A big profiles theft!

  • Binding a bought profile to a single device would be a loss of comfort in relation to the possibility to take your personal KPA backup with you and use it on any other KPA.


    Good point :!:
    As I mentioned before. The Vendor can not make a copy protection. It must be supported by Kemper.
    A copy can only be made with a registered KPA and can only run on a registered KPA.
    Your Idea with a watermark could help to find and warn from pirate copies. A 100% protection can never be made

  • Quote from Monkey_Man


    The problem with that, I think, is that a call-back / two-way line of communication would need to be established with every vendor the user has purchased from. Unless the Kemper then remembered (i.e.: tagged) which Profiles were kosher by storing the watermark and verifying matches, these vendors' sites would have to be communicated with every time one of their Profiles was called up in Rig Manager for audition, creating much unnecessary web traffic and potential for hiccups and delays within RM, unless I'm missing something. If a site's down, you're SOOL as far as being able to audition any profiles purchased therefrom is concerned.
    ...


    I think of a "passive" watermarking with no checking by the KPA if it's valid or not. Just in case a watermarked profile appears in any rip-off offer, it's easyer to find the one who shared it.


    It has to be secured, that a watermark can't be overwritten or deleted, of course. There is no doubt that some implementation had to be done by the KPA team.

  • Good thinking, 120dBRockNRoll.


    Yeah, it's not a panacea, but at least the original sharer could be traced.


    Mind you, that's not to say that said individual might've shared it with a close friend or family member, even making clear that it's not to be passed on. Guido suggested this sort of thing is understandable, and IMHO, it should be fine to do this. For instance, it'd be a ridiculous situation for housemates to be restricted from using each other's Profiles. Two Kempers (or more) set up in the music or living room, and someone has to monitor who plugs his guitar into which unit?


    The watermark would point, in these cases, to folks who meant no harm, but who's trust was violated by a third party.


    Seems there'll always be complications, but as a first point of call, your idea isn't bad I reckon. However, whilst the perpetrator of the for-profit sales could probably in most cases be chased down using that initial buyer as a starting point, even then, one would have to contact the individual who that first buyer trusted, and onwards through the chain of "trustees" until one was able to locate the slime-ball who chose to try to make money out of it.

  • Maybe the best solution would be something like the App Store (where apps are protected and can be used on many devices with the the same account). Beside the App Store developers can still sell the apps on their site to a different price if they want.
    So maybe a Kemper Profile Store could resolve this theft problem. But as I said before I'm not a developer/programer and I don't know if this could work. ;)


    @and44 Thx for your info! ;)

  • Any copy protection/Kemper themselves reselling profiles in some sort of store etc. ideas would be very likely a logistic/legal nightmare for Kemper, costing a lot of money and resources for very little profit. Personally, I'd probably not buy the hardware if there was any copy protection etc useless stuff involved. I have enough hassle with ilocks and other nonsense which in the end is more of annoyance to paying users than to people who want to pirate the content.


    Re-selling profiles sucks tho.

  • Yes, but only in the sick system of what we call "legal practice" nowadays. Please do understand my words as a fundamental critics of how all that patent / copyright / brand / trade mark thingie is handled. A lawyer once told me: "You are not a lawyer. Thats why you are confusing moral, fairness and ethics with legality." Exactly, my lawyer friend, this is the proof that this legal train is really going the wrong direction.


    My point is that both recording a tune or profiling an amp's setting don't break any law nor are un-ethic in any way, in the same way
    :)

  • Unfortunately, I don't see any solution to this as Kemper Team has never clearly supported commercial profiles and always pushed the free exchanges in the community...


    Ditto. I don't see Kemper spending time and money on a copy protection system. The concept was not to have commercial profiles in the first place, but rather a free community of users sharing profiles.


    I really hope commercial sellers will not stop because of a few who are illegally sharing profiles. That would be a big loss for the Kemper community as a whole.
    Don't know what to say to the likes of Guido, Mbritt, Bert, Andy and others, except that us users will keep buying your profiles and will keep supporting your hard work.

  • The concept was not to have commercial profiles in the first place, but rather a free community of users sharing profiles.


    Actually, I believe this came later... the original concept IMO was that any musician and studio could profile their own rigs.
    TBH, I also think that the idea of commercial profiles would have crossed my mind at the second 0 of the idea had my name been Kemper: commercial patches and sounds are quite common all over the digital world, there would have been no reason for the KPA to be any exception. It's just IMO that Kemper won't probably be willing to invest in building a security system for commercial profilers. Who, BTW should join and create a strong syndicate and start talking with Kemper on a different level... but I'm digressing.

  • Maybe without the commercial profiling being an available option the Kemper may not have progressed as it did. Given that it supported third party vendors to sell this in theory adds additional value onto it IMO. Would these producers bothered investing so much time , effort and money into it if there was no monetary gain? I doubt it.

  • Actually, I believe this came later... the original concept IMO was that any musician and studio could profile their own rigs.
    TBH, I also think that the idea of commercial profiles would have crossed my mind at the second 0 of the idea had my name been Kemper: commercial patches and sounds are quite common all over the digital world, there would have been no reason for the KPA to be any exception. It's just IMO that Kemper won't probably be willing to invest in building a security system for commercial profilers. Who, BTW should join and create a strong syndicate and start talking with Kemper on a different level... but I'm digressing.


    That sounds plausible.
    But I think that a large number of sold units and thus commercial success is not the results to sale to professional musicians and studios alone.
    Rather, it is a large army of more or less good dedicated hobby guitarists who want to use the opportunity for gaining great sounds at a relatively cheap price. I think that the many first-class provider of professional profiles ultimately also significantly has influence to the success of Kemper.
    For this reason, a paradigm shift could also be beneficial for Kemper.
    But I agree - untill now there are no signals showing in this direction.

  • There is only one way I though of that would be a "legit" way of safeguarding our profiles. - but its not very easy on customers.


    The Kemper has a network port. - so customer purchases profiles. - we ensure they purchase from the machine they will be using to transfer profiles. - the site logs its machine ID and IP, and locks the profiles to that. - we create a transfer protocol over TCP to transfer the profiles to the kemper/rigmanager


    He/she cant share those profiles as the machine ID/IP address will be very different user to user. - If the user then changes computer with a new IP, they can logon to account and submit a new ID/IP.. but if this is changed too many times in quick succession then its locked automatically, therfore they cant share profiles nor can they share the website account information.


    But to get this to work, we all need to find a network coder who can talk TCP code (mac/windows) and create a small transfer app - this is the problem!

  • Hi, my brand 'Valve Theory' was part of the theft, I'm somewhat hurt that someone stole my work (the hundreds of hours I spent making profiles), but, I'm strongly opposed to hardware copy protections, I always fount these solutions as a major issue as a end user ( I never bought Ilok software for instance). Tying KPA hardware and commercial packs might be a good idea, but I'm not gonna develop such a tagging tool, neither maintain it ( you have to manage the licenses , and support your customers when they get out of the 3 user licenses count for instance).


    To be clear I WANT TO KEEP EVERY PROFILE OUT OF ANY DRM tech , DRM was the worst tech coming from the IT world to me, I would put it on the same scale than censorship. Sorry if you don't like to hear it but that's my point of view, not only for profiles but for every digital file ( DRM on ebooks , WTF ??? )


    To me the best solution comes into low selling prices , like 5 to 10 € a pack , or even 'open price' where the end user sets his own price ( with a minimal like 3 to 5 €). Have a look at steam distribution platform for video games, they hit such a huge market and people rush like crazy at the winter and summer sales, because of the low prices.


    I always thought that some people that download a hacked version would never have bought it in the 1st place, but may later 'regulate' by buying the same pack , during a sale for instance. In this particular case, you have a new customer/user, and that's a better benefit than nothing.

  • Spot-on I reckon, Renaud.


    $50 Profiles ain't gonna do the seller any favours, or $50 packs, for that matter.


    If, as in Bert's case, you sold all your Profiles in one pack for $50, then that's fair enough, but when I see vendors offering dozens of packs, each for 30->50 bucks, my brain doesn't even waste a single clock cycle on the matter, and I move on. In essence, I don't even see them. Guess you could call that a no no-brainer. LOL


    OTOH, if the prices are right, I at the very least research them by having a read and listening to demos.

  • I always wondered about the legal point of making profiles of commercial profiles....

    MJT Strats / PRS Guitars / Many DIY Guitars -- Kemper Profiler Rack / Kemper Remote / InEar

  • I always wondered about the legal point of making profiles of commercial profiles....


    Yeah, profiling commercial profiles does seem to be a legal and ethical work-around, especially if the re-profiles involved any tweak whatsoever. Slippery stuff. People are openly sharing profiles of the AXE-FX on rig exchange. I don't see that as any different from sharing re-profiles of commercial Kemper profiles.

    I hate emojis, but I hate being misunderstood more. :)

  • Yeah, profiling commercial profiles does seem to be a legal and ethical work-around, especially if the re-profiles involved any tweak whatsoever. Slippery stuff. People are openly sharing profiles of the AXE-FX on rig exchange. I don't see that as any different from sharing re-profiles of commercial Kemper profiles.



    A profile of a profile adds nothing new to the table in terms of what you can or can't get out of the original profile. Adding a hardware pedal in front of the kemper being profiled, or profiling using an external cab and mic to capture it would be somewhere in between. Axe-fx profiles I'd say is like profiling a regular amp (the particular parameters that make up the axe-fx are not tweakable after the fact).


    My points do not mean I have any idea about the legality, though - just points to consider :)

  • Just read this in my holiday location.


    This is sad but happend before.


    Best way would be - like with the Apple app store - that all selling would be centralized via Kemper. Maybe via the rig manager - and Kemper coult get a % for each sold profile.

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