Softphonics are done???!!

[chaosroyale]

RobC "don't speculate"': proceeds to wildly speculate.

The comparison video and the response from softphonics blaming everyone else are all the information you actually need to understand this situation. There was a serious license breach on multiple products. Those products will be/have been taken down from the RE shop. The legal situation for the original creators such as NI will depend on the agreement that the refill/RE maker signed with Props. (Usually these agreements will limit liability for Props, the developer will bear responsibility. Any developers on this forum can tell us for sure. It's unlikely that NI will waste time and money pursuing it).

Anything else is indeed pointless speculation.

[RobC]

I'll be waiting for a declaration from Propellerhead Software and Softphonics.

This thread is like old bags gossiping. xD

I'll be waiting...

[djadalaide]

I wonder if he is watching this thread.

[Oquasec]

Wow, had no idea they were doing that.

[djadalaide]

Wow, had no idea they were doing that.

I kind of had a feeling, that something wasn't quite right when i bought and tried their refills. They felt too good for a one-man operation. Are you reading this Andrew?

[nickb523]

RobC "don't speculate"': proceeds to wildly speculate.

Here is some proper speculation based on hard facts:

I was talking with Andrew last night (May 24th) from around 6pm until about 8:30pm then i went and had dinner. In this time i had checked my PH account as we were working on a new RE and everything was in place and normal.

After watching the TV for a bit and digesting my dinner, i checked my messages at around 10:30pm.

At this point Andrew states that he isn't feeling well and needs to take a few days to chill out. I said "no problem man, get well soon" (i didn't think anything of it) and then went to bed.

I woke up this morning (May 25th) and checked the interwebz around 8am... saw that Hydlide had posted a video with a clickbait title, so i watched it whilst saying WTF!?

After that i saw that the main Softphonics site and 90% of his products on the Prop Shop were no more.

That all happened in less than 12 hours.

Make of that what you will. But to me it looks like a certain party issued a DMCA takedown request and the Props acted accordingly.

Andrew has been MIA ever since.

It's serious.

[bxbrkrz]

Wow, had no idea they were doing that.

I kind of had a feeling, that something wasn't quite right when i bought and tried their refills. They felt too good for a one-man operation. Are you reading this Andrew?

I had that impression with Epic Beat RE. So good. I almost bought it because he was a one man operation supporting the refill eco, but I did not believe it was stolen, just a dude working very hard.

[modecca]

I was always curious where this image came from and just typed in manticore in google and the original image pops up.
Hopefully Stephan Alekseev was compensated or agreed to his artwork being used on a product.

manti.jpg (12.13 KiB) Viewed 1842 times

[sdst]

I'm not surprised by this, I even find it funny.

it reminds me of everyone selling the same Drum samples. lol

[miscend]

The website says:

"1. Constant manipulated bad press over some recent beta tests and smearing older reason refills has been the final nail."

Now, he coded a lot of his works from the ground, yet it still got defamed as if it was just some pre-made modules, which it was not. The second part of the sentence makes me wonder: ever thought about that he might have worked for other companies, recording, and owned rights to the same samples perhaps, etc? Everyone can speculate endlessly until the companies don't tell us what's gonna happen.

That is actually not true. His plugins were indeed simple premade effects from the IDT/GE set. And I don't mean this as an attack on anyone using IDT/GE, it's a fine platform that deserves to see more legitimate use. But these were about the laziest imaginable uses of it, and he was very shifty about it. After I expressed my skepticism on the forum, he sent me a PM offering me licenses of his products to keep quiet about it.

He wasn't just stealing samples and then doing everything else legitimately. His entire business was built around finding various ways of taking other peoples' work and slapping his logo onto it. In the case of the ReFills and IDT instruments, it was outright illegal. In the case of the IDT effects, it was merely deceptive, but even setting aside the shadiness there, he was selling these (and had early access to the new IDT) based solely on the brand identity and reputation he had built from theft. It's all tainted.



As for taking down his products, I've owned his EmbouchuRe refill for around two years now and as far as I'm aware there have been no updates made to it, even to fix simple bugs like broken keyswitch behavior or wrong notes in NNXT patches, so it's not a matter of wanting to be able to provide support for them, either. He's just been caught in a big web of lies and he's running away.

It is also hugely gross behavior to cite autism as an excuse for theft, throwing countless other people under the bus who have never used it as an excuse to build a business ripping people off.

It’s amazing how he kept this going on successfully for so long and no one called him out. Genuinely feel sorry for those who invested a lot in his products, they probably felt a sense of security as Softphonics has been active in the Reason community making refills for years now and seemingly had a good relationship with Propellerhead's. The natural assumption is that everything that goes into the shop has been through thorough checks and QC.

The fact that he built good sounding effects with positive shop reviews using the minimum amount of effort is pretty cool though!

[Zac]

He took advantage of loyal people. People who would never suspect such deception. Maybe the Props should ask for physical evidence of sample sets in the future?

[nickb523]

After I expressed my skepticism on the forum, he sent me a PM offering me licenses of his products to keep quiet about it.

It’s amazing how he kept this going on successfully for so long and no one called him out.

I'm wondering the same thing.

Did he really offer you free licenses to keep quiet? - PM me if necessary. I'm trying to get the full story from both sides.

[Aosta]

I was always curious where this image came from and just typed in manticore in google and the original image pops up.
Hopefully Stephan Alekseev was compensated or agreed to his artwork being used on a product.

Let’s hope so! Geez. Being an artist and photographer it’s one thing that gets to me the most how people think art and images are free. I’ve had my art stolen before which is why I never post any of it online which is a shame.

[Zac]

I was always curious where this image came from and just typed in manticore in google and the original image pops up.
Hopefully Stephan Alekseev was compensated or agreed to his artwork being used on a product.

Let’s hope so! Geez. Being an artist and photographer it’s one thing that gets to me the most how people think art and images are free. I’ve had my art stolen before which is why I never post any of it online which is a shame.

I think i might start sampling all of it.
I think i might just draw it all.
Or maybe its just a loaf of sliced bullshit?
Find me.

[ravisoni]

I'll be waiting for a declaration from Propellerhead Software and Softphonics.

This thread is like old bags gossiping. xD

That's naive. Corporate normally doesn't operate that way. Too much liability is incurred from not saying the right things, and more so by admitting any wrongful act. What you'll likely hear from them is mostly damage control statements (if that), and I can totally understand if they never make a mention of this. Like someone alluded to earlier, a settlement will be reached with NDAs signed by all parties involved.

It's like asking the FBI to make everything public because "I will be the best judge of what's going on and what you're doing". Yeah. No.

I just hope that the damage to Props is minimal from this and that current users don't have to suffer from that which they could not have foreseen.

What I also cannot forgive, if true, is the use of autism as an escape hatch. What's sad is that this may potentially make life harder for developers who make use of samples in their products.

[Aosta]

Let’s hope so! Geez. Being an artist and photographer it’s one thing that gets to me the most how people think art and images are free. I’ve had my art stolen before which is why I never post any of it online which is a shame.

I think i might start sampling all of it.
I think i might just draw it all.
Or maybe its just a loaf of sliced bullshit?
Find me.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean?

[Exowildebeest]

There were always weird vibes from Softphonics, I think we all felt that. The scope of this is pretty damn amazing though.

[Michaellos]

But what's wrong with the refills Softphonics made for synths like Expanse, Parsec ? Just wanted to get them and they all dissapeared

[Biolumin3sc3nt]

I have no doubt Andrew is in a dark place emotionally right now. That's a given, Autism or not. Never knew him personally, and yeah... Hopefully You get the help / support You need. That's about all I'm gonna say!

[CephaloPod]

This is yet another nail in the RE coffin, in my opinion. One would hope that since the RE format is proprietary, there would be some measure of quality control by Propellerheads. It seems the Props aren't asking even the basic questions: "What is the source of these samples?" "Is this just a repackaging of IDT effects?" Sure, the Props can't be held accountable for everything a developer does, but this seems really lazy on all parts.

[normen]

This is yet another nail in the RE coffin, in my opinion.

This very conscious and civil discussion thread is yet another nail in the coffin of the PUFBickering Reason user stereotype.

[HeavyViper]

Ideally some good comes out of this debacle. I picked up a bunch of Softphonics' ReFills while they were on special a while ago, and now that's practically money down the drain. I was already extremely hesitant about picking up new REs/ReFills, and given how this is playing out (no refunds period, I saw earlier) I guess I have to be even more prudent from now on.

I hope Andrew gets whatever help he needs.

[Ermitage]

This is yet another nail in the RE coffin, in my opinion. One would hope that since the RE format is proprietary, there would be some measure of quality control by Propellerheads. It seems the Props aren't asking even the basic questions: "What is the source of these samples?" "Is this just a repackaging of IDT effects?" Sure, the Props can't be held accountable for everything a developer does, but this seems really lazy on all parts.

They must've known. I mean, alarm bells should've been blaring when a single guy (with seemingly no credentials) wanted to release not one, but several comprehensive orchestral libraries. Sampling one shots of marbles hitting styrofoam is one thing, but recording an orchestra takes a lot of time and isn't really something you can do alone.

So yes, this is a damning indictment of the level of quality control employed by PH.

[eXode]

This is yet another nail in the RE coffin, in my opinion. One would hope that since the RE format is proprietary, there would be some measure of quality control by Propellerheads. It seems the Props aren't asking even the basic questions: "What is the source of these samples?" "Is this just a repackaging of IDT effects?" Sure, the Props can't be held accountable for everything a developer does, but this seems really lazy on all parts.

Nail in the RE coffin? Don't hold your breath that this will have any effect on the RE market at all. This forum is frequented by less than a percent of the total user base as far as I know, so even if this is news on ReasonTalk, this event will pass pretty much unnoticed for the great majority of users.

Props job is to make sure that submitted RE conforms to the standard, not to investigate whether the RE contains stolen assets. Or do you expect DAW developers to ask every VST/AU developer the question of sample sources? It's both naive and unreasonable to be honest.

Do you think a store clerk should be co-charged with shoplifting because he fails to discover a shoplifter?

It's the developers responsibility, no one else.

[TritoneAddiction]

This is yet another nail in the RE coffin, in my opinion.

Nah I don't think so, at least not for me. It's unfortunate this happened but I certainly won't change my views on REs overall because of this.

I'll keep checking out new REs in the Shop whenever something sparks my interest.