A big profiles theft!

    Quote from Dean_R

    it's most definitely in the interest of Kemper as a company to have every profile available for free


    I'd not agree on this. if you follow the usual forums you'll see how many Kemper users state that this or that commercial seller's profiles have been the paradigm shift that has convinced them to buy the unit.
    And, if you check at how much the community has globally invested in commercial profiles, you'll see how much we value them. They are part of the whole Kemper experience of course.




    Quote from polarbipolar

    the business of commercial profiles is clearly not what Kemper was designed for


    Nothing in my perception, Kemper experience or professional competence (I've worked in Marketing) actually enforces this. If your name is C. Kemper and you plan to design a platform which creates or uses proprietary files, the commercial aspect of the software is - if not the first - the third thing coming to your mind. There are (and have been) commercial patches for virtually any digital device on the market, and CK knew that. Why should he have excluded this possibility for the Profiler?
    Now, the fact that Kemper don't want to be involved in selling profiles is a different story.




    Quote from polarbipolar

    They make a group of ~50 people, pay 1$ each and buy a bundle for a group. If there was an effective copyright protection, I am 99% sure no one of them would buy anything at all.


    Agreed. I know this kind of "collectors". They own thousands of profiles\mp3s\films\Photoshop filters. Usually, they have no time for enjoying them. What excites them most is fooling the sellers, stealing something or "saving" a lot of money while owning the software. They would never pay 10 € for anything.
    They really mean nothing for the profiles market.
    Usually, people willing to buy software look for promotions but not at the pirate market. Granted, some will buy from there, but they do not represent the death of the official market.
    There are also people who try something and then buy it if they like it. I've done this myself with films or music.


    Basically, imagining a software world where nothing floats out of the cloudy truck is unreal, as is to get upset because of that. I've written books for musicians, and when I talk at seminaries I often see pupils with (photo)copies of them...
    Sellers: make peace with that, and remember that the more your work floats around, the more buyers will be aware of it.


    If I can use a metaphor, the (quality) software market works like the energy: 90% of it just goes nowhere, but the rest is vital and makes things move.


    :)

    Quote from viabcroce

    Agreed. I know this kind of "collectors". They own thousands of profiles\mp3s\films\Photoshop filters. Usually, they have no time for enjoying them. What excites them most is fooling the sellers, stealing something or "saving" a lot of money while owning the software. They would never pay 10 € for anything.


    Agree, but my point was: from a position of a vendor, would you rather sell your bundle 1 time for 50$ to 50 different Russian guys, who will copy it to each other for free, or would you rather not sell it at all because one particular Russian guy would not be able to afford it, and the others just do not need it that much to pay 50$ for it? From purely economic point of view the former is better. As others said, sometimes it is important to look at things from a distance and weigh all pros and cons.

    Yeah late response to this thread @Guidorist, but I put it simply. I wouldn't care that much. Why? Because musicians do not steal. Those, who have stolen won't make use of it - how can you audition thousands of profiles? If you need 30 000 profiles, then you probably don't enjoy playing instrument. Those, who have stolen and load it into KPA for live venue are not musicians ;)

    I honestly think that there are too many apologists for people who steal stuff. Even on this forum


    Sure, it's cool to say, "I don't care..." or "What can I do..."


    But I do care. It makes me look like a complete f*cking fool because I pay for stuff that other people are enjoying for free. I am poorer, while these c*nts are richer because they stole. Like all our great politicians and businessmen these days, who stole while the government looked the other way (a lot of them at least, or a large fraction)


    These people look at threads like this and laugh their asses off. They think, "f*ck these d*cks, we got it for free, and we're going to share it for free".


    The world right now is at a juncture where the "pirates" (as they like to think of themselves) are at an advantage.


    Just wait for world bodies to start penalising these m*therf*ckers by disconnecting their net.


    There are global bodies fighting for piracy to be allowed in the name of "free internet access".


    It's like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. These are organisations that protect criminals rather than victims.


    I say if you manage to get a hold of the contact details of people like these, make them known. Name and shame.


    It's a little difficult on the Internet. Soon there will be people selling profiles using Bitcoin because they do not want to be traced.


    I urge you all to shun online piracy. At this rate, all of us will be working manufacturing jobs making fridges and cars, because those things cannot be pirated.


    I could not afford Sinmix's stuff and he gave me his first Producer Pack FOR FREE. At the time, I was making a move to a new country with little to my name I could never repay him for that kindness, I only bought his second pack and if he releases a third pack, I will buy it because Gregorz is my friend who thought of me when I had less.


    Look at @MentaLs last post. That's the mindset of these guys. They are contributing to our community.


    Our commercial profilers have a right to make a living off their work.


    So please. thank you for reporting stuff like this, and please don't jump on the whole "thieving is good" bandwagon.


    Honesty is a virtue, not a shortcoming.


    Cheers to everyone who doesn't steal, even if it is tempting.

    I admire your passion for this, AJ, and share your distain for thieves.


    How about this: I only started buying plugins in December last year, after having waited 15 years whilst first saving for the other equipment I needed. In all that time, I could've run any pirated software I liked and even produced a whole bunch of music that didn't require the other stuff I was buying (bass, guitar, synths etc.). I didn't 'though, obviously, and for all the reasons you stated.


    Now "phase 2" of the music-room reconstruction is underway - that of gradually buying the plugs I think I'll need. All up it'll be at least 2 years just for the basics - verb, comp, mastering, VI drums and keys, etc. Orchestral stuff, along with many other "non-essential" plugs aren't even on the radar, given their expense. I don't care if I'm 90 when I finally get to start doing this thing... as long as I can sleep at night and my conscience is clear.


    There's a saying I tell myself practically every day: The price of a soft pillow is a clear conscience.


    Money can't buy that, and pirates can never own it... or sell it... thank God!

    Quote from nightlight

    I honestly think that there are too many apologists for people who steal stuff. Even on this forum


    Sure, it's cool to say, "I don't care..." or "What can I do..."

    Just to be precise. I meant, that I wouldn't care after the fact.
    It was stolen, you cannot do anything now.
    Only thing you can do is make pirates life harder by stuff that will never happen - certificates, iTunes-like shop etc.
    The profiles are goods of very rare application. They can be used only by Kemper users, most of them are cool folks.
    I just feel that musician is some specific branch of humans.
    This talk turns philosophical.

    Quote from skoczy

    Just to be precise. I meant, that I wouldn't care after the fact.It was stolen, you cannot do anything now.
    Only thing you can do is make pirates life harder by stuff that will never happen - certificates, iTunes-like shop etc.
    The profiles are goods of very rare application. They can be used only by Kemper users, most of them are cool folks.
    I just feel that musician is some specific branch of humans.
    This talk turns philosophical.


    I wasn't targeting you or anyone @skoczy.


    I'm a big fan of philosophical disccusions on this issue, as long as we can agree on one thing: just because something is digital, does not mean it is okay to steal it, even if more than half of humanity is doing the same thing.


    You can't do it to a car or a fridge. You can't do it to an aeroplane or a square meal.


    You can only do this kind of digital piracy with creative content.


    That basically has screwed humanity. Just look at the state of music or art today. I'm not saying it's all bad, but it could be so much better.


    Art deserves to be nurtured. And by nurtured I mean if you listen to it (not just on youtube once, or on a streaming site once), I mean really listen to it like you downloaded the file and listen to it on your personal mp3 player, you should pay something to the person who created it.


    They did not create it for free. It is not your god given right to steal it.


    I don't think it is fair for people to be like Lovecraft and die penniless, only for everybody to be raving about them after they are dead.

    What I'm going to say won't add anything important to the conversation and I'll preface my comments by saying that I've bought hundreds of dollars worth of profiles. All of them directly from the source and I have no intentions of ever buying used/"stolen" profiles or selling any profiles for that matter but isn't there a bit of irony in all of this?


    If Leo Fender and Jim Marshall were around and active online, posting hundreds of comments on internet forums, don't you think they would have exchanged similar opinions on all of us buying bits of software that they might eventually say essentially stole or copied the sound of their amps? The Profiler listens to the amp and provides the means to essentially make a digital copy of it for us to enjoy. Kind of like those morons that sit in theaters to make copies of movies, or those good old double cassette boom boxes, etc. Kemper's results are incredibly accurate, and without people crunching popcorn in the background. Do you think it far fetched that those two guys might have viewed Christoph as their Croatian? The Profiler as a cam corner or boom box? The Rig Exchange as our Napster?


    Again, I don't plan to engage in buying or selling used profiles but we're all enjoying a great piece of technology that the amp manufacturers probably don't appreciate. And please don't site some situation where someone bought an amp because they were introduced to it via the Profiler. I'm sure that happens, but rarely. I'm just pointing out that there are probably some perspectives when looking at the foundation of all of this that would call our entire community's morality into question. Call me guilty because I love and appreciate what Kemper has given us.


    As an early adapter, I can also remember rejoicing in the concept of community in what Kemper provided us in how we could easily share profiles. It was the realization that this is only going to get better and better over time that was awesome. I can also remember when our group was much smaller and we were first introduced to the first offering of "commercial" profiles. My first reaction was - "Oh no, this is going to ruin it", and my immediate second thought was that if they were good enough to pay for them, people will buy them. I might too. I was very interested to hear them and I've bought many profiles over the years from Andy, Michael W. and Michael Britt.


    As promised, this doesn't add anything important to the conversation, but just some thoughts that entered my mind while reading all of this.

    "Tone is in the fingers" is not a necessary response to anything that I might type on any internet forum threads. Thank you.

    Like 4
    Quote from BuckeyeBrown

    As promised, this doesn't add anything important to the conversation, but just some thoughts that entered my mind while reading all of this.

    I think this might be the only thing from your post I disagree with. :) I had the exact same thought about the camcorder in the movie theater. From an amp designer's perspective, the commercial profilers are the pirates. An amp company spends many months and a bunch of money developing and optimizing their circuit, only to have it captured pretty much perfectly by digital technology in a couple hours. IMHO, it's hard to say that this doesn't sound like a similar situation to movie piracy. There are probably some video pirates complaining that their content is being resold or distributed for free on the internet, when they spent hours in the theater capturing the video, and hours cleaning it up, rendering it, and making the DVD menu. But who's content is it actually?


    But the cognitive dissonance comes in when I look at this from a KPA owner's perspective, and not that of an amp company. Commercial profilers make our world better. They are the good guys offering a desirable service for little money, and they make the KPA a better product. Our world would be worse without them. I hate to see their efforts be taken advantage of by scumbags reselling or redistributing their profiles for free.


    So how do I square these conflicting feelings? It's simple. I don't. Not everything in morality is cut and dry.


    • I like commercial profilers and their products. They offer a useful product that takes effort and talent to create well. I would never use or buy grey-market profiles out of respect to them and their efforts. If MBritt closed shop tomorrow, I'd probably light a candle to mourn the loss to our community.
    • The KPA is completely different than a modeling amp. A modeling amp creates a sound similar to a Marshall by a completely different mechanism. The sound is built digitally from the ground up. The KPA requires the Marshall to "sample", which is what makes my moral compass wiggle.
    • I try to see moral issues from perspectives outside my own, and from some angles, we are indeed the bad guys... yet I don't feel like a bad guy. Cognitive dissonance.
    • The KPA might not be killing the traditional amplifier industry yet, but it might soon. Imagine a next-gen KPA that can do full-parametric profiling, including tone stacks and gain/master sweeps. Then there would be no reason at all to keep the original amp around. Then you would need only one profile to fully and perfectly capture an amp head. Add your favorite speaker or speaker IR and rock out.

    Maybe the future of the amp industry will change. Analog designers will make a single prototype, "sample" it, and then sell the profiles directly themselves. In that case, they would be the content owners without any grey areas.



    And just to be clear, these thoughts are just thoughts, with all due respect to those with with differing ideas. The only thing I am sure about is that this is a complex issue.

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

    Like 2

    I completely disagree about the profiler infringing on amp maker's rights, and here's why.


    Amps are a physical object. The tone of the amp isn't copyrighted. If it was, you'd have to pay royalties to Fender to release an album that was recorded with a Bassman. Every "Marshall in a box" distortion out there would owe royalties to marshall even though their schematics had nothing to do with anything Jim ever made.


    Profiles are digital files created through the hard work of their author, and are sold to be used by a single party (the purchaser), who is free to do anything with it other than resell it (there are no licenses limiting a profile to, say, live performance vs making recordings). Pirates sell the exact file of the profile - which is digital theft. If they were creating their own original profiles and saying "this sounds JUST LIKE a TopJimi '59 Bassman", then it would be more analogous to what the profile vendors themselves are doing, but that's not the case.


    Completely different.

    "Amps are a physical object. The tone of the amp isn't copyrighted. If it was, you'd have to pay royalties to Fender to release an album that was recorded with a Bassman. Every "Marshall in a box" distortion out there would owe royalties to marshall even though their schematics had nothing to do with anything Jim ever made."


    Sooo.... A singer is a physical object. If I record their voices, setup some software to use their imprints of singing and sell it for some keyboard package, I'm ok? It's just oo's, aaaahh's, and blahs, right? ;)


    As far as theft, really guys? Since the dawn of the interent, the woes of digital / software makers and designers have been large. First pirated software and games, then various digital art, then as we all know, music took a huge hit, and streaming sucked the rest of the blood out of artists.


    There is no way to combat it unless there is more internet regulation, unfortunately, that is a dangerous slippery slope opened to all kinds of evils. If you do anything, it has to be iron clad and air tight as to know way to pervert the law into something else. Which is laughable since you have it in the hands of politicians. Never let a crises go to waste, examine it, see what you can get out of it, then alter it.


    Like most things in the market world, you create something, sell it as fast and as long as you can till someone steals your idea and puts a spin on it. Yeah, it happens everywhere.


    Look at guitars, how many builders blatantly rip off Fender or Gibson? Just changing the peghead a little and calling it their own? Laughable. Or the Marshall amp or Fender? How many made a few little adjustments?


    So stealing outright, or somewhat, it is always there. Either they rip you off bold like pirating, or they rip you off 'kinda' by keeping barely withing the law (or still just rip you off totally and just have lost of money for lawyers to wait you out or pay you off pennies on the dollar)


    For profiles, just be glad you can make any money on it. Eventually something new will come along and it will be like a cassette tape business...

    Quote from Nemo13

    "Amps are a physical object. The tone of the amp isn't copyrighted. If it was, you'd have to pay royalties to Fender to release an album that was recorded with a Bassman. Every "Marshall in a box" distortion out there would owe royalties to marshall even though their schematics had nothing to do with anything Jim ever made."


    Sooo.... A singer is a physical object. If I record their voices, setup some software to use their imprints of singing and sell it for some keyboard package, I'm ok? It's just oo's, aaaahh's, and blahs, right?

    Not really comparable, in my opinion. There aren't 10000 different Robert Plants in circulation that you can ask to sing a song a certain way, but there certainly are 10000 different Marshalls that you can dial in to sound a certain way on a track, or nigh on identical to someone else's track, if you wish. There are also thousands of amps by manufacturers other than Marshall that can sound just like a Marshall, yet there aren't any other singers that sound just like Robert Plant.

    Quote from sambrox

    Not really comparable, in my opinion. There aren't 10000 different Robert Plants in circulation that you can ask to sing a song a certain way, but there certainly are 10000 different Marshalls that you can dial in to sound a certain way on a track, or nigh on identical to someone else's track, if you wish. There are also thousands of amps by manufacturers other than Marshall that can sound just like a Marshall, yet there aren't any other singers that sound just like Robert Plant.

    Very comparable. When you are saying that a physical object like an amp that creates a unique sound or characteristic does not own it, then you have to mean all. That means I can record Robert Plant, use his voice on a keyboard, make music and sell it. It's just a profile. Just like I could take a certain year Marshall, profile it, and sell it as MadShell. They both create a unique sound, but they don't own it. Maybe. They law treds lightly on many things until it becomes a huge issue to many. ;) Or hell, let's just profile guitarists. You can steal their style of playing, use parts of the profile for your music. I mean, all sound is just waves, what the hell, you can't claim that. You didn't build that. Haha... Man, you could go on forever. The truth is, there are dreamers and builders and there are leeches. The end.


    Let me expound by saying this: The Kemper is like a real world pirate site. Pirates can't afford software that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, so since the early 90's, lifted the progs they wanted, even though they were edited or adjusted or maybe not work as good. But it was the same software and such. Kemper basically grabs Robert Plants souls and puts them in a magic box so you can sound like Robert Plant or anyone else. They didn't create the 'tones' they just 'profile' them to use.


    What's the diff?


    I see amp makers as in the dark. The law is not there, because no one is really complaining. I see amp makers and singers and whatever as big old IBM when they were dealing with Bill Gates. You see, IBM thought the computer was the hardware, not the software. They didn't see its value. But Bill Gates did. Perhaps amp companies need to be Bill Gates. License their unique tome generated by their machines the same as a singer's vocal chords create their unique call in the wild to companies who wish to use their 'profile'. :)


    I am happy to have all my favorite boutique amps! And like a young kid who couldn't afford to buy bands albums, I happily bought cassette tapes to record them off the radio. I don't feel I owe them, especially now, since its all just waves and such, not physically real. ;)

    Edited 2 times, last by Nemo13 ().

    Quote from Nemo13

    Very comparable. When you are saying that a physical object like an amp that creates a unique sound or characteristic does not own it, then you have to mean all. That means I can record Robert Plant, use his voice on a keyboard, make music and sell it. It's just a profile. Just like I could take a certain year Marshall, profile it, and sell it as MadShell. They both create a unique sound, but they don't own it. Maybe. They law treds lightly on many things until it becomes a huge issue to many. ;) Or hell, let's just profile guitarists. You can steal their style of playing, use parts of the profile for your music. I mean, all sound is just waves, what the hell, you can't claim that. You didn't build that. Haha... Man, you could go on forever. The truth is, there are dreamers and builders and there are leeches. The end.

    Nope. I'm not going to get into the "is profiling legal?" argument, but your comparison isn't a fair one, 1 to 1, in my opinion. A certain year Marshall? There were undoubtedly hundreds of Marshalls made that year, used on many different recordings, with similar sounding results. I could buy one, mic it up, use some nice outboard and make it sound like a particular record. The amp itself isn't unique. The mic technique, production values and decisions and (not least!) the guitar player are what makes the amp have value. You can't get Robert Plant's vocals on your record unless he wants to sing on it. The amp is a tool, not a personality. Your argument would be valid if there was value in just turning the amp on and recording it, then they'd be able to copyright the sound. It all boils down to the guitar amplifier being exactly that, no more, no less : a tool for making an electric guitar louder.