Creative upset thousands of customers...

[Deadfast]

Creative upset hundreds of customers by publicly threating (on Creative's forums) developer of modded drivers by lawsuit.
No big deal, if it wouldn't be for the fact that the developer's (Daniel_k) drivers are the only ones that work with older Creative soundcards on Vista, because the official drivers seems to be purposely 'crippled' to force people to upgrade.

link

Looks like Mr. O'Shaughnessy just f'ed up pretty badly...

[Begbie]

I saw that yesterday. Very badly handled situation by Creative, no one should be force to upgrade for functionality. I read somewhere that they hired him because of the outrage it caused but it might be just a rumor.

[Deadfast]

I haven't heard about that one.
Actually, I don't believe it too much because if they did, the most logical step would be to post it in the forums.
But anyway, I think it would be the best thing they could do ATM. Just take a look at the thread. There are ~2400 replies. If each one of these people tells about it to 5 people he knows the financial loss might go to millions of dollars.

BTW, 1001 post

[ir0n_ma1den]

April Fools joke?

[[R-CON]MrD]

first post made 28th March

[Deadfast]

Originally Posted by ir0n_ma1den

April Fools joke?

No. The date I posted it is just a coincidence.


EDIT: I just read the thread again.

Looks like Creative got a bit scared and edited the first post
Original post text:

Daniel_K:

We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don’t have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.

Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.

Phil O’Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.