We were under the impression that Creative and driver modder Daniel Kawakami had reached an agreement where Daniel could continue supplying Creative sound card owners with patches without angering the Creative legal department. Apparently not, since he has now posted a message over at the Creative forums where he says that he received a second letter of seize and desist from Creative. He has now decided to stop releasing patches and fixes, because he believes that he would only mislead buyers that they would be able to get full functionality with Creative sound card when Creative so obviously wants to limit them and doesn’t want them unlocked. This is of course entirely Creative’s choice, but far from appreciated by the consumers.
Update: It seems that the letter sent to Daniel was in fact NOT from Creative. Someone was evidently looking to create a buzz, and sadly he succeeded.
This is a copy of his post, verbatim;
“I’ve received another cease and desist e-mail.
I’m done with Creative, enough is enough.
Don’t even bother asking me for the files.
Unfortunately, the situation did not change for us.
They did say an updated Audigy driver would eventually be released, but don’t be optimistic about it (their priority is the launch of X-Fi 2).
What I can say for sure is the features I’ve enabled will not be made available in an official driver update.
Although I still have my doubts, they’ve said I would not be threatened if I provided patches instead of the actual binaries, because of licensed technologies built into them (Dolby/DTS).
While this could even be true, most of the disabled features are Creative’s own technologies, which means they’ve disabled them on their own choice.
That’s funny when people think you are an idiot.
They were after me and, on a chat session, they asked me what I’d like from them, as if I were expecting something.
They’ve promised me a free X-Fi 2, but I told them it was not necessary, because I was getting a couple of cards from other companies that contacted me.
Well, at least they are getting flammed all over the web and they are certainly mad about it and I could feel it while chatting with them. That is an enough reward for my hard work.
I’m not releasing a patch to enable DDL on any X-Fi neither Crystalizer for Audigy because, as they’ve pointed out to me, providing an alternative for their customers is good for them and increase their sales, specially when someone is doing it for free. Given the current situation, I cannot let this happen, as people get used to this and still buy Creative products.
Remember, while they say that 3rd parties are ok to provide workarounds, it is Creative’s job to provide official driver/software updates.
I just hope their competitor companies do something about it.
And I really hope people don’t forget this.
Thank you very much for your support and your donations.
Best regards,
Daniel Kawakami”
Update: He later added this to his post:
“UPDATE2:
To be honest, I’m a little suspicius about this e-mail, as it was not signed.
Whether it is real or not, I don’t want to be legally threatened.
Lets wait for an official comment from Creative.
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 15:25:44 +0000
From: forums@customercare.creative.com
To: dkbox2000@hotmail.com
Subject: Stop the redistribution of Creative software
Hi Daniel,
Please stop the redistribution of any Creative software, otherwise we will take legal action against you.
Creative Labs
http://forums.creative.com“
And Catherina-CL of Creative replied:
“Hi guys,
Regarding the e-mail:
Referring to the post by Daniel K with an email concerning redistribution of Creative software:
the email appears to be a fabrication; it was not written or authorized by Creative.
Thank you
The Sound Blaster Team
Forum Administrator
Creative Labs”
