Re: WAVES TLC - Theft & Loss Coverage

None of us can get our jobs done without multiple tools from multiple vendors.

The part about the license agreements that become unworkable in practice is Vendor 1 pays lawyers to construct a legal contract that puts all kinds of stipulations on a product *after the sale* - "or return this product for a refund." Of course, Vendor 1 reserves the right to change license terms at will, or to amend them in upgrades to subsequent versions. Then Vendor 1 holds training meetings so that their employees and technical support may or may not accurately know and characterize what is going on. WAVES is probably better versed in this because their company is reputed to have a long history of adversarial customer relations.

Then, from the consumer's viewpoint, factor in Vendor 2, Vendor 3, Vendor 4, Vendor 85.

At some point, the consumer begins to appreciate the need for some kind of "Implied Warranty" law, defining seller obligations. Because the consumer side of these agreements are usually, "no warranty express or implied" followed by language that the software is not guaranteed to work or perform in any way, now or in the future.

I actually try to read the license agreements and TOS that now pervade my world, but I find them grossly one sided and onerous. In effect, suffocating -- no individual or company can possibly be in compliance or even aware of all the obligations demanded by the runaway, self-absorbed lawyers of the software industry.

Anybody who starts reading these agreements instead of clicking through will be horrified. For instance, I will no longer stay in Hampton Inn because their WiFi TOS essentially gives them authorization to access and full rights of ownership to all the contents of any computer and any attached disk drives that access the hotel network.

Corporate lawyers are paid paranoids who draft conceited agreements which they suppose to be air tight, framing customers as adversaries. This is ludicrous, one-sided and out of control. The only possible remedy is market rejection of companies and products that engage in such heavy-handed practices. Especially when the company in question, like WAVES, is a known tough enforcer. Their reputation caused me pause before I became a customer and parted with over $4,000... now I know why their reputation is deserved.

To be literal, was the license on my WAVES iLok key? Yes. Is there a remote chance the thieves or their fence sold the WAVES iLok key on eBay? Maybe. But my question is why WAVES ever engineered a copy protection scheme that subjects their customers to these kinds of dangers?

Even the new TLC program requires too many hoops and hitting too many marks. There is a very high cost of ownership, simply in compliance overhead (my time is worth something).

But my time is not worth hiring a full time lawyer to monitor every "Accept" button I am forced to click to access software I have paid for. In fact, I would readily assert that, at my $100+ million company, perfecting compliance with every software vendor license would cost more than our entire payroll. That's how out of control things are.

The way this shakes out in the real world is to turn and burn on bad actors. Reputation, reputation, reputation. We all take our lumps, fire employees who don't do what they are supposed to do, and cut off vendors who do not meet expectations. The bad cases get blacklisted, "Not eligible for rehire."

At some point, somebody is going to have to rein in software license agreements. I'm more in favor of market forces than state or federal consumer protection laws. But obviously, there are boundaries to what is acceptable. For instance, these license agreements generally do not incur obligations of slavery, though the people who draft them rarely exclude any possibility.

Whether protected by law or not, there is an implied warranty. That is, if I pay for something, I have the reasonable expectation that I will get fair use of what I paid for.

Imagine if Sears attached a license agreement to every hammer they sold.

WAVES has cleverly tied their software to a hardware dongle. Like a stolen hammer, their point is basically, "Buy another one." OK, fine, be that way.

I was whining before about onerous licensing and TOS agreements. That was before I considered educating my insurance agent about them.

Not even Microsoft is hardcore like WAVES. I wasted more time than it was worth (30 minutes), but after the theft, Microsoft reauthorized Vista Ultimate on my replacement MacBook Pro.

As I said, market awareness is a fair force to bring to bear. In my opinion, not only is WAVES copy protection practices and customer service track record a bad reflection on WAVES, it is also a stain on retailers who choose to sell their products. Several pro audio sales guys have told me horror stories similar to mine and noted that they actively steer customers to competing products as a result.

This post is probably wandering because I had to compose between all the other activities of a busy day. But if anybody would like to scan a list of my software losses as a result of my laptop theft, I will be glad to send a copy. What you will see is an embarrassing variety of high-end software involving media production, web design, database, programming tools, ... on and on. Enough so to dwarf the value of the brand-new 17" MacBook Pro and external HD (also in the bag and stolen) upon which all this resided. This laptop theft was the worst thing that could happen to me short of something involving loss of my wife or children. From the long (very long) list of companies and software vendors, my experience was definitive. As a result of a theft like this, you learn things you don't want to know. In my experience, WAVES has been the absolute worst of the worst. The "worst" behavior list was, thankfully, short, despite license agreements from many other companies who could have been as legally correct as WAVES in tough enforcement of terms.

For most people and most companies, being reasonable trumps being right.

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BTW - I elected to purchase a t.c. electronic PowerCore X8 in lieu of doubling up on more of the same with a second copy of WAVES Diamond Native Bundle. If the PowerCore gets stolen, at least the cop can understand it was a physical theft, and the insurance agent can understand it was a hardware loss. Not to mention it is a superb product where the hardware is actually designed for my benefit, to add performance and results, not simply to do damage to me in case of loss or theft.