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HELP!
I need a Bay Area attorney who can get my friend out of this situation:
one of my closest friends, (we'll call him Walt) called me today and tells me he is being sued by Waves for $75k for using pirated copies of their plugins in his audio recording studio.
Back in March he was approached by a potential client who presented himself as a needing a studio who had these plugins to allow for compatibility in other studios. The "client" visited his studio where he chatted it up, and asked to see the plugins in action. My friend happily obliged and then 3 months later received a letter from Waves about the lawsuit.
This studio is based out of his home. He has a PC based studio set up in the living room... kind of a lounge, beat making studio. This is where all the alleged pirated stuff is... and this is where Walt showed him the Waves plugins he was asking about.
The second studio is the really nice facility which is all Intel Power Mac running Logic Pro. This studio has never had any Waves software on it. This is the studio that people come and pay to use mostly.
In the letter however it states that he had copies of both of these products in both of his studios (he doesn't). The letter included a phone number which he called and he spoke to some people who wanted to hear his side of the story. He told them he only had demo versions on his machines, and that if the client had actually booked the time and paid the deposit that he would have purchased the software. They told him that there was nothing more to say and they would see him in court.
I hate to see hardworking people get the shaft, and I am worried about my friend. This guy has 3 kids and 2 jobs, and now has to hire an attorney and deal with this bullshit. In talking on various forums about this I have learned that this is part of a global campaign by the Waves corporation.
I need a Bay Area attorney who can get my friend out of this situation:
one of my closest friends, (we'll call him Walt) called me today and tells me he is being sued by Waves for $75k for using pirated copies of their plugins in his audio recording studio.
Back in March he was approached by a potential client who presented himself as a needing a studio who had these plugins to allow for compatibility in other studios. The "client" visited his studio where he chatted it up, and asked to see the plugins in action. My friend happily obliged and then 3 months later received a letter from Waves about the lawsuit.
This studio is based out of his home. He has a PC based studio set up in the living room... kind of a lounge, beat making studio. This is where all the alleged pirated stuff is... and this is where Walt showed him the Waves plugins he was asking about.
The second studio is the really nice facility which is all Intel Power Mac running Logic Pro. This studio has never had any Waves software on it. This is the studio that people come and pay to use mostly.
In the letter however it states that he had copies of both of these products in both of his studios (he doesn't). The letter included a phone number which he called and he spoke to some people who wanted to hear his side of the story. He told them he only had demo versions on his machines, and that if the client had actually booked the time and paid the deposit that he would have purchased the software. They told him that there was nothing more to say and they would see him in court.
I hate to see hardworking people get the shaft, and I am worried about my friend. This guy has 3 kids and 2 jobs, and now has to hire an attorney and deal with this bullshit. In talking on various forums about this I have learned that this is part of a global campaign by the Waves corporation.
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Re: Waves software piracy lawsuit blues !!! Attorney needed !!!
Thu, July 5, 2007 - 4:59 PMHi,
My name is Ivan, I've been a musician for as long as I can remember,, I work on many things but I do some production and engineering work based off my home,, I myself am in the exact same place as your friend,, a lawyer some months ago mislead me to believe he was in a band and wanted to record, he asked to see what plugins i had, a few weeks ago i received a notice from a settlement office, the funny thing is i really had a 14 day trial, but for some reason they're Claming i had the real thing installed (i never put any kind of serial,, when the trial was over I left it at that as I didn't have the money to spend on those plugins). I have been asked by waves' settlement office to provide them with 15k, or they are taking me to court...
If you can provide me with anything helpful about your friend, or maybe tell your friend to contact me I would greatly appreciate it...
Ivan
305-546-8760
ivancillo@yahoo.com -
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Re: Waves software piracy lawsuit blues !!! Attorney needed !!!
Sun, July 15, 2007 - 1:00 AMIf you havn't used any actual pirated versions of the software then I suggest not communicating with them at all. Do not hire a lawyer, and try not to let it stress you out. My friend retained a lawyer, and then simply dropped the whole thing after talking to others who were dealing with Waves.
they may ask you for a sampling of your session files over the last year to prove you didn't use the plugins. I suggest you do not provide if you have ANY pirated software used in these session files.
I will forward your post to my friend, hopefully he can share his thoughts on this.
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Re: Waves software piracy lawsuit blues !!! Attorney needed !!!
Tue, April 15, 2008 - 1:46 PMHi,
This is a continuation of this message, since I posted this some people have contacted me regarding this issue. I Did NOT commit copyright infringement, but was about to settle just because this people are so convincing. They Illegally recorded my conversation and later tried to use it against me. Fortunately I hired the right lawyer to defend myself from this accusations.
If you are contacted by this companies disregard them, they are scamming people into downloading the demo version of waves and then sending you a letter based on the supposed fact that you have an illegal or fake version of waves. Since posting here, several people that actually have the license of waves have contacted me, so I have concluded that piracy or no piracy, they simply go, see waves in your computer, and send you the letter, no matter if this version is pirated, fake, demo or purchased,,, this sucks, so what I did was file a complaint against allied national with the US Attorney:
US Attorney General Complaints
oig.hotline@usdoj.gov
I encourage you to do the same. The more people complain about this the more attention that will be brought to them...
Ivan
PS. If you ever receive a call from Allied National Collection Agency beware of them, they are very rude and they try to force you into thinking you are a criminal...Allied National Collection Agency really sucks, I really wonder how they let businesses like Allied National Collection run. -
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Re: Waves software piracy lawsuit blues !!! Attorney needed !!!
Mon, February 2, 2009 - 2:00 PMI have a studio in NYC and I went through the same thing. I found a great lawyer through this magazine article:
futuremusic.com/blog/
The Hughes Law Firm (www.hugheslawfirm.org) and they got the lawsuit dismissed. I will never purhase anything from Waves Audio ever again. They're all a bunch of scam artists threatening their legitimate customers with shakedowns makes me sick. -
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Re: Waves software piracy lawsuit blues !!! Attorney needed !!!
Tue, March 24, 2009 - 12:02 PMLooks like the Hughes Law Firm is now Murtha & Murtha (www.murthalawfirm.com). Waves just isn't giving up now they filed a Federal lawsuit. Now i have to pay again to defend another Waves lawsuit. I hate them.
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