Waves Ultimatum Nets Two NYC Studios – Rampant Piracy Remains

When we last reported on the Waves Ultimatum it was 2007 and the Israeli signal processing juggernaut had ramped up their efforts to thwart piracy buy sending undercover “agents” into New York City studios to search for illegal installs. Well, three years later, Waves has just announced that their initiative has resulted in one lawsuit in the win column and had a second defendant admit liability in a lawsuit regarding intellectual property infringements and the illegal use of its software. The two studios named were New York City-based Reckless Music, LLC, d.b.a. Skyline Recording Studios NYC, and Quad Recording Studios, Inc.

Waves attorney, Mr. Guy H. Weiss, of the business law firm Adorno & Yoss, LLC performed the typical attorney chest-pounding when he declared, “this is a tremendous victory for the studio recording industry and Waves in particular. The law is clear: A recording studio is responsible for the copyright infringement committed by its employees, independent contractors or customers.”

Gilad Keren, CEO of Waves Ltd: “The judgments obtained in these two court cases should send a targeted message to all users of illegal software that Waves is very serious about defending its rights and will continue to fight against the use of cracked software. In the long-term, illegal software does not benefit anyone, as it hurts not just Waves, but all developers and manufacturers of software products including their distributors, retail partners and of course, loyal customers who have purchased legitimate, legal versions of the product. We consider a lawsuit the very last resort, but unfortunately it is a course of action that can protect our intellectual property and ensure that we can continue to develop and bring to market the right tools for the recording, broadcast and post-production industries.”

The Future: While Waves’ victory is a nice win for software developers, it won’t do much for deterring software piracy in the long-term. Fact is, most manufacturers don’t have the resources (many of them can’t even afford proper advertising anymore) or the MOSSAD tactics to combat individuals from pirating their software via Cracks and other methods. While this makes good press for Waves Audio, the solution to this problem is not going to be through litigation…just ask the RIAA.

Author: FutureMusic

Share This Post On