Re: signs101/aurora/bashing/html
Wow. What a thread. I can see a lot of finger pointing, jumping to conclusions, and assumptions being thrown about with careless abandon...tearing down a competitor of Mr. Weiss on Mr. Weiss' forum. What a novel approach. As I recall, those Aurora Graphics DVD's sold in like 1 day, so it appears that the seller wasn't affected.
I am the publisher / owner of Aurora Graphics. Aurora's License Agreement is a short read, takes about 2 minutes to read it if you are slow. Not a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, but straight to the point. The License says you don't own the software you are buying a License to use the software, the License isn't transferable. The software cannot be resold on any online venue, including but not limited to Ebay is an important part of it. The disk itself is in a sealed envelope with a clear window to see it inside. You have to physically move the License to get to the DVD sealed in the envelope. That envelope has a seal that states (in bold text) 'IMPORTANT By breaking this seal, you agree to be bound by the license agreement that accompanies this software.' So if you don't want to be bound by that license, DON'T BREAK THE ENVELOPE SEAL..jeeez people..just send it back. If the seal isn't broken, the Authorized Aurora Graphics distributor you bought it from will refund the price, and the UNOPENED disk envelope and case is shipped back to Aurora. No harm done, no foul. The critical thing here is someone taking 30 seconds to read the first 8 sentences to understand the License he is agreeing to be bound by.
With regards to the 'common license' agreement statement made in this thread... the one that allows re-sale of software... and someone said Adobe, Corel, Flexi, Signlab etc. Well, incompletely describing those titles and License in a comparison to my own is a little 'short' on information. No surprise that those little facts weren't explored as deeply as my own makes me wonder what the underlying motive is for this thread to begin with. With Flexi, Signlab, Gerber, Sign Wizard etc. you have the dongle that is required to make it run. That insures that their titles won't be kept running on the sellers machine after it has been resold and installed on the buyers machine. With Adobe and Corel, they have the automated registration serial number function that makes it stop running after 30 days unless you register it. If it's already been registered to another user first, then the disk is resold, how do you think a new user and new IP will be able to register that product serial number? I think not. This is another method of controling piracy...what else would it be there for? Adobe and Corel, Flexi, Signlab didn't jump through all those hoops for nothing...not to make it more difficult for the user...they did it to keep piracy in check. If others in the clipart business choose to produce a non-restrictive license, that is their business not mine. I do not try to impose my beliefs upon other publishers, contrary to Mr. Weiss' actions in this thread.
'Recycling software' is the rage these days....piracy is out of control. Buy unprotected data software from somewhere, copy to your HDD, then sell the original. Next guy does the same thing. Seller claims 'but it's the original disk' and it may well be, but you still have the images running on your HDD. Who is going to physically go from shop to shop and audit the users machines to make sure they deleted every reference to the disk? What about all the design work already done, job sold, and that file is still on the users machine only now it's incorporated into someones logo or banner, graphics, wrap etc. Possibly many, many 'customer' files contain design elements or fills from the disk that you no longer own a License to because you sold it. Do any of you really think the shop owner will delete all those files as well? How many of you would actually do that, then rebuild the file again...-perfectly- with your own creation or that of a competitor? Honestly, I don't think anyone could say they would delete those, and then actually do it. The reference to the image from the disk is still incorporated in the design, saved, and is available when the customer wants to re-order the graphic / sign / whatever.
Only last year (mid 2008?) was another pirate exposed right here on signs101. Mr. Weiss, I know you remember it, though you failed to reference that little nugget when you started this thread. A pirate was selling 'legit' copies of Aurora Graphics titles, and also had a great .jpg of the product....looked real, original etc. One alert 'customer' bought one or two of these titles and upon receiving them, discovered they they were in fact counterfeits. He sent them to me for verification. That started the landslide as more then 30 different shop owners took this guy up on his 'deal of a lifetime'. One by one they started to contact me and I finally got some of these titles in the mail. It took me a couple of minutes to discover that not only did he reprint the labels direct to the disk, but also copied the packaging as well. The .jpg image of the disks on the for-sale post didn't matter....they looked legit, but come to find out they were counterfeit.
About documentation shipped with an Aurora title: Mr. Weiss claims that as a former Aurora distributor, he KNOWS we don't offer any printed reference to our titles. Mr. Weiss continues and names the titles he thinks came with no book. Listing Millennium Edition, Platinum Edition (both of those titles come with 52 page full color books and always have) 3D Metal Machine (this one has a 20 page full color book) Raven has an 8 page full color book and always has. The Print Craft was the first product we ever published that had an on-disk .pdf catalog and no book. Wow, times change and so did we. Regardless, Mr. Weiss can bash our products / my decisions all day long but at the end of the day, he is not affiliated with my company and has no decision making capacity, nor will he ever be in a position to do so.
So lets consider an Aurora Graphics title that was bought legitimately and used by one of the members here who posted about it: 'Used it last week on a Yellow Page ad. Paid for itself many times over' or something to that effect. Happy with his software until this gang mentality thread comes along and then nearly everyone, like sheep, fell into the angry mob mentality.... and who was actually harmed?
Currently Mr. Weiss' forum is unharmed. The seller of the software is unharmed. The buyer is unharmed. But it looks like Aurora is taking a blood bath here. Non-facts being written as fact IS occuring here, at my company's good name and expense.
I actually contacted Mr. Weiss about the post in question and asked him to remove it. Mr. Weiss refused, stating that while he would always remove a clearly pirated incident, he would not police his forum for my License violations. (Of course I never asked him to police my License, simply remove the post of an (already sold item) After receiving a DMCA to prod Mr. Weiss into action, Mr. Weiss took it upon himself to start a thread about the incident, in light of the fact that the software had already sold. As Mr. Weiss, the administrator of this site, started the thread and has the ultimate control over what is allowed, what is deleted, and the general tone of the thread. Honestly, it reads as a general running-down of the Aurora brand. Frankly, I'm surprised Mr. Weiss has not only allowed this tearing down of the Aurora brand, but instigated it himself.
But then we are competitors aren't we? I guess we'll see if Mr. Weiss allows THIS post to remain on his site. -Dave Dorsey, President Aurora Graphics
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