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#news//IK.against.freeware

Here we go with another episode of audio developer drama theatre, this time starring IK Multimedia. IK have issued a rebuttal to a MusicRadar article on the benefits of freeware, which I found through an article on CDM. The original article was a great list of reasons that you should use freeware, but good ol’ IK decided to reply to the article as if they were telling people to STOP BUYING IK’s PLUG-INS. Listen IK - can I call you IK? Good. Listen, I’m not a customer of yours, but it would seem to me that by rebutting a perfectly general list of reasons to use freeware, it just makes you look really bad. Here’s my list to you about why you should have probably just kept the trap shut -

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY IK SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT BEFORE SPEAKING

1. IK Multimedia are regarded as a large, high quality plug-in development company. They’ve now made themselves look ridiculous by telling people “Hey, freeware isn’t the way to go - buy our stuff” which also happens to be priced on the fairly high side. This was a not-so-smart move. Maybe if they had waited to post something seperate [and written much differently] further down the line, it wouldn’t look so much like a ‘bash the freeware scene’ rebuttal. Too late. Also, they claim that not all plug-in developers are huge corporations, but small groups of people. So what? What’s your point IK?

2. IK make a point in the rebuttal that commercial developers have the overhead and responsibility to pay wages, marketing and such but that freeware developers typically have day jobs and/or live with parents. Are you serious? This is a reason to use payware and not freeware? Ludicrious. Why would you even make that statement? This reason alone is a great reason for IK just to have thought a little bit before speaking.

3. Right about here is where IK should just stop speaking altogether. We all know that a freeware developer doesn’t owe any obligation to it’s users [legally], and that by purchasing commercial software you are also purchasing support for said product. Yeah, right. Do you want me to make a HUGE freaking list of all the commercial software that is complete crap and the support sucks too? No, I didn’t think so. Should I point out the whole some-big-audio-dev-purchases-sonicbytes-phrazor-developer-and-paying-customers-get-screwed fiasco? Well, I just did. I’m sorry, but your point is not valid in any shape, especially where freeware developers typically have been known to support their products better and faster than commercial developers.

4. IK make a point here that the devs that they know of don’t charge for maintenance releases, bugfixes, updates or whatever. [deep south verbiage]Well, that’s right nice of y’all[/deep south verbiage] Hmm… it seems to me that *freeware* developers don’t charge for those types of things either. Not only that, THEY DON’T CHARGE AT ALL. Nice one IK. Great point, and it’s really shaping my views of your organization fairly quickly.

5. Ok, I’m going to skip over the whole ‘No garuntees of quality or stability’ claim they’re making because it’s just too easy to rip that one down. Well, they’re actually all easy to rip down which is why this is being written. Anyways, they claim that the commercial developers are under pressure from cracks, torrent sites, casual swapping, and…..mag cover disks? Yeah, you read it right. They bash the same people that helped them spread their freeware version of Sampletank and good Lord knows what else. Nice work IK, I’m sure you really just made a great impression with Computer Music and the whole Future Publishing organization. Checkmate, you suck.

And there you have it. I’m not writing this because I think everyone should use freeware. I have a large amount of commercial software like Stylus RMX and Ableton Live, but there are some things I have in freeware that I couldn’t do without. Freeware is a great thing, and if you’re short on money it’s even better. If you try and get rid of freeware, the amount of cracks will also increase due to the fact that there would be no alternative to it besides going without, which you know the kids won’t be down with. All in all, I’m not ever going to be a customer of a company whose atttude is displayed so poorly.