"They publicly threatened me, just to show their arrogance," he told El Reg by email.

He told us that Creative contacted him on a chat session. "They were sarcastic, ironic and asked me if I wanted something from them, as if I were expecting something," he wrote. "It was my protest against them and would like to see how far it would go."

He acknowledges that Creative has a case regarding intellectual property, but is furious about the company's strategy. "I'd say they are stealing [from] their own customers by disabling features based on technologies they own (so they did it on purpose) and by charging for a software that requires an improved driver that they refuse to provide."

"At least they are getting flamed all over the web and they are certainly mad about it. That is enough reward for my hard work," he wrote.

Creative climbs down over home brew Vista drivers [The Register]
(Photo: Young Frankenstein)
PREVIOUSLY: Creative Sparks Customer Revolt When It Tries To Silence Third-Party Programmer

Over the weekend, Creative's forums have exploded with posts from angry customers who have sworn to stop buying their products. There's already a boycott site up at boycottcreative.com.

A Creative Forum poster named "youAREkidding" summed up Creative's stupidity quite nicely:

Imagine what would happen if 10%, just 10% of the people who will read about this, be in a store somewhere, see someone about to buy a Creative Labs product, and say to that potential customer. "If you have Vista, Creative has non-functioning drivers for it, there was a guy who created a Modified driver, but Creative made him stop distributing it, and there are still no workable drivers for Vista." Some people might laugh at him, but the majority of computer perhiperal buyers don't know squat, and if they hear it from someone who presents themselves in a knowledgeable manner, they may actually think twice about it. Creative loses another sale.
 
So, yes, Daniel may very well have stepped on some copyright rules, and Creative had the lawful option of doing what they did. Score 100 on the law, score minus several millions for not doing the job themselves in the first place, and putting someone like Daniel in a position where he had to do what he did, just to get the customers of this company happy.

Let me just remind you that for example NVIDIA still supports GeForce generations 5, 6, 7, and 8 in their latest video drivers for XP, XP64, Vista, Linux and Mac OSX. All those old cards still get performance improvements instead of being crippled.

Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: 03-30-2008
newegg
Message 1179 of 1,436
Viewed 2,595 times
 
To Whom it May Concern:
 
While it is not our place to condemn the decisions of Creative regarding this issue, our customers come first. That being said, it has come to our attention that many of our customers are not happy with the products Creative has released nor the support for those products. To wit, we have processed nearly 5,000 return orders within the past 48 hours. While it is not normally in our best interest to publically comment in a manufacturer's forum, the overwhelming concensus has left us little choice. As such, effective tommorow morning newegg.com will suspend sales of the sound cards in question, particularly those indicated as "Vista compatible", pending an investigation into the matter. Those of you whom recently ordered such a card will still recieve your product as indicated in any relevant conversations. While we regret this abrupt decision, it has been deemed neccessary to protect the interest of our consumers. We welcome contact from Creative as soon as is possible so that we may resolve this issue.
 
Thank you,
 
Newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com

Daniel_K:
 
We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deliver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.
 
Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.
 
Phil O'Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.

He writes:

I recently ditched Windows XP at my house, and have moved to the Macintosh platform (and converted my PC machines to Ubuntu)

I've had zero issues with the conversion, except for my HP "all in one" scanner/pc/fax machine. Although I can get it to work just fine with Ubuntu, I cannot scan from OS X Leopard.

After some googling, I contacted HP support who informed me that there are no plans to update their drivers for Leopard. This is not an old printer, I bought it 4 years ago and I'd think it's in their best interest to support the segment of the market that's moving to Mac.

Instead of solving my problem with a new driver, they're trying to solve it by offering me a "trade in / trade up" program where they want me to buy a new HP printer. The only thing this will serve to do is to kill any brand loyalty I had to HP and cause me to never buy another HP product again.

I find it funny that the open source community can get scanning working just fine on Ubuntu, but a company like HP can't tweak their drivers to get it to work on a mac. C'mon HP, get it together!!!

Hello Matt,

Thank you for contacting HP Total Care.

With the Officejet 6110 & the Leopard OS, you will be able to print dew to the pre-installed print driver with the OS. For scanning, there is no software and drivers that will support this. There will be no software updates for this product and the Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard). We do have a program called trade in trade up. This is where you can trade the older unit in on a newer model. If you would like more information about this program, please reply to this email. Thank you

If you need further assistance, please reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you further.

You may receive an e-mail survey regarding your e-mail support experience. We would appreciate your feedback.

For information on keeping your HP and Compaq products up and running, please visit our Web site at: http://www.hp.com/go/totalcare

Sincerely,
Scott W.
HP Total Care

Can anyone think of a way to translate the scanner's outdated language for Leopard? Suggestions in the comments.

Such was the metaphysical mind bender that confronted reader Kevin S. who recently purchased a Motorola KRZR from Verizon in Seattle. But upon contacting Motorola, he was shocked to discover that his phone was impossible. The KRZR does not exist in the States. It isn't released. As Graham Chapman might say, It's an un-phone.

So Kevin calls Verizon. They want to charge him $29.99 for the driver along with a "music pack" that he doesn't need. If he just wants the driver, he needs to convince Motorola that their own phone exists.

Kevin's email, after the jump.

Just a quick little mail, don't even think this needs any further pursuing, just to let people know.

I picked up a KRZR from my local Verizon store in Seattle, great customer service there, as I was NOT eligble for an upgrade, but they gave me the upgrade price anyhow. This morning, I decided to plug my phone in to my computer, as it's got a USB port. Windows XP correctly identifies my phone make and model, but can't find a driver. Cool, the phone is new, I can understand that MS doesn't have a driver yet for it. So, I check out motorola.com for a driver, only to be told that the phone is not released yet, and the web site will be updated when it is.

So, I took the next logical step, I called Moto directly, in the hopes that they would have some more information for me. After going through the usual routine of what model phone I had, and what I was calling for, I got to a live person in under two mintues. I asked the rep if there was any software available for my phone, to which he told me that the phone was not yet released, and therefore there would be nothing available for it. I told him that I had the phone in my hand, and he explained to me that sometimes phones get released to Asia before America, and had I gotten one of those phones, that the software would be available when the phone was released to this country. I then told him that I had picked up the phone directly from a Verizon store in Seattle, to which he told me that I need to talk to them to get the software I need. I've been around the cell phone block several times, I was a Verizon rep for many years during my tenure at (ack!) Radio Shack. I know that the big V will help me with software and apps that relate directly to the phone, not how the phone talks to the computer.

While I've been writing this email, I've been on the phone with Verizon customer service. I told the rep that I was looking for just the driver to the phone. He placed me on hold for a couple of minutes, telling me that he was talking to a 'wireless advisor.' When he came back on the line, he reiterated what I already know: If I want just the driver, then I need to talk to Moto directly. He did tell me that they have a music pack for $29.99 that includes everything I need, however, including headphones, a USB cable, and, oh gosh, the driver. So, this tells me that the driver for the phone is already available from Moto.

So, like I said up front, I don't think this is a huge deal, more just the incompetance of big companies. I just thought that this might be an interesting read for a Sunday. Having that driver sure would be nice though!

Thanks for having a great blog!