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Adachi: Important update, 8Dio threatens reviewers and competing devs

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Lionel Schmitt said:
For me it's rather about the fact that the producers of the libraries (probably often not Troels and or T.... don't remember the exact name haha) will be more affected by a boycott than the overlords.
Even if I have a problem with the boss of a company, I think they'd have to do much worse than what was mentioned here for me to also drag the works down.
Same with the Spitfire / Christian subject. Regardless of what ones stance is - the libraries tend to be produced by other people who have nothing to do with the situation.
So they'd be dragged down by a boycott much harder than the (most likely) filthy rich overlords.
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8Dio pays their developers very little to begin with, so your money would be going almost entirely to Troels and co. The proposed price that Troels balked at as a completely unreasonable amount for an overhauled and public-releasable version of Adachi (which would have taken several months' more scripting and editing work in addition to what was already done on it) was less than 1/3rd of what I am paid elsewhere for projects of far lesser scope.

The reason 8Dio's libraries have earned such a reputation for being half-baked and full of weird oversights is because they would rather do endless 90% off firesales to move copies out the door instead of actually investing in development. And that is not just my experience, but something that I was warned about by multiple other developers in the industry before I ever tried making a deal with them. I just foolishly thought "well, maybe it'll be different this time" and tried anyway.
 
Sarah Mancuso said:
8Dio pays their developers very little to begin with, so your money would be going almost entirely to Troels and co. The proposed price that Troels balked at as a completely unreasonable amount for an overhauled and public-releasable version of Adachi (which would have taken several months' more scripting and editing work in addition to what was already done on it) was less than 1/3rd of what I am paid elsewhere for projects of far lesser scope.

The reason 8Dio's libraries have earned such a reputation for being half-baked and full of weird oversights is because they would rather do endless 90% off firesales to move copies out the door instead of actually investing in development. And that is not just my experience, but something that I was warned about by multiple other developers in the industry before I ever tried making a deal with them. I just foolishly thought "well, maybe it'll be different this time" and tried anyway.
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well, the irony of that is that I did the same to 8dio from day one. I think I have over half of their catalog with a total of 80-90% off I'd have to guess due to my obsession with sales :P
 
Sarah Mancuso said:
I mean, I pretty strongly feel that no one should be rewarding what was done to Cory and Mario, but I guess it's hard to maintain a stance like that around here when faced with the usual mantra of "you should buy everything".
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For sure, I'm completely with you on that.
 
timbit2006 said:
Does anyone know if Tawnia and Troels were financially well off before the start of 8dio?
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WHO IS 8DIO​

When Troels and Tawnia first met in Silicon Valley, she had left her long career as an executive at LVMH and other luxury brands and had been working on a sort of Pokémon GO version of Tinder while he was writing full buyout production audio tracks for use in video games, trailers, and movies. Being highly driven creatives, neither one was content being a cog in someone else's wheel. 8Dawn, their first company, was born from this. Eight years later, they signed with Extreme Music label Taboo, a subsidiary of high-end publisher, Sony Publishing. Shortly after that, 8Dio was formed in 2011, and has since become the leading source of sample libraries for film composers and producers the world over, garnering the duo many awards, including the prestigious BAFTA & two TEC awards.

In addition to being an accomplished visual designer, Troels is also an Academy Award (BAFTA), TEC/Mix Foundation, GANG and D3 award-winning composer, a Ph.D. scholar in music technologies, and an adjunct professor at USC.If you've watched any blockbuster films in the last decade, listened to Top-40 music or played video games, such as Tomb Raider, then you've heard 8Dio's instruments. Their samples have also fueled the library for Sequential's Prophet X synthesizer, a remarkable analog/digital hybrid workstation that can be found in the world's best music studios, a collaboration between Troels, Tawnia, and Dave Smith, the founder of Sequential.

Together this powerhouse duo are set on a mission to balance artistry and engineering with equal weight. No limitations. Infinite possibilities.
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A quick note ... earlier in the thread someone posted that they had spent $17k or $18k at 8Dio ... I only wanted to mention that, on their older site, 8Dio had a "total" amount spent in your account (I don't see it in the new site update)

... someone kindly informed me one year that those figures were based on the prices if you'd bought everything at full price.

Whereas if you total up the amount actually spent from the orders tab, it's probably much less. Not sure if this helps or is neither here nor there or if a mod will delete it, but, I thought I'd mention it.
 
Soundbed said:
A quick note ... earlier in the thread someone posted that they had spent $17k or $18k at 8Dio ... I only wanted to mention that, on their older site, 8Dio had a "total" amount spent in your account (I don't see it in the new site update)

... someone kindly informed me one year that those figures were based on the prices if you'd bought everything at full price.

Whereas if you total up the amount actually spent from the orders tab, it's probably much less. Not sure if this helps or is neither here nor there or if a mod will delete it, but, I thought I'd mention it.
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Indeed. I also had a ridiculous figure somewhere over the 10 k mark which is 100% wrong.
It probably was 20% that since I bought nearly everything in crazy sales.
 
When several of the most respected members of this community speak out against a company it paints a pretty clear picture imho. Now I'm doubly glad I went with the solo strings from another developer last year. My sympathy to all affected, both those having come forward and those who yet might tell their stories. Don't lose hope, we stand behind you!

EvilDragon said:
And then out of a blue I get a PM here on VI-C from Troels, threatening to sue me for (you will excuse my memory on this - Troels subsequently deleted his PMs from the conversation so I only have my own PMs to go by here... god I wish I quoted paragraphs from him directly!) defamation or libel, of all things.
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Maybe @Mike Greene or @creativeforge know if it is technically possible to access deleted private messages in the admin backend. I would assume the database keeps those copies around and keeps a history of edited messages. <ADMIN NOTE - It is not possible.>

José Herring said:
I have nothing to add to this but I do wonder given that Cory has accused 8dio of doing things that are actually crimes, should we at VI control be discussing it out in the open?

Threatening lawsuits and threatening to expose personal information online without the person’s consent are actual crimes. So in my mind this issues goes beyond just bad customer treatment.
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Not talking about any specific developer here, just in general - I think if we let them get away with it, we're basically legitimizing such illegal and amoral practices. I would go so far as to say there is an obligation for us to speak openly about these things. How many cases of abuse happen because no victim ever dares to speak up, since there isn't a sufficient support structure that they can trust in and their abusers have so much public support? For actual crimes committed by people in this community we should push for due legal process. That will either lead to legal concequences or clearing up the situation as objectively as we reasonably can expect. Maybe we should crowd-fund lawsuits in such cases... otherwise the big money bullys or the people with the scariest threats to make or most strings to pull will always win and get their way, like it always has been...
 
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Soundbed said:
A quick note ... earlier in the thread someone posted that they had spent $17k or $18k at 8Dio ... I only wanted to mention that, on their older site, 8Dio had a "total" amount spent in your account (I don't see it in the new site update)

... someone kindly informed me one year that those figures were based on the prices if you'd bought everything at full price.

Whereas if you total up the amount actually spent from the orders tab, it's probably much less. Not sure if this helps or is neither here nor there or if a mod will delete it, but, I thought I'd mention it.
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Lionel Schmitt said:
Indeed. I also had a ridiculous figure somewhere over the 10 k mark which is 100% wrong.
It probably was 20% that since I bought nearly everything in crazy sales.
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Agreed, the new site does not indicate this. But I do recall that my "total" a year ago was close to 18k.
Based on your experience, it seems that this was also my case, that the actual total is much lower than that.
I did, however, remember making purchases that were at full retail as early as 2017.
 
Just reading through recent comments here makes me sad that this sort of thing goes on. What struck me as odd though, 8dio not willing to pay Anne for creating a walk through video that showcases their product. Other members have stated here that this is a common agreement between developers and influencers and NFR‘s are used as payment.

However, what I find troubling is, when 8dio release a new product it’s only a matter of months before said product gets slashed in price. Sometimes in half other times up to 80% off. So I ask myself, what value do 8dio place on Composers/ influencers with this type of payment structure.
 
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Hi everybody,

I have no idea how to respond to this thread. All I see is a bunch of wild allegations and speculations, and I just shake my head - and remind myself to send all the haters my love. Yes, love!

And just to clarify …

We never asked Sarah to take a discontinued 8Dio library and polish it. That was entirely her choice.

We didn’t stop her from doing that, though one can easily debate the legality of her action. Putting herself on the map by using other people's work. Sarah then got upset we didn’t pay her for her work, but that is not how it works.

You can’t just take another developer's discontinued source material, create your own hobby project, and then expect the developer to pay you five figures.

For the record, I did pay her $500 amount as a symbolic thank you, but I don’t view it as my responsibility to pay people that decide to develop discontinued products. We own the recordings and could’ve shut the whole thing down if we wanted. Sarah then landed a gig with another developer (Impact Soundworks), and I do not doubt that Adachii probably helped her land on the development map. We offered Sarah work too, which she declined. I find it pretty unethical that Sarah and Impact Soundworks keeps posting negatively about us and that Mike allows it.

It is defamation as Sarah / Impact Soundworks and Mike are all direct competitors.

In regards to us using lawyers. We have used our lawyer two times in the +15 years we’ve been around. We’ve never sued anyone - and if we were so horrible - how come nobody has sued us?

Anyway. I will come back in a year and see how this thread has devolved. I have been misunderstood and questioned my whole life, so I am sorta used to it.

In the meantime. If you want to talk to me - and learn my side of the story - I am right over on Discord - where we have a peaceful and constructive community that cares what its all about:

Making better instruments.

discord.com

Join the Soundpaint Discord Server!

Check out the Soundpaint community on Discord - hang out with 1,750 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
discord.com discord.com

With Love, Troels
 
Troels Folmann said:
It is defamation as Sarah / Impact Soundworks and Mike are all direct competitors.
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Defamation does not rely on the other party being a competitor. And the claims do not even get close to defamation.

Criticism, yes. Defamation, no.

Troels Folmann said:
In regards to us using lawyers. We have used our lawyer two times in the +15 years we’ve been around. We’ve never sued anyone - and if we were so horrible - how come nobody has sued us?
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You've either misread the claims or deliberately side-stepped them by denying something that wasn't claimed in the hope that this might muddy the waters sufficiently. The issue was that you threatened a lawsuit, not that you followed through with the lawyers. If you can't see that making those threats is a problem in itself, then I don't know what to say.

I've bought a fair chunk of stuff from 8Dio and don't regret it. But you're not doing yourself many favours here with the "I'm the victim here" tactic.
 
In addition to completely ignoring the far more serious allegations from Cory and others, you’re again trying to rewrite history to make yourself sound magnanimous. It was you who strung me along for 6 months expressing open interest in buying Adachi from me, then balked at my outrageously lowballed price, told me you’d rather do it yourself, and then attempted to paint me as a selfish person seeking glory from other people’s work.

We didn’t stop her from doing that, though one can easily debate the legality of her action. [...] We own the recordings and could’ve shut the whole thing down if we wanted.
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As an aside, no, you actually can't debate that at all. What I distributed were scripts developed by myself from scratch. I did not distribute any sample material owned by you. This is just yet another thinly-veiled threat.
 
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