plugin that is not tied to a dongle for this very reason. Not to mention the fear that goes through me every time I take my laptop + dongle out of the studio! 

I really think the only solution is to always be on the internet and plugins will constantly call home to verify they are legit, but probably even then the pirates will figure out some way to trick the system and again the paying customer, forced to jump through now unnecessary hoops, looses. I wonder how the apple app store ecosystem is working. Is that "pirate free?" As they actually allow you to install their apps on all your computers as long as you are the user, which is very nice! 

(I guess this problem of balancing my computer resources while using iLok is more true for audio processing plugin than libraries, but I've been happy on multiple occasions to have the same library/synth installed all my machines and be able to transfer my sounds/presets to different machines as the project dictated).


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> 1 The fact that you don't see it does not mean it does not exist. It just means you don't have all the information perhaps.
> 
> 2. A distinction without a difference. Gut instinct is an emotional response. You are giving one example of an emotional response, it does not account for all of them.



As much as you seem to want to be wrong about apparently everything, this is besides the point,

People who manage to make decisions about their business on emotion/gut feelings that result in profit = a successful business decision. Previously you gave me examples where people valued something more than profit so their decisions may result in less or none. That will not result in a successful business decision. If your business is to sell food, clothing and water to poor people in Africa and decide you're just going to give it to them because you value ethics more than profit, then you're a charity, not a business, or you're a really bad business, but in no way could you call yourself a successful business. The intent in business is profit, to succeed is for the desired outcome to be achieved. That is why by definition a successful business requires profit. The more profitable it is the more successful it is. That doesn't mean that same company cant be criminal that should be shut down.


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## EastWest Lurker

In your black and white view it is all one or the other. That is simply not the way it is with most businesses that are sucessfull. They have multiple goals, including but not exclusive to making a profit.


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## Ed

Ok well Jay you keep arguing with yourself, because clearly you dont care what I say Im not going round and round when you refuse to read what I write the first 10 times.


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## EastWest Lurker

As gusfmm pointed out, you keep contradicting yourself.

But whatever, I think there is little more to be gained in this.


----------



## Gusfmm

Ed @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> A business that compromises ethics for a profit is absolutely absurdly nonsensical to me. Yes. The only reason why someone would struggle with the above is simple: lack of moral and ethical values.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This paragraph itself is nonsensical. You're using your own personal definition of words again. The definition of nonsensical has nothing to do with someone's ethics or morals. I recommend you go look the word up.
Click to expand...


Yes, the typical you at it again. So where is it that I need to look to find what makes sense or not? Is that your dusty dictionary? Frankly, this is a waste of time.





Ed @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> And by the way, reiterating, many modern multinational corporations operate under basic ethical set of principles, implemented by their management board, people with ethics, emotions, and sensibility, whose goal and purpose in life goes beyond that of your "maximizing profit" nonsense. Believe it or not, they think their corporations are extremely successful.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hey look, thats what I said right at the start! :roll:
> 
> _ All that matters in business is the bottom line. Ethnics and emotions put limits on that, and legally we create legislation that limits the ability for companies to behave in the way that would create the most profit, because acting in the best interests of acquiring the most possible profit will result in human rights abuses and environmental impacts as a society we don't want to tolerate. . _
Click to expand...



So while you say "All that matters in business is the bottom line.", 
you also turn and say "ethics and emotions put limits on that..."
so in consequence, "ethics and emotions" are bad for business. Yes, you said all that. 

So my friend's business produces very little net profit to-date. And he is a very ethical professional and relatively emotional and passionate in what he does. He would tell you he's got a wonderful business that covers bills, brings food to the table, allow him to raise his small family, let him meet many interesting people and ultimately he enjoys it immensely. And he sleeps very well at night, with a clean conscience.

So for you, that is a disastrous business, since there is almost no profit. Period.

For my friend, and I happen to share the feeling, he is extremely successful.

See? And there was no need for your dusty dictionary! SUCCESS!!!!


----------



## Ed

Gusfmm @ Mon Nov 18 said:


> Yes, the typical you at it again. So where is it that I need to look to find what makes sense or not? Is that your dusty dictionary? Frankly, this is a waste of time.



How typical that I want to use the words as defined in the dictionary and not Gusfmm's personal definition...

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... onsensical

It has to do with the logic of the thing, it has nothing to do with the ethics of the thing. A very intelligent criminal might be very unethical, but that doesnt mean his motives and behaviours can be described as nonsensical just because he is unethical. We would describe his behaviours and motivations to be nonsensical if ---- get ready --- they didn't make sense. A criminals motivations and actions can still make perfect "sense", this is not a contradiction. 



Ed @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> So while you say "All that matters in business is the bottom line.",
> you also turn and say "ethics and emotions put limits on that..."
> so in consequence, "ethics and emotions" are bad for business. Yes, you said all that.



All that matters in business as a concept of capitalism *is *the bottom line, that is the goal of business. Without human ethics putting limits on our own behaviour and legal restrictions it would lead to some really terrible shit. 

I said that ethics and emotions SHOULD put limits on it, so we don't end up in that terrible shit. This is saying that emotions and ethics should be used IN SPITE of the goal of business being profit. It is to see a way to make more profit and intentionally turn away from that profit if getting it disagrees with your own ethics, or because legal restrictions have been imposed to deter you.

There is no contradiction here. The purpose of business is to make profit. To be successful in business is to earn more and more profit. Basing your decisions on emotions, especially anger rash defiant emotions, is likely to not result in profit because emotions aren't too logical especially not strong ones like this. "_Well screw you I'm just going to smash up my own shop that gets robbed every week so no one can have any of it!!_!" might be one such decision based in emotion... 



> So my friend's business produces very little net profit to-date. And he is a very ethical professional and relatively emotional and passionate in what he does. He would tell you he's got a wonderful business that covers bills, brings food to the table, allow him to raise his small family, let him meet many interesting people and ultimately he enjoys it immensely. And he sleeps very well at night, with a clean conscience.
> 
> So for you, that is a disastrous business, since there is almost no profit. Period.
> 
> For my friend, and I happen to share the feeling, he is extremely successful.



No I wouldnt tell him he has a "disastrous" business. You really arent very careful about the words you use... I would say it was "disastrous" if it was losing money, because losing money is the complete opposite of the purpose of business.

You did however just tell me that the business produces very little net profit to-date, so its objectively not a very successful business. I dont mean "personal success" Im talking about if you showed the books to an impartial investor or business manager that accesses these things for a living.

If he got angry for some reason sold the business to someone else for some small fee, much smaller than it was worth, that would have been a poor basis for making such a business decision. A level headed unemotional logical approach would probably have resulted in a better outcome (ie. More cash). 

If he could make more money and profit if he didnt mind doing something unethical, then he has to decide whether he wants to be more successful in his business IN SPITE of his ethical concerns.


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## NYC Composer

The purpose of a for profit corporation is to make profit. That's perfectly obvious. The purpose of a BUSINESS might be different.

1.Let's say a person starts a business that involved doing things he loves. It loses a bit of money, but it fuels his lifes' desires and makes him happy. This fellow can afford to lose a bit of money doing what he loves, he has made money in other businesses. This is not disastrous by any measure (and btw, is a real world example-I have two clients like this.) Though it is not monetarily successful, it succeeds in its purpose.

2. Let's say a person starts a business for his children. The business loses a bit of money but keeps his children employed and happy in something they want to do, and the founder can absorb the losses...maybe they're even less than he would pay out in support for his children. This business is not unsuccessful nor disastrous because it fulfills its purposes.

3. Let's even go to corporate matters for fun-let's say a person starts a business intending to become the biggest retailer the world has ever known. For argument's sake, let's call him Jeff.  This person's business loses money for TEN YEARS, but continues to gain market share in retailing, steadily gobbling up the market while constantly re-investing as he sells more and more items at a steady loss. This person's business might be considered by many to be unsuccessful, yet it meets its CEO and founder's goal of taking market share from all other retailers, and its stock grows a thousandfold. This person's business is not unsuccessful for him because it is fulfilling its founder's goal. Whether or not it will ever justify it's unbelievable stock price remains to be seen.

These are a few illustrations of why blanket statements and broad generalizations rarely hold water forever. They may be steady boats in general, but they inevitably spring a few leaks along the way.


----------



## Daniel James

I think I am with Ed on this one. The point of a business is to make money, full stop. 

There are business and trading rules for this exact reason. If the only aim is to make money, moral and ethics go out of the window. Thats why there are rules against child labor for example, its un-ethical as fuck but you know for a fact if it was legal companies would do it to maximize profits.

I think somebody gave an example of Apple being an ethical company.....well in that case lets not bring up poor working conditions of the Chinese people working at the Foxconn manufacturing facility which sees dozens of suicides a year.

Like Ed said, like it or not emotional and moral decisions at the sake of profit are bad for business. Why are they bad for business? Because they are a risk, sure sometimes they pay off and you are a hero but more often than not a decision based on morality, ethics or emotion will be at the cost of profit. 

The smaller the company the smaller the risk, thats why its easy for many of us developers here, who are small business owners, to talk about how we were able to make a moral stance or a super eithical one...because at the end of the day our overheads are lower and we can take the risk. 

The bigger the company however the larger the risk...use my example of apple for example. Now its not the most ethical situation to have their products made in China, where the workers are paid low and the conditions are terrible....but it is the cheapest, therefor its a great business decision HOWEVER if Apple was to make the moral and ethical decision to move production over to the USA where there are stricter rules on working conditions, minimum wage, mandatory break hours not only will the cost of production be millions (if not billions) of dollars more expensive, production will take longer...meaning less units get sold, for a much lower net income once you consider all the new overhead....that or a higher markup on product which usually leads to less sales, less sales doesn't necessarily mean less income but it does reduce market share, less market share tends to lead to a slower business.

Now I don't necessarily like that business neglects ethics and morals for the sake of profit. But that, unfortunately, is what a business is about....making money.

-DJ


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## germancomponist

And then there's the question of why we live at all. For profit? That is the dream scenario of banks and other institutions, all of which earn their money if you are very diligent and make profit. These would most like remove the whole humaneness. But is not there something else? Here we may consider the animal world as role models? A wide field! 

I have already rejected some contracts because these customers are not compatible with my moral beliefs and I live very well with it. I've never looked back and am even proud of it. Money is not everything!


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## NYC Composer

germancomponist @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> And then there's the question of why we live at all. For profit? That is the dream scenario of banks and other institutions, all of which earn their money if you are very diligent and make profit. These would most like remove the whole humaneness. But is not there something else? Here we may consider the animal world as role models? A wide field!
> 
> I have already rejected some contracts because these customers are not compatible with my moral beliefs and I live very well with it. I've never looked back and am even proud of it. Money is not everything!



Even in business :wink:


----------



## TGV

Whoa, guys. You talk about the goal of a company as if it is a law of nature!

A company is foremost an organization. Since people like money, and they've got to live anyhow, it is common to use a company to make money. But that's not necessary at all. There are charities, NGOs, etc., out there, which are all companies.

Business is something else all together. My dictionary defines it as "the practice of making one's living by engaging in commerce". So people and companies can engage in business.

Unethical decisions for the sake of business are exactly what the word says: unethical, and are decisions taken by people, who can be held responsible for those decisions. If you take an unethical decision, and claim to be doing it for the well-being of the company, you're hiding.

And making money is a means, not a goal.


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## Daniel James

The people who manage companies, the CEOs the Managing Directors have the ability to act morally or ethically...thats their prerogative.

However the point of a business, if you look at it as its own neutral entity, is to make money. You can run one however you like, but at the end of the day if its not making money, its a poor business.

-DJ


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## NYC Composer

Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> The people who manage companies, the CEOs the Managing Directors have the ability to act morally or ethically...thats their prerogative.
> 
> However the point of a business, if you look at it as its own neutral entity, is to make money. You can run one however you like, but at the end of the day if its not making money, its a poor business.
> 
> -DJ



Then Amazon is a poor business. Twitter sucks.


----------



## Guy Rowland

While there's a fascinating debate to be had about whether or not capitalism's first commandment - a business has to return maximum profit to shareholders - contains the seeds of its ultimate own destruction (and I think it does), I think we're rather losing our way here with regard to Nine Volt Audio.

Think of it this way. We're all composers, whose time is spend in roughly equal proportion composing, and complaining about how awful composing is nowadays. If we'd all been good little capitalists, none of us would have gone down this road in the first place, we'd all be working for the major banks. Companies like 9VA are really no different to us individuals - we're all small businesses. In - I hope - all cases we're in this at least in part because its what we enjoy doing, and we just ask to earn a crust while doing it. Whether or not we compose actual notes, or record them and sell them to other people, we're all in the same trade.

We've had some here on the forum abandon composing because it wasn't making them happy. I never heard any cries of "what a terrible business decision that is" - we can all imagine there are other ways to a) earn money and b) be happy, even if we find it a great shame. I don't see any difference here, especially since - as others have pointed out - just keeping a web business ticking over with no maintenance and raking in free cash is a fallacy. IMO it's not particularly helpful to label that person has making poor business decisions or acting based on emotion when we know pretty much no facts, and can easily see how that person's time might otherwise be more productively spent anyway, financially and otherwise. FWIW, I think motivation is the single biggest driver in successful business (and probably happiness) - if there's no motivation left in 9VA and there is in a totally different project with sound prospects, there's a lot to be said for going with the different one.


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## Daniel James

NYC Composer @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> The people who manage companies, the CEOs the Managing Directors have the ability to act morally or ethically...thats their prerogative.
> 
> However the point of a business, if you look at it as its own neutral entity, is to make money. You can run one however you like, but at the end of the day if its not making money, its a poor business.
> 
> -DJ
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then Amazon is a poor business. Twitter sucks.
Click to expand...


I'm not saying the only way to be successful is to be immoral or unethical, if you have the means to do so that's great. That doesn't change the fact that a companies first priority is to make money. Why do you think so many companies outsource work to China? because its cheap...they are not doing to be immoral or unethical, they look for the cheapest way to create the product. And for alot of companies, outsourcing for production is the only financially viable way for the company to _make money_.

If you make your money through ad-revenue, with no product to sell and low overheads, then morality or ethics are irrelevant to how you run your business because it makes money regardless.

Always remember - "Nice guys finish last". Obviously that isn't always the case, but that phrase has stood the test of time for a reason, regardless how how we feel about it.

-DJ


----------



## Daniel James

Guy Rowland @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> While there's a fascinating debate to be had about whether or not capitalism's first commandment - a business has to return maximum profit to shareholders - contains the seeds of its ultimate own destruction (and I think it does), I think we're rather losing our way here with regard to Nine Volt Audio.
> 
> Think of it this way. We're all composers, whose time is spend in roughly equal proportion composing, and complaining about how awful composing is nowadays. If we'd all been good little capitalists, none of us would have gone down this road in the first place, we'd all be working for the major banks. Companies like 9VA are really no different to us individuals - we're all small businesses. In - I hope - all cases we're in this at least in part because its what we enjoy doing, and we just ask to earn a crust while doing it. Whether or not we compose actual notes, or record them and sell them to other people, we're all in the same trade.
> 
> We've had some here on the forum abandon composing because it wasn't making them happy. I never heard any cries of "what a terrible business decision that is" - we can all imagine there are other ways to a) earn money and b) be happy, even if we find it a great shame. I don't see any difference here, especially since - as others have pointed out - just keeping a web business ticking over with no maintenance and raking in free cash is a fallacy. IMO it's not particularly helpful to label that person has making poor business decisions or acting based on emotion when we know pretty much no facts, and can easily see how that person's time might otherwise be more productively spent anyway, financially and otherwise. FWIW, I think motivation is the single biggest driver in successful business (and probably happiness) - if there's no motivation left in 9VA and there is in a totally different project with sound prospects, there's a lot to be said for going with the different one.



I agree with pretty much everything you said there Guy. We are composers, if we wanted to make lots of money we would have done a different job...but that also doesnt change the point, if anything it goes to show the point a bit. We pick and choose what projects we do, how often we do them and in a way the amount we earn is directly proportional to how much we want to earn. I mean if you run composition like a business then there is a good chance you will earn a great deal more....I don't know for sure but I imagine all those HollyWood Blockbusters and AAA Games that came out of Remote Control this year didn't hurt their bank balance.

I also agree with your second point too. People decide they don't want to compose anymore, it happens and of course that a terrible business decision if you run a 'composition business'. The simple fact is if you don't want to run a business anymore, don't run it, thats your call. You can always just take up what you don't want to take seriously as a hobby BUT if you ARE running a business you have to make money, otherwise you can no longer do that business....its the nature of our world, money is king, if you want to do something, someone has to get paid. 

If a company is still making money with zero input I don't personally understand the reason for shutting it down. But hey if you don't really care for the business side and want to move on, thats a personal call....not the best business decision, but your call non the less 

-DJ


----------



## germancomponist

Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> Why do you think so many companies outsource work to China? because its cheap...they are not doing to be immoral or unethical, they look for the cheapest way to create the product. And for alot of companies, outsourcing for production is the only financially viable way for the company to _make money_.



Daniel, think one step further: What will smart business people do if the same standard is available in all countries everywhere and the same money will be earned? How then sets you up against the competition through?

A wide field, eh? Our monetary system is taken basically pathetic!


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## Peter Alexander

I've been running businesses since I was in my twenties, starting with an ad agency. Working in an ad agency was great experience because I got to see all types of businesses and learned how they operated, including radio and TV stations.

People who ultimately do well in business do so first, because they have a passion for what they do. Passion is emotional. It helps drive why you get up and do music or sample libraries every day.

Two things happen with these individuals. They make money in time and they often set new standards of achievement.

People who go into business simply to make money, rarely do. Passion shows and passion is contageous. 

Passion is emotional. Business is emotional. Purchasing is emotional. 

Gut decision making also has some emotion in it.

So does risk takiing. 

TThat's the heart. The head does the marketing, determines pricing value, and looks to see how to protect your products and price them competitively. 

Pricing is about worth. And that too is emotional, especially on the buyer's side.


----------



## Daniel James

germancomponist @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Why do you think so many companies outsource work to China? because its cheap...they are not doing to be immoral or unethical, they look for the cheapest way to create the product. And for alot of companies, outsourcing for production is the only financially viable way for the company to _make money_.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Daniel, think one step further: What will smart business people do if the same standard is available in all countries everywhere and the same money will be earned? How then sets you up against the competition through?
> 
> A wide field, eh? Our monetary system is taken basically pathetic!
Click to expand...


Lol easy if everyone had the same standard of working conditions and the pay was exactly the same the company would manufacture its product closest to its closest distribution center. Which of course should be the closest distance the the people you are selling too. You are saving money on shipping between where its made and where its sold. And notice how I picked the option that would give me the lowest overhead and therefor the most profit....regardless of ethics or morals....sure there may be factories in developing countries that could use the business more but that isn't what a business looks for to make most profit.

-DJ


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## Daniel James

Peter Alexander @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> I've been running businesses since I was in my twenties, starting with an ad agency. Working in an ad agency was great experience because I got to see all types of businesses and learned how they operated, including radio and TV stations.
> 
> People who ultimately do well in business do so first, because they have a passion for what they do. Passion is emotional. It helps drive why you get up and do music or sample libraries every day.
> 
> Two things happen with these individuals. They make money in time and they often set new standards of achievement.
> 
> People who go into business simply to make money, rarely do. Passion shows and passion is contageous.
> 
> Passion is emotional. Business is emotional. Purchasing is emotional.
> 
> Gut decision making also has some emotion in it.
> 
> So does risk takiing.
> 
> TThat's the heart. The head does the marketing, determines pricing value, and looks to see how to protect your products and price them competitively.
> 
> Pricing is about worth. And that too is emotional, especially on the buyer's side.



I am sure there are plenty of successful businesses with passionate and emotionaly driven owners however I don't think that is a requirement for success...for example I imaigine the people who run companies that make toilet brushes wake up every morning thinking FUCK YEAH I'm gunna clean some shitty toilets today. An extreme example but you get what I mean. Sure you can be passionate in your job, but I don't think its a full on requirement for success, good management is...and thats something that can, and is, taught. There are many people in the business world who make the company they work for millions, who couldn't give two shits about what it is they make/create/sell.



> Gut decision making also has some emotion in it.
> 
> So does risk takiing.
> 
> TThat's the heart. The head does the marketing, determines pricing value, and looks to see how to protect your products and price them competitively.



The examples you gave here could be just as/if not more effeciantly done by someone who cares none for the product. There are marketing companies everywhere you look that will sell the shit out of anything they are paid to. And pricing is almost better left to the number crunchers, to see what you need to make in profit for it to be viable to create and where it will be most effective.

-DJ


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## germancomponist

Peter Alexander @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> I've been running businesses since I was in my twenties, starting with an ad agency. Working in an ad agency was great experience because I got to see all types of businesses and learned how they operated, including radio and TV stations.
> 
> People who ultimately do well in business do so first, because they have a passion for what they do. Passion is emotional. It helps drive why you get up and do music or sample libraries every day.
> 
> Two things happen with these individuals. They make money in time and they often set new standards of achievement.
> 
> People who go into business simply to make money, rarely do. Passion shows and passion is contageous.
> 
> Passion is emotional. Business is emotional. Purchasing is emotional.
> 
> Gut decision making also has some emotion in it.
> 
> So does risk takiing.
> 
> TThat's the heart. The head does the marketing, determines pricing value, and looks to see how to protect your products and price them competitively.
> 
> Pricing is about worth. And that too is emotional, especially on the buyer's side.



+1

The way I see it, too.


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## Ed

Well glad to see other people get it 

As further a observation regarding ethical business. Business' that start out with the best and moral intentions as they get bigger and bigger, and more and more powerful, with the original owners either leaving (usually with a lot of money) or having less say due to their share holders or board members, the companies usually tend to towards becoming less ethical and so the bigger a business gets I tend to get more and more skeptical of them, even if they are like Google and have a motto like "don't be evil".

This likely happens not just because of all the people involved that may care less, or not care at all, about the originals visions. but also because when a business is smaller you're dealing more with individuals. At the start of many business' that are now huge (think Apple or something) it was just one or a few friends together. They sold products personally face to face, the customers were real people. As you get bigger and bigger your employees are less personal to you, after a while you never meet them, never hire them, and even the people hiring them you don't deal with because someone you also don't know hired them! Your customers and most of your employees are now just a sea of indistinguishable faces and mere numbers on a page. This is part of human psychology. Its much easier to empathise with people that are closer to you and that you most relate to. Its why if we hear about some massacre or deaths due to some disaster in some country in Africa we might feel thats bad, but we would feel much worse if it happened in a city near us with people we knew about even if the death toll was only a few % in comparison. And even then after a while death tolls just become numbers, and we don't have the capacity to understand it. That's probably the main reason why even with the best intentions the bigger a business gets the more likely it is to be unethical. The nature of business just naturally leads to that eventually. So if you're the CEO of Google or Apple the decision to close a factory or entire office at the loss of maybe thousands of jobs becomes much easier than it may have been at the start if you had only 5 employees and you needed to personally tell a couple they would have to be let go, since you know them personally, you know their families, you can see their faces when you tell them. (EDIT: Oh I'll also add that this is probably also why a politician is more likely to make unethical decisions once they get control over an entire country or state rather than just a small town, even if he or she had good intentions to start with.)

Capitalism works, its what got us from a horse and cart to skyscrapers, MRI scanners, landing on the moon and the internet. But the logical conclusion of business without our own ethics to hold it in check does not align with the best interests of the planet.

.... aaaaaand..... thats why NVA shouldn't close its doors for good. lol ....BOOM o=? (jk, this is kind of off topic to NVA)


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## EastWest Lurker

We all get to decide what kind of businessman we want to be. Size is not the determinative factor, personal character is.


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## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> We all get to decide what kind of businessman we want to be. Size is not the determinative factor, personal character is.



Whats that got to do with what I said? Or are you just talking?


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## EastWest Lurker

Ed @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> We all get to decide what kind of businessman we want to be. Size is not the determinative factor, personal character is.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Whats that got to do with what I said? Or are you just talking?
Click to expand...

 
You wrote: "That's probably the main reason why even with the best intentions the bigger a business gets the more likely it is to be unethical. The nature of business just naturally leads to that eventually."

It doesn't _naturally_ lead to it, people decide to allow it to lead to it.


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## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> You wrote: "That's probably the main reason why even with the best intentions the bigger a business gets the more likely it is to be unethical. The nature of business just naturally leads to that eventually."
> 
> It doesn't _naturally_ lead to it, people decide to allow it to lead to it.



This is where a picture of Picard face palming would be be appropriate.

I just explained the psychological reason why a business that gets bigger and bigger might lead to it becoming more unethical, and that this psychology is also represented in various other aspects of our human psychology. Understanding why business' and people are unethical allows us to understand possible solutions to that. We can't work out the best solution to a problem unless we fully understand what the problem is first.

Because the purpose of business (as a capitalist concept) is to generate profit, then without our own ethics (IE. what you just wrote- "_people decide to allow it to lead to it_") then it will naturally lead to unethical behavior. So, imagine a company filled with sociopaths devoid of any empathy, following the goal of business to its logical conclusion leads to them making what we would consider the most possible unethical business decisions because they will do whatever they need to do to lead to extra profits.

Its like you're just addicted to taking one line or a few words out of my posts and just pretending the rest of it doesn't exist. If you do it again, and Im sure you wil,, Im just going to ignore you because I think anyone with any sense can read what I wrote and get it, and if they don't, I'd rather bash my head against a wall till I hear it cracking than try to dumb it down any further, because either you don't want to understand, or you have some kind of disorder..... (o)


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## EastWest Lurker

You say so many things, so much of it contradictory, that there is simply no way to deal with it holistically. One can only take the more egregious statements and challenge them.

EVERYONE knows success leads to temptation. We don't need YOU to explain the psychology of it.

What we need is to encourage each other, and our children, and frankly anyone who will listen, not to yield to the temptation of only factoring into our lives how much money our business can generate.

I am not saying you are advocating this, but you sure as hell deemphasize it. As apparently does DJ.

Because while Capitalism is a good system, as of late it has largely degenerated into an amoral mess that is leading to the elimination of the middle class.


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## Ed

Nothing I said is contradictory Jay, you just need to learn to try and listen to what people actually say, rather that decide what they are saying and then just say that its a contradiction when they say something that doesn't fit your strawman version.



> I am not saying you are advocating this, but you sure as hell deemphasize it. As apparently does DJ.



Actually myself and DJ have said the complete opposite, myself many times. And don't start quote-mining again to act like this is not the case. Understand what context is. So once more you somehow manage to glean the exact opposite of what people have written. I have merely warned about the nature of human psychology and where the capitalist purpose of business naturally leads is not a place we should allow ourselves to go. I am not deemphasizing the importance of ethics, on the contrary! I am explicitly emphasizing the importance of it. *You can't truly understand how important ethics and limits are on the capitalist system unless you understand just how destructive its potential is if none exist. * To do that means recognising human nature, human psychology and accepting the nature of business. Maybe this is all too deep for a composers forum.



> Because while Capitalism is a good system, as of late it has largely degenerated into an amoral mess that is leading to the elimination of the middle class.



So once again, exactly what I said.... Capitalism works. However without ethics and checks and balances to limit it, it is a system that if left to progress to its logical conclusion without such things does not align with the best interests of humanity or the environment. Everytime I say something like this you seem to read the opposite.
Can't really say more than this if you still don't get it, nothing will help. I suggest you try reading again my posts if you genuinely want to understand. ~o)


----------



## Sopranos

o-[][]-o 

Drinking and cheers are the best business practices.


----------



## Daniel James

Lol I am not sure where you got the idea I am advocating for immoral or bed ethical practices...particularly when I stated many times, explicitly, that I don't like the way things are! ....that doesn't change the fact they are there.

Look at it like this, as humans we should always strive for the most ethical and moral standpoint, I don't think any one would argue this. However the larger a company grows the greater the overhead....which means in order to maintain a good viable profit the company needs to balance how much goes out with how much comes in...this normally ends up being outsourcing of labor to places where it is much cheaper. Notice how many of the larger companies have manufacturing in China or Malaysia, how many call centers are based in India. At the end of the day it does come down to the balance sheet.

Now lets stop acting like me and Ed invented this system or are advocating it. Its a shitty system, absolutely....Burying your head in the sand and pretending that that world is a nicer place than it is will get you nowhere. Acknowledge the state of affairs and aim to rise above.

-DJ


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## germancomponist

It is a wide field, as I always say. The whole world coud be better or much better. Unfortunately, the greed destroyed so much! And if this continues, where will it end?


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## EastWest Lurker

Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> Now lets stop acting like me and Ed invented this system or are advocating it. Its a shitty system, absolutely....Burying your head in the sand and pretending that that world is a nicer place than it is will get you nowhere. Acknowledge the state of affairs and aim to rise above.
> 
> -DJ



I certainly am not accusing either of you of advocating it. I am accusing you of accepting it as a natural progression of businesses as they get bigger. and only half-heartedly condemning it. It isn't natural, it is just putting one's own needs ahead of the greater good.

We can aim to be Ben Cohen or we can aim to be Donald Trump. We each get to decide.


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## Guy Rowland

Jay - watch The Corporation. It's on Neflix. Then tell me that larger companies don't tend towards reduced ethics, which is the argument here. Indeed, the qualities that make for a successful corporation are that of the sociopath. Not that its inevitable or that there haven't been noble exceptions, but that's the broad tendency.

I think this thread is doomed to stay off the 9VA topic, despite Ed's brave if slightly unconvincing attempt to join the dots and declare keeping 9VA open would be good for the planet in some way. I may have missed some of the finer points of that logic myself, to be fair.


----------



## EastWest Lurker

Guy Rowland @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> Jay - watch The Corporation. It's on Neflix. Then tell me that larger companies don't tend towards reduced ethics, which is the argument here. Indeed, the qualities that make for a successful corporation are that of the sociopath. Not that its inevitable or that there haven't been noble exceptions, but that's the broad tendency.
> 
> I think this thread is doomed to stay off the 9VA topic, despite Ed's brave if slightly unconvincing attempt to join the dots and declare keeping 9VA open would be good for the planet in some way. I may have missed some of the finer points of that logic myself, to be fair.



I don't need to watch it to know that I agree it is the tendency. But I also agree that it is not inevitable.

So what do we do? Do we just sadly shake our head sadly and say that "that is just the way it is" or do we repeatedly condemn it? 

I choose the latter and whenever possible I do business with those who care and avoid those who do not care. It has a small effect I know, but it is a start.


----------



## Ed

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> I am accusing you of accepting it as a natural progression of businesses as they get bigger.



One more time I shall repeat myself... The ultimate purpose of "business" (as a concept) is to profit as much as possible. That may not be someones personal ambition of their own business or their own lives, maybe they are happy with only a certain amount of profit, or just breaking even, but business as a capitalist concept is still only concerned with profit. How much of a success it is depends on the degree. That is why it is by definition impossible to have a "successful business" if it is not making any money. A "successful business" --- by definition --- is one that is profitable, it says nothing about how ethical that business is or how criminal that business is. You can have a very *"successful criminal enterprise*", and people that talk about "successful criminals" aren't in any way advocating criminal behaviour because they said they were successful. Saying that a criminal was very successful over the years is not deemphasizing their crimes or imply any kind of moral judgement either way. 

Understanding why business' and people are unethical allows us to form the best possible solutions to that behaviour. We can't work out the best solution to a problem unless we fully understand what the problem is first. Putting your fingers in your ears and covering your eyes and pretending reality isnt the way it is doesn't lead to a better solution. In fact this is how you should make most decisions, with your head, not your feelings, because often your feelings are wrong. (_Even in matters concerning decisions about love you should use your head, like the decision to get married or have a child shouldn't just be based on how you feel. That could lead you to make the worst decisions of your life._)

Unless we know why people have aberrant social behaviours in the first place, understanding human nature, how are we going to figure out the best way to stop them or deter them? We have learnt a lot about human psychology in the last 100 years, especially when we look at wars and the terrible things humans have done to each other. We could have just called them evil and moved on, but we actually did tests to find out what it is that might cause the human mind to do these things. Doing those tests and asking those questions is not endorsing or deemphasising what those people did. It might be a hard question to ask ourselves, at what point could we do something that we would currently consider unthinkable? But do we want to know the truth or just believe a beautiful lie? Thankfully enough people did want to know the truth. What we learned is that these weren't just "evil" people, and that we're all so different today and we can forget about it. We learned that it may be an unsettling idea to think how little things would need to change before you could get ordinary people to do terrible things, but its necessary to understand, so that we know how important it is to not allow it to happen again. 

If you don't understand that when taken to its logical conclusion, the nature of business and capitalism is at the expense of the environment and life on this planet, you can't know how important it is to be mindful about putting checks and balances on it. If you don't understand how bad things could get, you don't know the importance of legislation to stop business from behaving in unethical ways. You have mentioned the recent banking failures several times, and is exactly the point; it was precisely because we were not aware of or appreciated the fact that it could get this bad without safe guards in place that lead to it happening in the first place. Personal ethics did not stop the banks from behaving this way, legislation was necessary but didn't exist. The banking crisis occurred because of greed. Short term gain for some almost led to the collapse of the whole system. Now governments are going to put tighter restrictions (or they should) on banks so this is far less likely to happen again. That legislation needs to be based on an an understanding of exactly why it happened to begin with as much information as possible, and no amount if righteous indignation about it will help, which apparently is your only solution to everything.



> and only half-heartedly condemning it. It isn't natural, it is just putting one's own needs ahead of the greater good.



Based on what I've written I don't know how I could possibly condemn it any stronger. :lol: 

Now, that really is final. If you insist on saying we believe things we don't I'm going to just have to assume you're just nuts. Was fun though.

*edit:* Ahh I see you're still in your own naive little world. 
Stay in wonderland Jay, if you close your eyes and believe hard enough I'm sure it feels like you're standing on top the intellectual and moral high ground, where simplistic righteous indignation is enough to solve all our problems :wink:


----------



## EastWest Lurker

You are making it more complicated than it is. You want to reduce it? You make unethical behavior less profitable and have more consequences.

A kid downloads software illegally. He shows it to his parents. The parents say, "that is illegal and immoral and you just lost the use of your computer for a week."

That is how you eventually reduce it.

The government sees a corporation acting in ways that are unethical. The legislature passes whatever laws are necessary to prohibit it and then prosecutors prosecute it and /or fine the living crap out of them.

That is how you eventually reduce it.

Also, we as consumers say I won't shop at Walmart i.e.even though they have a lower price on the item I want than Costco because Costco is more ethical.

That is how you eventually reduce it.

That is how you eventually stop it.


----------



## Ed

Guy Rowland @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> I think this thread is doomed to stay off the 9VA topic, despite Ed's brave if slightly unconvincing attempt to join the dots and declare keeping 9VA open would be good for the planet in some way. I may have missed some of the finer points of that logic myself, to be fair.



hehehe. :D 

I agree its not got anything to do with being good for the planet lol. 
This is a spin off because a couple of people decided to pretend to not understand that emotions are not usually a good basis for decision making, especially in business. I didnt want to have to dumb it down to this ridiculous level and for so long, but you know me.... 

Originally... it was on topic. It was my theory that because I couldnt find any logical reason for the decision to close the entire business and not sell the libraries again at all, and based on what Kyle had had said previously, I suspected the motivation was one of irrational emotional defiance, rather than the best business decision. I'm still open to an explanation that makes sense that isn't that, but that's my theory for now.


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## David Story

Resisting negative tendencies makes for good character. There's little difference in character between a schoolyard bully and a monopolist CEO. 

Everyone has positive and negative tendencies, they are just easier to see when played out on a large scale.

Ben Cohen, Eli Broad, and J. K. Rowling took the high road and gave back, developed a reputation for being good people and good businesspeople. Though their businesses are very large.

There is good evidence that too- big -to -fail is a bad proposition for everyone. Limits on growth of a single business makes sense. But that is more than intentional bad behavior.

That also part of why I support small businesses like Nine Volt. I think they have good products. I'm taking a look again now that there's a sale.


----------



## Daryl

Unless they are a sociopath everyone has a moral/ethical line that they won't cross. However, where this line is depends very much upon the individual. In the end all any of us can do is live our lives the best we can, IMO, and try to do as little harm to others as possible.

D


----------



## sin(x)

At this point, I kind of wish Kyle would come to the thread and say “hey guys, it's because I'm joining a buddhist monastery next week”. That'd be a kick-ass punchline.


----------



## pinki

Ed just shouting louder and louder actually makes your arguments look incredibly weak. 
All this "CANT YOU GEDDIT..." way of getting your points across makes me think you don't really believe what you are saying. Sorry but that's my impression.

Jay has made some vey good points. You should actually listen and stop arguing semantics.

Personally "capitalism" is for me an American word ....a specific type of commerce where profit is the only goal. I largely blame America for this phenomena. Business however is something different and has taken place since humans first walked on the planet and there are many many different ways of conducting business.


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## NYC Composer

sin(x) @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> At this point, I kind of wish Kyle would come to the thread and say “hey guys, it's because I'm joining a buddhist monastery next week”. That'd be a kick-ass punchline.



Or "screw this sampling crap, I've put a little money aside- I intend to stay drunk and screw for the rest of my life."

Wait- that's me. Never mind.


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## Peter Alexander

> If we'd all been good little capitalists, none of us would have gone down this road in the first place, we'd all be working for the major banks.



Guy - from my perspective as a Yank, I think you're missing it.

The opportunity we enjoy today is that if we're passionate about something, we can pursue to see if it's possible to make a living at it. In music, it certainly is. 

But the place where many artists fall and scuttle themselves is in not examining _how_ you make money in music. The core is CCL - contracts, copyrights, and licensing. To this you can add performance/concert income and merchandising where appropriate. 

In non-artistic terms, to win, you must risk and sell your self (but not your soul). 

Then you must go one extra step. You must learn how to invest your profits (royalties and licensing income). Very few successful music people have large companies like Trump. But what they can have are sizable estates which includes real estate and stocks.

In my twenties I had a very successful ad agency career going that I could have continued with. I enjoyed being "David Ogilvy" and I still have my TV commercial reel. I write excellent marketing plans and although it's a bit rusty, I can still write excellent sales copy when I get away and focus. 

But it wasn't where my heart (passion) was. So a few months after I turned 30, I got rid of everything, and moved to Los Angeles.

No regrets.


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## NYC Composer

Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> NYC Composer @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Daniel James @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> The people who manage companies, the CEOs the Managing Directors have the ability to act morally or ethically...thats their prerogative.
> 
> However the point of a business, if you look at it as its own neutral entity, is to make money. You can run one however you like, but at the end of the day if its not making money, its a poor business.
> 
> -DJ
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then Amazon is a poor business. Twitter sucks.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'm not saying the only way to be successful is to be immoral or unethical, if you have the means to do so that's great. That doesn't change the fact that a companies first priority is to make money. Why do you think so many companies outsource work to China? because its cheap...they are not doing to be immoral or unethical, they look for the cheapest way to create the product. And for alot of companies, outsourcing for production is the only financially viable way for the company to _make money_.
> 
> If you make your money through ad-revenue, with no product to sell and low overheads, then morality or ethics are irrelevant to how you run your business because it makes money regardless.
> 
> Always remember - "Nice guys finish last". Obviously that isn't always the case, but that phrase has stood the test of time for a reason, regardless how how we feel about it.
> 
> -DJ
Click to expand...


DJ- Twitter and Amazon lose money. Scads of it. Just FYI. My statement wasn't about ethics, it was about moneymaking. They may make big money someday. They ain't now, not net.

I self-manage a small portfolio of stocks- the curse of that is you're forced to read K-10s, P&L statements, etc, and learn all sorts of abbreviations and acronyms- P/E, CAGR, ROI, , they're practically endless. Anyway, look up the P/E of Amazon stock someday for an educational experience. Look at their gross revenues and their net earnings. One of the world's biggest retailers, right? They must be making beaucoup profits, yes?

I don't think Steve Jobs gave a crap about money except as one of a dozen measures of dick size. He wanted to change the world, and he wanted to control that change. There are all sort of motivations for business and all sorts of measures of success. How many European artists and composers died poor? Their business models sucked- for the first couple hundred years. They're doing very well now except for that whole death thing.


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## NYC Composer

Hmmm. How about this:

1. The biggest driver for a vast majority of businesses is profit.
2. Ethics and best practices may enter into the thinking behind a business, usually as secondary considerations. In fewer instances, they may be primary considerations.
3. There may be other drivers behind starting a business (such as a personal passion or compelling interest) but without profit or deep pockets and a long time frame, that business is likely to fail.


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## Krzys

Thanks for the closing out deal Nine Volt....and the best of luck in your future endeavours.

Regards

K


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## KingIdiot

I need an alter ego that develops sample libraries very fast and churns them out and fucks everyone because money is the first priority.

then I can post on here about how much of an asshole he and his company is, and have the best of worlds. Of unethical empathy with a side of D.I.D.


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## Ed

NYC Composer @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> DJ- Twitter and Amazon lose money. Scads of it. Just FYI. My statement wasn't about ethics, it was about moneymaking. They may make big money someday. They ain't now, not net.



I've suddenly got a huge deadline and a lot of work to do, so I just wanted to pop back and say this.
Im not sure why you seem to have gone from accepting that the primary purpose of business is to profit earlier, to what seems like to be doing now arguing the opposite, or at least partly. 
Sorry if I've misinterpreted you, but that's how it reads to me. 

At any rate you aren't really representing Amazon's state fairly, especially considering the context you brought it up with Dan.

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons- ... nd-2013-10
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520801/no-stores-no-salesmen-no-profit-no-problem-for-amazon/ (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/52 ... or-amazon/)

So the reason why Amazon continues not to show profits despite making *huge amounts of revenue* that is sky rocketing above the competition, is because they keep expanding their infrastructure in investments. Just about every business will have to invest money into itself and operate at a loss before it can start making profits. Amazon claims all it needs to do is stop investing and it will start making big profits. Whether this is true or its just going to be a bubble that actually will burst doesn't really matter. Their aim is to still make a profit, so its still totally correct that business' primary purpose, including Amazons, is to profit. It is fair to question the long term success of Amazon as a business, but by definition we will determine the success or failure of Amazon based on its profit margins. You seem to paint the picture that Amazon exists as a business that doesn't make any profit and loses lots of money, and that people are okay with this setup as a "business" model.

I haven't looked up Twitter, but if they are losing money and have no plan to stop losing money then they would indeed be a failed business, and Twitter will have to shut down, or another company will have to buy it and take it on. Again, a business has to be profit for it to be a success. Sometimes it may take some time to know if a business is successful, and sometimes a business can go from being a success to being a failure, but we base the success or failure of business on its its ability to proft. It wouldn't make a single bit of difference how much Steve Jobs wanted to change the world if he didn't create business that profited, Apple just wouldn't exist.


----------



## Ed

pinki @ Tue Nov 19 said:


> Ed just shouting louder and louder actually makes your arguments look incredibly weak.



Im not just "shouting louder", though I have had to repeat myself a hundred times in different ways because Jay habitually insists on telling me I am saying the opposite of what I am saying. Sorry but that is rather irritating, and you cant have a conversation with someone that decides what you are saying, rather than trying to understand what you are saying. He tells me I dont make sense because I say something that doesn't fit his strawman and then decides I must be contradicting myself, rather than consider his understanding must be wrong.



> All this "CANT YOU GEDDIT..." way of getting your points across makes me think you don't really believe what you are saying. Sorry but that's my impression.



I never just said "CANT YOU GEDDIT...". I was very detailed in my reasoning that was promptly ignored and a single line or phrase would be taken out of context and claimed to mean something else. What I would say (and Dan too) is things like....... _why do you keep arguing against things no one is saying?_



> Jay has made some vey good points. You should actually listen and stop arguing semantics.



Wow irony. 



> Personally "capitalism" is for me an American word



Wow..... An American word? :| ..... It has nothing to do with America.

Educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

If you dont even know what capitalism is, no wonder you don't understand anything I wrote and feel more connected to Jay's outlook of simplistic righteous indignation as a way to solve everything. 
I'm really quite busy now for the next 2 weeks so maybe if you learn something, anything, about business, after that we could have a conversation.

*edit*:...to save myself posting another new reply.... pinki, it doesnt matter what capitalism means "to you". We've already seen Jay and a Gusfmm use their own personal definitions of words like "good", "success", and "nonsensical", and also "business". Now you've introduced "capitalism" as a word you feel like re-defining for yourself. You can't redefine the words and then say Im wrong because Im not using the words like you do. 

Your personal definition doesn't make sense anyway...you say "to you" Capitalism is an American word but I wonder why you think that helps, you accurately said that Capitalism is the pursuit of profit, which is still nothing to do with America. So the onmly way you can get out of this now is to redefine what "profit" means. ....I dont know how you can think with all those knots you tied yourself in. 

You also defend Jay's behaviour which is to take one phrase or sentence out of context and tell me Im saying something I'm not. Daniel James had this happen to him on the other page as well. 

And Jay, if you happen to see this... you may be able to write a coherent article, but that doesn't mean you are able to effectively argue with someone who doesn't agree with you. It is not good etiquette to continually tell someone they actually believe the opposite of what they do, tell them they are contradicting themselves, and then ignore them when they explain to you why its not a contradiction


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## Gusfmm

Ed @ Wed Nov 20 said:


> If you dont even know what capitalism is, no wonder you don't understand anything I wrote and feel more connected to Jay's outlook of simplistic righteous indignation as a way to solve everything.
> 
> I'm really quite busy now for the next 2 weeks so maybe if you learn something, anything, about business, after that we could have a conversation.




Is there a ban button somewhere around here? This must be one of the most bizarre thread on VIControl, at least that I've witnessed. 

I've been containing myself, but your arrogant ignorancy is just overwhelming. There is so much to tear down on page 5, one can't help but struggle with where to start. 

You have defined what makes sense or not, what is good or bad, that ethics and emotions are but not, but wait yes, or just one matters, or not.... BUT ON THE CONTRARY!.... Then you talk about revenue, then profits, almost implying intercheangeability or some form of direct relationship, then huge this, low that. I have no doubt that your understanding and experience are very limited and basic, no wonder why you try to explain "what makes sense" or what "success" is with an on-line dictionary reference, or using such simile of a "successful criminal" in a pseudo reductio ad absurdum fashion. You've dared to define business success under trivial terms that only make sense to you. You've flip-flopped your discourse on maximizing profits various times, albeit in a cloudy and progressive manner that unnecessarily takes almost three pages of reading to fully appreciate. But let's not forget your thesis about the underlying reasons for 9VA to shut down, and pretention of substantiating it with some form of cheap psycological nonsense as if trying to advise Kyle that he's made the wrong decision. 

And as if not enough, you feel empowered to bully people around, just because???

Is there an end to all this? Or is it that people around got to get used to you?


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## quantum7

Ed @ Wed Nov 20 said:


> pinki @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Personally "capitalism" is for me an American word
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Wow..... An American word? :| ..... It has nothing to do with America.
> 
> Educate yourself:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
> 
> If you dont even know what capitalism is, no wonder you don't understand anything I wrote and feel more connected to Jay's outlook of simplistic righteous indignation as a way to solve everything.
Click to expand...


Well said, Ed!


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## pinki

Capitalism _for me_ (quote unquote)is an American word....

It's the *for me* bit you missed....I'm aware of Wikipedia's definition. 


And you keep accusing everyone of misunderstanding you?? :? :? [/i]


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## germancomponist

Capitalism in its current form will not survive. The war of the super-rich against the poor has already begun and is growing worldwide poverty. Who does not recognize that does not want it!

If morality and ethics is gone, then everything goes down the drain.


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## EastWest Lurker

Ed, there is a reason I get hired to write books and columns. Whether people agree or disagree with my views, I know how to communicate them clearly and concisely.

You, IMHO, lack that ability . I am honestly not looking to play "gotcha" with you but your posts are long and seemingly contradictory. I have no doubt that you do not see them as such, but they are. I am sure there is a cogent point of view in there somewhere, but it is just very difficult to discern.

Look at how well NYC composer distilled his views in his last post. That is how you communicate, not just spew.

i am sure you will simply dismiss this, which is a shame, but while I can lead a horse to water, I cannot make him boogaloo


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## RasmusFors

This thread is filled with some very unmature post, low beneath the standard of this great forum. :|
I've got nothing against a good discussion, as long as it's civilised and free from personal attacks, but this is derailing in some kind of narrow minded fight to the death


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## todo10

Frederick here wearing admin hat...

Getting into heated debate is one thing ... but publicly threatening and being abusive towards a member of this forum is quite another. 

The one line post attacking Quantum 7 has been removed. I've also moved this thread from Sample Talk to Off Topics. 

That said, I'd rather not ever have to delete posts or kick people from threads. Gotten too many complaints to ignore however.


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## chimuelo

Your rare reprimands are deeply appreciated by me.
Folks can always come back and edit a post on this forum and it's not even
marked as edited, so the chances to look back later with a cool head in a 
way where forgive and forget can take place are offered.

Now it will be a definate forget.


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## Lex

I find this thread really funny in a way. We don't know the reasons for 9V closing down. In order to make an intelligent discussion weather closing down is smart business decision or not we would have to have detailed insight in their business and their professional goals/aspirations, and we don't. Typically for composers everyone made their assumptions and now sticks to them. There are many more possible scenarios for 9v doing what they are doing right now then that are mentioned here, but what is the point of making assumptions when they will not be confirmed or disputed?

Capitalism. The idea mentioned here couple of times that capitalism is defined as making as much profit as possible is simply wrong and misinformed. That is definition of greed not capitalism. Capitalism's main point is that the means of production and distribution are owned by private persons and/or private corporations and not the government. The profit in capitalism is important because development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market. In my opinion we are still relatively far from living in capitalism, because the market is not free, and the governments are not unbiased. If anything, most governments are being run as capitalistic businesses, with promises as the product and power as currency.

If you think about greed as primary driving factor in a business, as it has been suggested few times here, then capitalism is not the best choice really, feudal system or good old slavery will beat capitalism any time and give you much more personal profit then capitalism ever could.

alex


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## germancomponist

+1

A good post, Lex!


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## NYC Composer

Ed @ Wed Nov 20 said:


> NYC Composer @ Tue Nov 19 said:
> 
> 
> 
> DJ- Twitter and Amazon lose money. Scads of it. Just FYI. My statement wasn't about ethics, it was about moneymaking. They may make big money someday. They ain't now, not net.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I've suddenly got a huge deadline and a lot of work to do, so I just wanted to pop back and say this.
> Im not sure why you seem to have gone from accepting that the primary purpose of business is to profit earlier, to what seems like to be doing now arguing the opposite, or at least partly.
> Sorry if I've misinterpreted you, but that's how it reads to me.
> 
> At any rate you aren't really representing Amazon's state fairly, especially considering the context you brought it up with Dan.
> 
> http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons- ... nd-2013-10
> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520801/no-stores-no-salesmen-no-profit-no-problem-for-amazon/ (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/52 ... or-amazon/)
> 
> So the reason why Amazon continues not to show profits despite making *huge amounts of revenue* that is sky rocketing above the competition, is because they keep expanding their infrastructure in investments. Just about every business will have to invest money into itself and operate at a loss before it can start making profits. Amazon claims all it needs to do is stop investing and it will start making big profits. Whether this is true or its just going to be a bubble that actually will burst doesn't really matter. Their aim is to still make a profit, so its still totally correct that business' primary purpose, including Amazons, is to profit. It is fair to question the long term success of Amazon as a business, but by definition we will determine the success or failure of Amazon based on its profit margins. You seem to paint the picture that Amazon exists as a business that doesn't make any profit and loses lots of money, and that people are okay with this setup as a "business" model.
> 
> I haven't looked up Twitter, but if they are losing money and have no plan to stop losing money then they would indeed be a failed business, and Twitter will have to shut down, or another company will have to buy it and take it on. Again, a business has to be profit for it to be a success. Sometimes it may take some time to know if a business is successful, and sometimes a business can go from being a success to being a failure, but we base the success or failure of business on its its ability to proft. It wouldn't make a single bit of difference how much Steve Jobs wanted to change the world if he didn't create business that profited, Apple just wouldn't exist.
Click to expand...


Amazon loses money. Profit=making money. Twitter loses money. Profit=making money.

I swear to god, you would argue with a stone against positions you have already taken, just for the sake of arguing. I've been an investor for 25 years. You? I didn't say they didn't generate revenues. I said they lose money. Look back over 10 years of Amazon, send me another link disproving that. You know very little about your own positions. Possible future profits do not equal present profits. You need to chill occasionally and admit someone else has a point....though it seems unlikely.


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## madbulk

Wow. This got even sillier. And shame on me for checking back in! LOL.

Nobody gets to thousands of posts on any board on any subject who didn't like an argument for its own sake. You can both be right.

Nobody should go all or nothing on labeling it irrational to do the seemingly irrational. On rare occasion it's the better path. And on every level, you never know what you and we don't know about this.

I'm surprised he'd shut it down too. I assume it's because of something I can't know. All I know is he's getting my 200 bucks.

AND ED, If, as I suspect, you never typed 'irrational' at any point, I agree that I'm precisely wrong to put that word in your mouth.


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## AC986

germancomponist @ Wed Nov 20 said:


> Capitalism in its current form will not survive. The war of the super-rich against the poor has already begun and is growing worldwide poverty.



I think that started here about 1000 years ago and is still going Gunther. And will probably go on for another 1000 years. On the other hand, the fight against overpopulation, particularly against dirty trash that seem to think that children are a commodity that offers vast sums paid in welfare and benefits with the more you breed, the more you receive, is certainly coming to a head.

Of course when that goes wrong and you don't get what you want, you can always kill them off, like the guy in Derby did recently. That was because of capitalism right? Poor people, as you describe them, absolutely love capitalism and they generally make it work to their benefit.


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## JonFairhurst

Lex,

I liked your post, except for this part:


Lex @ Thu Nov 21 said:


> In my opinion we are still relatively far from living in capitalism, because the market is not free, and the governments are not unbiased.



That's like claiming that we've never had communism because Lenin didn't implement Marx's ideas in pure form. Or maybe early 1940s Germany was far from fascism because the leader didn't get to fully implement his vision.

Capitalism *needs* government in order to fully function. We need government to enforce property rights, combat fraud, create limits that stop markets from self-destructing, etc. 

Keep in mind that according to Adam Smith, a core requirement for a healthy, free market is access to information. Fresh fish should cost more than three day old fish but that won't happen if fishmongers can lie and cheat without consequences. The US Federal Trade Commission might make trade more challenging but its labeling and truth in advertising rules are part of enforcing a free market.

A common misconception is that a free market means a free-for-all. 

Consider sport. Football (World and American) is very successful as a pure competition (and entertainment/advertising vehicle) precisely because it is heavily regulated. Take away all rules and one team can throw hand grenades (or just kick the opposition's knees) and win without skill. People will pay to see real football. They won't pay to see a 100% free-for-all sport - at least not for very long.

Competition must be harnessed to create a truly free and constructive market. Remove the harness and competition becomes a destructive force by definition. And what do you get then? feudalism and slavery. Like football without rules, that only benefits the last man standing.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Isms don't work in the real world.


----------



## Synesthesia

I think the International Society of Musicians would disagree.


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## snowleopard

Just came on here to wish Nine Volt a better future, whatever endeavors they pursue. 

Otherwise, what a mess of a thread - arguments that should have happened elsewhere I think.


----------



## Brobdingnagian

snowleopard @ Fri Nov 22 said:


> Just came on here to wish Nine Volt a better future, whatever endeavors they pursue.
> 
> Otherwise, what a mess of a thread - arguments that should have happened elsewhere I think.



Couldn't agree more.

Such a shame. I wish Kyle all the best.

-B


----------



## paulmatthew

snowleopard @ Fri Nov 22 said:


> Just came on here to wish Nine Volt a better future, whatever endeavors they pursue.
> 
> Otherwise, what a mess of a thread - arguments that should have happened elsewhere I think.



+1 Agreed


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## JonFairhurst

What? The thread moves to "Off Topics" and is _now_ back to the original subject??? Go figure!


----------



## NYC Composer

I don't completely agree that the thread went so far off the rails. Yes, it became somewhat of a symposium on what constitutes "success" in business, but without Kyle checking in as to his motivations, there's not much else to it other than to say "sad to see a talented developer shutting down his site." The thread title itself invited speculation.


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## G.R. Baumann

Whooaa...

Kyle, in case you read that, I am very sorry to hear that you are closing down operations. Onto new shores I hope, and not a forced upon decision of any kind.

@ Rest of World
There are successfull business men, and there are fat cats, there are politicians (getting very rare though) with a vision, and there are corrupted politicos, there are honest people and there are *!%*@£^£@*ers who slit your throat for a penny.

Welcome to the real world.


----------



## Udo

I just received an email from Kyle in response to the query I mentioned earlier (about credit I still have with 9VA).

He didn't mention anything about the reason(s) for closing shop. Maybe it was forced on him, e.g. there's a liquidator involved.

I did mention this thread and all the speculation to him.


----------



## Guy Rowland

Now we know. Received today on the 9va mailing list:



> Doesn’t the guitar deserve its own audio loop company?
> 
> Why would someone buy a loop library that sounds like a dude in his bedroom recording a collection of six-string noodling under the title “Groove Funk Epic Cinematic Electric-Acoustic, Acoustic-Electric Guitar Grab Bag,” sold on a website that deals primarily in drum or synth libraries? That never made sense to me.
> 
> My name is Kyle Z, and I owned and operated Nine Volt Audio.
> 
> With a decade of experience in design, creation and production of dozens of award-winning sample and loop collections, I am excited to announce In Session Audio, a new company that is focused on creating guitar-based loop libraries.
> 
> Okay… so you’re thinking “Wow! That’s not too different from what you did before.” And you’re right. Sort of. We will still offer top-notch, quality products. But why concentrate solely on guitar? There are a few reasons:
> 
> 1) Guitar has been my passion since I was a teenager and I wanted to get back to my core instrument.
> 
> 2) Over the past few years, sightings of new, exceptional guitar loop libraries have been rare.
> 
> So, with the help of a four man team, I began to envision, design and create exceptional guitar performances and recordings to create a new standard of library.
> 
> You might be asking “Why close Nine Volt Audio or why not continue under the 9VA name?” Primarily, the reason for shutting down 9VA and starting In Session Audio is that I felt that the change in product line focus was so drastic that it warranted a new identity.
> 
> I also believe that 9VA’s products were designed and created under very strict, albeit self-imposed, standards which were dictated by my BPM Flex Series method of loop preparation. Working this way prevented instruments from covering their full expressive and articulation range and often necessitated putting process ahead of performance. In Session Audio will not be bound by these sorts of limitations.
> 
> At the core, the In Session Audio team strives to create investment-quality products to our community. In the coming weeks we will launch our new site with our first product: Soundtrack Acoustic Guitar. I am so excited to get it into musicians’ hands!
> 
> I owe much gratitude to the legions of Nine Volt Audio customers for joining us on this journey and we hope that you will continue to be a part of our story.
> 
> Best,
> Kyle Z
> In Session Audio


----------



## Dan Mott

Just got the email aswell. Good to see Kyle still going at it in the sample world. Very generous guy.


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## Justus

In case you haven't seen this:

http://insessionaudio.com/products/soun ... tic-guitar


----------

