With the cost of production software so high, I know a lot of young people who would not be afraid to download a bootleg copy of Cinema 4D or Maya or Combustion or whatever. It’s actually pretty exciting and easy to do. The applications are so powerful; and this would give you the opportunity to learn them and maybe get a job in the industry. Cool. In fact, one major company actually released a beta version of its very expensive software in a cracked version so that starving young artists would have access (albeit illegal) that would be otherwise impossible. Their thinking was to secretly create a farm team of young expert users who could then apply for jobs at the studios that could afford the software since mere mortals couldn’t. This supply of users would assure future sales. This happened a few years ago and I wrote about it then, so I don’t want to beat a dead horse here.
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Comments (18) for "Cracked Film and VFX software – A Cautionary Tale"
1.
Sometimes if I need to run a dodgy executable I'll run it under WINE on a Linux machine, there's no real way for it to compromise your system that way.
Posted by Andrew on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 01:51 AM
2.
...or use a Mac, even if you aren't generally of the Mac persuasion.
Posted by Pickler on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 05:21 PM
3.
This writer got some of the punishment he deserves but not nearly enough. Thieves never seem to get enough.
All the major 3D packages offer Learning Editions, 30-45 day free trials and incredibly deep discounts to legitimate students. Not to mention legal deeply discounted older versions that do quite well for learning.
I'd suggest anyone serious about applying themselves in 3D either follow one of those generous paths or instead of putting your energy into theft, put it into some sort of creative prospectus and persuade a mentor to fund your way.
Stealing is for seriously disturbed losers like the author of this piece. Are you proud, StudioDaily, for sponsoring this creature?
John Donohue
Pasadena CA
operaguy, member at Renderosity's Poser forum
Posted by John Donohue on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 06:00 PM
4.
Stealing is what happens when companies don't offer flexibility on licenses. Adobe 's so-called activation and reactivation has limits, and push legitimate owners to seek out alternate methods for having a program on their multiple machines.
The author is no monster; he's admitting what is really going on out there. Are you so self-righteous, Mr. Donohue to think that young guys and girls who download pirated goods are 'seriously disturbed'? Please. Wake up and smell reality.
Posted by P. F. BEcker on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 07:16 PM
5.
Peter Plantec a "loser"? Hardly, Mr. Donohue. Did you actually READ the article or did you just get to the Poser part and have a kneejerk hissyfit?
Posted by Samuel Goodsmith on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 08:53 PM
6.
As counterpoint, not everyone who read your article completely missed the fact that you did all this as research for an article to inform people that not only is downloading illegal software illegal, it's also dangerous. While some would complain that what you did was wrong because downloading illegal software is wrong, some of us appreciate the fact that without proper knowledge in internet safety, we're ALL at risk. Just because Operaguy doesn't download dangerous stuff to his PC, that doesn't mean people he knows don't do it and they can all send him nice nasty rootkit's via email without him having to do anything bad whatsoever. Without the knowledge provided in the article he's so upset about, where would he go to get his fix when the unthinkable happens and Aunt Ezmirrelda sends him a nasty rootkit attached to a Christmas card?
Steve Armstrong
Saint Louis Missouri
LostInSpaceMan, Also a Member at Renderosity's Poser Forum.
Posted by Steve Armstrong on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 10:23 PM
7.
Great investigation sir!! :)
for John Donohue.. have you read them all???
Posted by Sam on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 @ 02:26 AM
8.
Did you actually read the article John? he was proving a point that downloading illegal software is WRONG! please wake up & drink some coffee.
Posted by A Friendly Warezer ( on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 @ 03:46 AM
9.
30 - 45 day free trail? LMAO Donohue you.. poseur. Not many are gonna learn major softwares in that amount of time.
I would recomend people find the good open source apps.
Posted by student on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 @ 07:23 PM
10.
No Mr. Donohue was in too big a hurry to run off to the Renderosity Poser forum and report this man for his supposed misdeeds. Calling Mr. Plantec a psycopathic theif and all mannor of trash. Renderosity, where the Mods and Admin seem to feel it's great fun to allow anyone to trash someone wheather true or not. They certainly didn't remove the thread.
Posted by Mike on Thursday, December 11, 2008 @ 10:26 AM
11.
45 days to learn software? nice joke. maya/xsi/max will take you at least a year or even two to really learn it, leave aside any artistic skills their special possibilities will require to harness their power. pirating is the only way left in an industry with only autodesk and adobe as the main choices and eyeon etc. who altogether have obscene pricetags for their packages, not affordable for neither beginners and in a really fucked up economic situation like we`re currently facing worldwide nor even professional...
Posted by anonym on Thursday, December 11, 2008 @ 05:18 PM
12.
Just a pointer. You can get Truespace 7.6 for free now, and even get the video tutorials free too. It's a good full featured platform and now owned by microsoft, who has made it available to anyone who wants to learn 3D. I like it and have been using it a couple months now.
Posted by Mike on Friday, December 12, 2008 @ 12:53 AM
13.
Blender 3D (www.blender.org): open-source 3D, compositing, vfx, etc. for Windows, OS X, and *nix. Get on it folks! Blender is the most stable and supported open-source 3D app. hands down! The learn curve is modest, but the community and existing documentation will help anybody learn Blender.
Excellent journalism BTW!
Posted by Jacob Picart on Friday, December 12, 2008 @ 03:24 PM
14.
Just a comment. I don't actually steal software. I just ask for it. Nearly everything I downloaded, I already have a licensed copy of. I destroyed most of what I downloaded...they're just too dangerous. I'd hate to have a root key attack my work computer by accident. John Domohue obviously didn't read the entire article. I'm getting emails from people telling me I'm getting trashed at Renderosity and they posed a link to this article. Cool. I can't say much now. I'm in Singapore and leaving for Beijing shortly. Good stuff here.
Posted by Peter Plantec on Saturday, December 13, 2008 @ 10:34 PM
15.
Peter, I hope you completely (full) formatted your hard drive, even better milspec erased and reformatted your machine (all drives)or else this was a junker used to do this sort of stuff on and you don;t use it for anything real. Your comment about passwords, hopefully you were having some fun and not really running sensitive data.
If this isn't the case then your machine and data are still at risk.
Appreciated the article! :)
Posted by Kevin on Thursday, December 18, 2008 @ 08:46 PM
16.
I use my old pos system for all my "illegal" stuff. It's off my lan entirely. It's a wreck half the time but I muddle through by forcibly slamming the door on mischievous processes that bug me when using it. I keep nothing vital on it at all, not even my real data so it's no trouble if I have to start over with it from time to time.
And that donahue made me laugh too. Just thought I would point out to him he forgot to mention all the thievery that companies do when they bend you over for way more than they should and are becoming so wealthy they rival nations in financial power.
Posted by Godo on Saturday, December 20, 2008 @ 11:20 AM
17.
Great article, Peter! I often wonder aloud to my students why the software guys like AutoDesk and Adobe don't offer fully operational (but watermarked) applications to students for peanuts, complete with support, so that when they become gainfully employed and can actually afford to pay the sticker price, they're already loyal customers and won't need any prodding whatsoever to remain onboard.
Posted by Todd Debreceni on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 @ 07:40 PM
18.
i would like to know if you can recover the original recorded copy of a hi 8mm video film once you have recorded on the top of it.
on the hard disk with a recovery sofware is possible but i am in doubt if it is feasible with this type of video films.can you direct me to the right studio if it is possible.thank you
Posted by BEN on Thursday, June 11, 2009 @ 11:04 PM
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