
Kanye West caught using Pirate Bay to download music software - empressplay
http://arstechnica.co.uk/business/2016/03/kanye-west-caught-using-pirate-bay-to-download-music-software/
======
ylhert
Xfer records is very small, its just 2 people really (Steve and I). It's nice
seeing this get so much attention. We are a very small company (if you can
even call it that, I'm not even full time). Every sale is a big deal for Xfer,
and piracy definitely hurts us. We don't have the resources to combat it, and
we don't put restrictive copy protection on our software because we don't
believe in hurting paying customers to slow down piracy.

It's always a sad reminder for us when we see people (who can obviously afford
our software) stealing it :(

~~~
dylanz
As someone who has purchased most of your products, I just wanted to say thank
you!

I admit I've pirated a lot of software in order to try it over time, but I end
up buying what I start using in my workflow. I don't make money producing
music (yet!), so I definitely use trials or pirate expensive plugins (I'll
often try to re-trial something if my trial lapses and I haven't yet used it
enough).

Serum? I downloaded the trial, used it, then bought it. The same with LFO
Tool. It is a complete steal at its price point, and an absolute beautiful
piece of software. I hope Kanye gets more flac for this.

Keep up the great work! I'm constantly blown away at the work you and Steve
do.

~~~
JonnieCache
_> I hope Kanye gets more flac for this._

I see him as more of a 128 kinda guy.

------
cooper12
Meh, "people in glass houses...":

> @deadmau5

> I used a pirated copy of sylenth on my last 4 albums. #TrueReveal

[https://twitter.com/deadmau5/status/367265601640603648](https://twitter.com/deadmau5/status/367265601640603648)

Steve Aoki was also caught using the above software in a music video with
Linkin Park, though he proved that he had bought the software but his
assistants installed a pirated version on his road laptop.
[http://stoneyroads.com/2013/08/steve-aoki-responds-to-
claims...](http://stoneyroads.com/2013/08/steve-aoki-responds-to-claims-of-
pirated-synth-wear)

I think this all comes down to effort and usability. To purchase the software
you have to go through a bunch of screens, enter payment info, download,
install, and then enter a serial number. For pirating software you just search
for it and it's usually easier to install, with some cracks even bypassing
steps. What's interesting to me is that people don't question their own ethics
before doing this, especially music producers like Kanye who don't like
pirates. Then again we've seen similar backlash against people using
adblockers, but most would sympathize with them instead for other reasons.

~~~
r3bl
The most amusing situation to me was when Carnage made a god-awful tutorial
for Razer Music, in which he used a pirated version of Sylenth. Once he got
called out by the public, he said[1] in a tweet:

> “lmaooo wtf why does it matter?”

LennarDigital (the company behind Sylenth) decided to reply to his tweet and
said that they "are happy to make it a matter".

He later on went and accused Razer that it was their laptop in the video,
which resulted in them canceling the contract with him and removing that god-
awful tutorial from their website. I laughed so hard as the accusations went
on and on.

[1] [http://www.youredm.com/2015/10/22/sylenth-threatens-to-
sue-c...](http://www.youredm.com/2015/10/22/sylenth-threatens-to-sue-carnage-
after-using-cracked-version-of-software-in-808-tutorial/)

~~~
tptacek
It's not actually true that you can "lose the copyrights to your music" if you
use pirated software to produce it, is it? That doesn't sound at all true.

~~~
zanny
No, that is trademark, and that is only when trademarks are in open
consideration for having become "part of the common culture".

~~~
harryjo
That's got nothing to do with trademark one way or the other. The question is
whether you can maintain a proprietary interest in something created with
tools appropriated form others.

~~~
tptacek
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the answer is "of course
you can".

~~~
dctoedt
[Moved my comment to the top level --
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212642)
]

------
blueintegral
If you opened some of the built in audio files in Windows XP with a hex
editor, you could see that they were created with a cracked version of
SoundForge.

[http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pirated-software-used-to-
creat...](http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pirated-software-used-to-create-help-
content-in-microsofts-windows-xp,news-14167.html)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Vaguely related, Windows 95's iconic _The Microsoft Sound_ was composed on a
Mac.

------
freyr
If you look at the YouTube user thumbnail, it's actually producer Mike Dean
who's logged in. Kanye and Dean work closely together, and it very well might
be a photo of Dean's computer.

Speculative and sensationalist reporting by Ars.

[1]
[https://m.youtube.com/user/deanslistproductions](https://m.youtube.com/user/deanslistproductions)

~~~
jdamon96
Thank you, finally someone who actually looks at the photo rather than the
headline

------
kdamken
Not defending him here, he's a professional millionaire musician and should
just buy it...

But music software is a HUGE pain in the ass to purchase. Pro Tools, for
example, is tied to a dongle. It's 2016, and that's still the security method
they choose to use. Lose the dongle? You're fucked. It's unfathomably
frustrating.

~~~
robmccoll
Not even the majority of major music production suites - Ableton Live, FL
Studio, Propellerhead Reason are all incredibly easy to license, download, and
install and all three have easy-to-use market places to purchase and download
third party plug-ins. Pro Tools is really more of an exception than the rule.
To be honest, I'm not sure why people are still using it extensively other
than legacy purchases and lock-in with some hardware vendors.

~~~
busterarm
People still use Pro Tools?

I can't think of a single popular commercial DAW that's worse to use. Pretty
much the only people I see use it are all aspiring rappers. I guess it has hip
hop cred.

Tangentially, I can't think of a single piece of Avid software that isn't a
flaming piece of shit.

Full disclosure: I used to have to support Avid.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
Unfortunately, there are no DAW applications that are really reliable, not
buggy, and lightweight. The Open Source attempts are largely laughable, even
though JACK represents the most sophisticated audio connection suite/API out
there.

Pro Tools _is_ shit, I agree, but because of Avid's dominance in the film/TV
worlds, Pro Tools is the "professional" choice for audio in support of these
industries. I imagine that most music houses have moved on to the Apple or
Steinberg offerings. Personally, I've always really liked Steinberg's
products, especially WaveLab and Cubase.

As bad as Pro Tools is, don't even get me started on Ableton Live. It's like
someone just barely made it out of their first Code Academy lesson alive, and
then attempted to reverse engineer Nuendo. Utterly horrifying application
development standards over at Ableton.

~~~
zeitpolizei
I don't really know much about Nuendo, but it looks like it's more of a
traditional DAW and has specific features aimed at post production, which
doesn't seem to be Ableton Live's goal. I might try to get you started on
Ableton Live, why do you think Ableton has such "horrifying application
development standards"?

------
6stringmerc
Might seem trite but one of the reasons I attribute my rather good PC music
laptop experience over the past 10 years is not using any pirate/suspect
downloads. Be it software or music itself by others. Sticking with what I
could purchase (or demo) meant relatively stable installs. A couple versions
of Ableton Live were shaky, but along the way things have been patched and I
am a happy customer. Lots of free VSTs as well, it doesn't take a lot of
research.

Whether it's him doing it or a member of his 'team' \- the guy has a writer
stable of 14 known artists[1] and brings in others like he was giving away
free studio time and Yeezy shoes - it just smacks of lazy. Certainly it
happens in the industry. Lots of various approaches are easy or time consuming
type difficult[2], I guess it kind of depends on the producer and the goal.

Personally I just like using great new tools[3] that cost very little but
allow for a lot of creative expressiveness. YMMV.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOD_Music#Current_acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOD_Music#Current_acts)

[2] [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-little-known-
recording-...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-little-known-recording-
trick-that-makes-singers-sound-perfect)

[3]
[https://www.propellerheads.se/figure](https://www.propellerheads.se/figure)

------
Kristine1975
Just because he had a tab with ThePirateBay open doesn't mean he downloaded a
pirated copy of the software.

He really should install an ad blocker though, to get rid of those "Mac
Keeper" and "Attention" tabs.

~~~
varjag
Amen. He could well be seeding his own indie tracks.

~~~
kristiandupont
Not sure if you are joking, but the tab title ends with Xfe[...], so it seems
pretty likely that it's about Xfer Records Serum.

------
fitzwatermellow
Hate to hijack what I am sure is a mind expanding discussion on software
distribution, the law of karma, and modern celebrity. But I am curious about
something and was hoping to get an opinion from some of the music production
experts on here. Of which there appear to be legion. Which is awesome :)

How difficult is it to duplicate Serum-esque wavetable generation using ChucK
or CSound? It seems in my uninformed opinion you would have a lot more freedom
using raw math over visual gui. Do you have the same range of available osc's
and filters as you have in commercial packages? Or would they be relatively
easy to implement if missing out of the box?

~~~
JonnieCache
_> How difficult is it to duplicate Serum-esque wavetable generation using
ChucK or CSound?_

Serum-esque? Sure, selecting waveforms from a lookup table isn't difficult.
However implementing clean sounding alias-free oscillators that can themselves
be modulated at audio rate and so on requires years of accumulated domain
knowledge. On top of that serum has all kinds of fancy features, such as the
ability to import wave files and generate good-sounding wavetables from them,
high quality filters, (look up zero-delay-feedback filters) complex modulation
routing and most importantly, a GUI that lets you navigate all this complexity
and actually compose music with it.

 _> you would have a lot more freedom using raw math over visual gui._

Exactly. Freedom is the enemy of creativity. Hence why the majority of max/msp
users don't actually make music with it. The more layers of abstraction and
choices there are standing between your musical idea and making actual sounds,
the harder it is to ever realise those ideas. By the time you've finished
messing around with all the technical stuff and making endless choices, you've
lost the idea. Hence the endless appeal of the acoustic guitar and human voice
combo.

It's certainly possible to make music the other way around, where you let the
machines have the ideas and you simply guide them, but it's a very different
thing. Using pure math and code really shines here, as well as modular
synthesis equipment.

EDIT: talking of modular, Waldorf, the german company who pioneered wavetable
synths in the 90s (you'll take my uWave XT from my cold dead hands!) have just
released a wavetable-based eurorack module, and it's pretty extra-crunchy, no
anti aliasing here ;)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEL50hCEj7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEL50hCEj7Q)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssk_0mg6N6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssk_0mg6N6k)

~~~
fitzwatermellow
Thanks for the thoughtful reply and timeless wisdom that seems to apply not
just to music, but life as well ;)

------
sigmar
Did he search Google for "Pirate bay torrent xfer"? Because the page title on
pirate bay seems to be static no matter what you search for (unlike in the
pic)

edit: someone posted above that he was on this site (might not have been on
this specific page though) [http://www.pirate-baytorrent.com/xfer-records-
serum-1-07b4-v...](http://www.pirate-baytorrent.com/xfer-records-
serum-1-07b4-vsti-aax-x86x64-extras.html)

------
kevando
KW only does a thing with the intention that people talk about the thing, and
by extension KW. I never thought I'd see a KW thing on hacker news.

------
dctoedt
First: While I'm definitely not a Kanye fan, I think it's appropriate to
withhold judgment on these allegations until more facts are available.

Second: Unauthorized use of a copyrighted tool (e.g., music-editing software)
to create a copyrighted work of authorship --- a song and a sound recording of
the song, let's say --- normally wouldn't result in loss of the copyright in
either the song or the sound recording.

 _(This is a different situation than creating a_ derivative work _without
authorization.)_

But such unauthorized use of the music-editing software could result in the
author of the song and sound recording having to pay the owner of the
copyright in the music-editing software for the former's "indirect profits"
arising from the infringement. That can be a remedy with real teeth.

The case I usually teach to illustrate this point is _Frank Music Corp. v.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc._ [0], 886 F.2d 1545 (9th Cir. 1989) (Frank Music
II). In that case:

\+ The MGM Grand Hotel had a floor show called Hallelujah Hollywood!, which
included 'tributes' to various MGM movies. The floor show incorporated
significant portions of the Broadway musical _Kismet_ , which years earlier
had been made into an MGM movie.

\+ The court found that MGM's use of the _Kismet_ material in its floor show
went beyond its 'movie rights' license and therefore infringed the copyright
in the underlying Broadway musical.

\+ As a result, MGM had to pay not just a portion of profits from the
Hallelujah Hollywood! floor show itself (such as profits from sales of tickets
to the show), but also 2% of the profits from the MGM Grand's overall hotel
operations — _including 2% of the casino profits_ — which, the court found,
were indirectly attributable to the promotional value of the floor show. [1]

It didn't help MGM's case that its annual report had boasted about how great
the floor show was as a draw for the casino, thus helping the copyright owner
prove up its case for indirect profits.

[0]
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=169034711262654...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16903471126265449346)

[1] The above description is copied essentially verbatim from my piece,
[http://www.oncontracts.com/a-better-way-to-handle-a-
breach-o...](http://www.oncontracts.com/a-better-way-to-handle-a-breach-of-
contract-at-least-in-some-cases/)

------
azru
That's not his YouTube account logged in. There's a pic that shows more out
there, and seemingly Kanye took a pic of someone's computer.

------
unfocused828
The Serum team should be pleased with all of the exposure they get from this.

------
dragonbonheur
And here I am, stuck with LMMS... Honestly, LMMS is rather cool once you get
used to it.

~~~
kruhft
LMMS is pretty awesome actually. I used it to write all of my last album:

    
    
        https://kruhft.bandcamp.com/album/listener

------
vanattab
Begin #KanyeWestHatesProgrammers

~~~
alanh
He recently tweeted that "San Francisco" software execs listen to rap but
shamefully weren't lining up for to "invest 1 billion dollars in kanye ideas"
[sic]

------
cJ0th
I am wondering whether he did that on purpose just to get attention. But then
again I saw many video interviews of famous artists who were using a pirated
copy of Sylenth1. Many people probably really are that cheap.

~~~
metanoia
He'll probably take credit for making Serum famous.

------
kafkaesq
Wait -- what's his net worth again?

------
Karunamon
Straight up false headline from Ars, which is sadly becoming more and more of
a problem there.

Kanye West was not caught doing a damn thing. A screenshot of a computer that
_may or may not be his_ has a Pirate Bay tab open in the background.

That's a far cry from "caught using to download".

------
bossx
Publicity stunt

------
OscarCunningham
Perhaps just like everyone else he's realised that pirating is easier than
buying, no matter how much money you have.

~~~
logicfiction
It's dead simple to buy Serum (first-hand experience) and you don't have to
worry about malware, I don't buy this premise. They also actively support and
develop their products and you get free updates and support for years. I don't
see why it's so hard to buy.

------
nickpsecurity
"Browsing and posting like a Gay Fish!"

------
jharohit
Jeez what a knob this guy...

------
Kenji
It could have been worse, he could have had a tab open with midget porn ;P

Seriously, guys, sanitize your screenshots. Every screenshot I take, I crop
down as much as possible and check for stuff like that thoroughly. Bookmarks,
tabs, windows, system tray, notification, they all could potentially contain
very private or even incriminating information.

~~~
newscracker
Edit: This is about taking screenshots of a device fro the same device. I see
in another comment that the screenshot here was a photo taken by a smartphone
(which is a different topic).

This is really an issue most people aren't aware of. People somehow learn how
to take screenshots of their entire desktop on computers and share them, but
also somehow fail to learn how to take screenshots of a window or crop/blur
them appropriately. Or perhaps they're always in a hurry and don't have the
time to look up how to deal with it.

I have learned which banks some people use (online banking tab open), which
browser they use, which programs are running on their system (from the task
bar), which Facebook pages they have open, whom they're messaging with on
Facebook, which other articles around the web they're reading, and so many
other details just by looking at screenshots. It may not be an issue that _I_
got to know these, but it's an information leak that should've been avoided.

Since people aren't going to change quickly, the only solution I can think of
is having the screenshot feature or software on all platforms ask the user
with a simple UI what they would like to black/blur out and then save that.
Dear Apple, here's a cue to build this right into iOS and OS X to continue
with the "privacy matters" motto for users (of course, it would be great if
Google and MS also embrace this across all their platforms).

~~~
Vendan
In windows, try snipping tool. Comes stock with 7 and up, lets you select a
window, or a rectangular area, or even a free form "draw a circle around what
you want" mode. And then you can save it or copy and paste it somewhere. So
yeah, MS has had this handled for years, just people don't know about it.

~~~
newscracker
Well, I wasn't really looking for solutions myself since I know how to get
screenshots and crop/blur/mask them appropriately on different platforms. My
comment was more about people not knowing how to do these.

On Windows though, I use Greenshot [0] to capture the screen or a window or a
specific region of the screen, with options to send the capture to one of
several programs directly. Paint.NET [1] is what I normally use for
cropping/annotations/masking, etc.

[0]: [http://getgreenshot.org/](http://getgreenshot.org/)

[1]: [http://getpaint.net/](http://getpaint.net/)

~~~
Vendan
I was just saying that windows does have this stock, it's just not many people
know about it. It's extremely handy, cause you can save directly (no going
through paint or other hacks) or copy and paste it into Word/Outlook and other
stuff, already trimmed to exactly what you need. Average week, I use Snipping
Tool like 20~30 times.

------
Tenhundfeld
Hey Kenji, just FYI, I find something a little off-putting in using "midget
porn" as the example of something worse.

Maybe I've become overly sensitive to possibly hurtful language in this era of
codes of conduct, microaggressions, trigger words, etc. But I think it's
marginalizing to use the sexuality of a segment of people (consenting adults,
let's assume) as something shameful. I've also read that midget is considered
a derogatory slur by many in that community.

Anyway, I'm not trying to condemn you, because I know you didn't mean anything
hurtful or negative. You're just using the phrase as a generic example of
sexual deviancy. And sexual deviancy is inherently embarrassing in our
Puritanical culture – and worse from a PR perspective.

And like I said, I might be way off base here. I might be that annoying guy in
the conversation who isn't actually offended but thinks someone else might
possibly be offended. But since we're all focused on being more inclusive
these days, I thought it was worth saying something. I say accidentally-
possibly-exclusionary shit like this all the time – part of the reason I'm
more vigilant about it lately, trying to improve my own behavior. :)

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11209917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11209917)
and marked it off-topic.

------
marvel_boy
Let's start a Kickstarter to help kanye west afford a copy of Serum.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Source:
[https://twitter.com/deadmau5/status/704878038937243648](https://twitter.com/deadmau5/status/704878038937243648)

------
ccallebs
I understand that what Kanye did was as wrong as any other pirating. However,
as a result of that screenshot that software got a free endorsement from Kanye
West. I imagine that guy is going to wake up surprised this morning when he
looks at total sales from last night.

~~~
ylhert
It's not about that one missed sale, but think about all the (even high
profile/rich) people who steal the software

~~~
ccallebs
I definitely understand, I'm not saying pirating is good. I'm especially not
saying "Once you hit a certain level of success, you should pirate!" Just
suggesting that due to this incident the creators made quite a few sales.

I think pirating is wrong and I pay for my software/music.

Edit: Whoa! You're one of the creators. Congrats on getting this kind of
exposure. It's unfortunate it has to be because wealthy people don't pay for
your product. :(

------
karlcoelho1
its a publicity stunt, this is so freaking obvious. kanye west knows the
dangers in the public more than enough, to know what he's posting. anyone
agree?

~~~
soundwave106
Not likely in my opinion. This is not without precedent, there's been several
EDM artists who have not thought twice of doing a studio shot with some
cracked plugin exposed.

This includes some big EDM names that really should have known better, given
that anything like that is bound to generate many articles (Martin Garrix,
Avicii, and Steve Aoki were the previous "big name offenders" exposed for
showing pirate copies of Sylenth1 in videos). More to the point, several less
known DJs have done things (like say a demo for Future Music) where eagle eyes
will spot pirated synths there too.

It's pretty clear that Kanye didn't install a popup blocker while visiting The
Pirate Bay; if he actually knew what he was doing, surely he'd at least do
that, right? :)

