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Another find on the Sound On Sound news section. IMSTA (International Music Software Trade Association) is running a survey devoted to music software piracy and a contest for the participants.
5 of them has a chance to win one the following prizes:
- AAS Strum Acoustics GS-1
- Antares Auto-Tune Vocal Studio
- Arturia Jupiter-8V
- Cakewalk Sonar 7 Producer Edition
- Camel Audio Cameleon 5000
- Celemony Melodyne Plugin
- IK Multimedia AmpliTube 2
- Internet Co. Singer Songwriter (Japanese)
- Korg Legacy Package (DE and AE07)
- LinPlug RMV Drum Addiction
- Modartt Pianoteq
- Native Instruments Komplete 5
- Philtre Labs Bollywood Grooves
- Propellerhead Reason 4 Premium Edition
- Rob Papen Predator 1.5
- Sonnox Elite Bundle
- Steinberg Cubase 4
- Ueberschall The Resource
- Wave Arts Power Suite 5
Obviously, if you want to enter the contest (you don’t have to if you want to stay anonymous), you have to include your personal details. So I’m wondering, is this a trick aimed to catch some people using illegal software? That would be a little unfair as they underline that their motto is: “we pursue this goal [reducing the demand for pirated software] through education, not litigation” and the say that the purpose of the survey is to give the users the ability to communicate with software companies.
I’m interested to see how it develops because I remember someone telling me the story about an Australian cable network that used a trick to catch hundreds (if not thousands) of people stealing their signal. It was over 15 years ago so it was all analog technology so they had no digital ways of preventing illegal reception. Anyway, they announced (on one of their own channels broadcasted only through their network) a contest with very valuable prizes.. and just waited for the fools to rush in. Then they just compared the personal details of the contestants with their customer records and knocked on the doors of all they couldn’t find a match for. Nice little trick, huh? Of course pirates (especially those in the audio software area) are a lot smarter, aren’t they?
