{"id":673,"date":"2008-03-30T10:15:33","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T02:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/http:\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/archives\/2008\/03\/2008_03_30_1015.php"},"modified":"2008-03-30T10:15:33","modified_gmt":"2008-03-30T02:15:33","slug":"call-to-boycott-creative-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/03\/30\/call-to-boycott-creative-labs","title":{"rendered":"Call to boycott Creative Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I invite everyone to take a look at this thread<\/a>… and be utterly disgusted. I also invite anyone who has time to spare, to do whatever you can in decreasing the market share of Creative Labs<\/em> products.<\/p>\n

I know that the influence of the internet is a very small percentage in affecting the bottom-line of hardware manufacturers such as this. The beauty of the web is that it doesn’t take much effort to be heard – no matter how small you are. So unlike trying to fix governments, the phrase “do your part, no matter how small” certainly applies here.<\/p>\n

Read on if you want my detailed opinion on the matter…<\/p>\n\n

The short of the story is that Creative Labs,<\/em> a popular manufacturer of audio cards has threatened legal action against an independent community modder for creating alternate drivers to make their products work better than the “official” ones.<\/p>\n

In the course of the initial post, they go ahead and give reasons such as Intellectual Property,<\/em> License Agreements,<\/em> etc. which are all valid. However they’ve gone totally bonkers morally<\/strong> with regards to how they have handled this whole thing. There is such a thing as good will,<\/em> even in the corporate sense.<\/p>\n

The furthest they could’ve done was to simply disallow the user from asking for donations, and only because of the technicality of construing donations as “business profits” – even if in reality, donations are optional.<\/strong><\/p>\n

OR<\/h2>\n

If they were really<\/em> concerned about the legality of everything, then sure, forbid him to distribute his drivers. In return however, Creative should not only assume, but guarantee<\/strong> the responsibility for providing the customers with the driver support similar to what Daniel_K<\/code> was providing their customers.<\/p>\n

The thing about the forum post that makes me sick to my stomach is this fact: Creative<\/em> is actively preventing a loyal customer from providing their other<\/em> customers a level of support that the company itself<\/em> is incapable (or unwilling) of giving – simple as that. If they only did their jobs and provided the expected level support to the customers, there wouldn’t be a need for a guys such like Daniel_K<\/code> to go independent in the first place.<\/p>\n

What they should’ve done is\/are:<\/p>\n