Am6 did not work

[TheRealJustin]

First sale, license vs. copy vs. ownership, DRM, artificial scarcity on digital products, anti-circumvention, etc etc etc.

The same stuff is being said over and over. Here are the facts:

• Shannon is currently employing a "security through obscurity" DRM model on his digital audio products. Because nobody currently knows the exact procedure Shannon performs to produce his work that in and of itself is a deterrent to reverse engineer it. That being said, this mainly means two things seemingly paradoxical: even if someone knew the exact script Shannon wrote, producing the exact same output with the same or better efficacy is nearly impossible without following Shannon's exact procedure step by step; and, as always, if someone is truly determined to "crack the code" and is reasonably skilled and/or knowledgeable in effective methods of reverse engineering, it can and eventually will be done, but the deterrence simply affects how long and how much effort it takes to do so. Also, circumvention of "security methods" on digital audio is only illegal if the intent is to distribute the circumvented software illegally, the DMCA actually allows exemptions for circumvention for educational purposes and certain "freedom of choice" purposes like jailbreaking or unlocking a phone to change carriers or to install a custom OS.
  
• Circumvention of "security" in digital audio can be done mainly one of two ways, either at the binary level or at the audio level. The first is akin to modifying data directly in something like a hex editor (accounts for run-of-the-mill DRM like locking a song to a specific iTunes account) and the second is basically using an audio editor to process and modify the sound produced. Since Shannon's security method is script-based, removing it requires the latter, editing the sound wave itself; even with knowledge of the exact script Shannon uses for AP it will be statistically impossible for someone to perform the audio transformations necessary to remove it from IML subs and leave the rest of the script intact unless they also either have knowledge of Shannon's procedure, are willing to perform a massive amount of trial-and-error, and/or have more audio DSP knowledge than Shannon and can and is willing to "beat him at his own game," so to speak. So far only the middle kind of cracker (the brute force, trial-and-error kind) exists for someone wanting to circumvent IML subs.
  
• History has shown time and time again that the harder it is for someone to experience and enjoy a product, the more likely a competitor with a similar but easier to use product will succeed and force the original producer to either adapt or die. iTunes, the current #1 online music store, originally had DRM on songs but thanks to Amazon offering the same music at the same price and quality but DRM-free and taking their business they now no longer do so. Adobe's products are repeatedly pirated because they charge prohibitively high prices, and products like Sketch (graphics) and Coda (web development) succeed and eat Adobe's lunch because they're less expensive, better quality, and Adobe's response is instead to move to a more prohibitive pricing model (from the one-time-cost Creative Suite to the monthly-subscription Creative Cloud) they ignorantly believe is the better solution to their problem and will price them out of market leadership.
  
• There was a fourth thing, but by the time I got to this point I forgot what it was going to be. Probably something about customer satisfaction or something.
  

tl;dr:

@Shannon - Technologically, there is nothing to worry about releasing the script you use for AP. It's not possible at this point in time for someone to circumvent it digitally because no one yet possesses the necessary knowledge and/or skill set to do so, nor is it likely someone will in the near future. That being said, it is difficult to prevent, say, a "pirate" or group of "pirates" from buying or organizing a "group buy," purchasing from the shop using those funds, and then later distributing those subs either within the group involved or to the public in general via torrents or something. It's not competitors currently stealing your work and passing it off as their own you should worry about nor is it the minority of people who would torrent or distribute on torrent your work no matter what, it's losing paying customers who don't believe or have faith that you won't use your knowledge of psychological scripting for nefarious purposes. A little will go a long way towards reassurances, and even if a competitor copies your AP script into their motivational offerings after you release it they still won't have products nearly as effective as IML products. Also, as a businessman you should probably be more concerned with the potential loss of business from existing customers who may have wanted to buy more subs in the future rather than potential future customers who haven't even given a dime to you yet; customer retention is almost always more important than customer acquisition and you should know better than most here the importance of repeat business.

@Others - There is a lot of fear-mongering going on in this thread, a bit from Shannon in response to what's being posted but mostly from everyone else. I hope the information I've provided in this post is useful enough and accurate enough to educate on some points that may have been lost in the shuffle. Concern about the messaging we absorb from these subs can be legit, but will get lost in the mix if we resort to unnecessary ad hominem attacks and talking about things unrelated to the topics at hand.

(small edits for grammar and clarification)

There is no way to reverse engineer my audio and remove the AP code. The way it is created prevents that. It's about like trying to remove the vanilla from a cake batter after you have mixed it. You have to remove it from the script and rebuild.

I'm looking at my AP code. It specifies not my products in general, but the specific program in which it is found. It also does not include what I thought it did. The code for extracting equal value is not here. Not sure how that happened. So basically it's just trying to educate people and get people to follow copyright law.

What I propose as a solution that works for everyone is that you guys help me craft some AP code that is publicly visible that we can all agree on. I don't see a better solution than that.

It does me no goods to spend all this time fighting to explain what you guys are afraid of because I can't share it freely. It does me no good to have people afraid to use my stuff. But I also can't have people just walzing off with it. So let's come up with something that pleases everyone.

I always assumed the AP code was something like:

"If I received this sub unethically, stole this sub, or obtained this sub illegally I will return fair value to indigo mindlabs."

I always thought it was something along those lines, and I was always fine with something like that, because something like that would never affect me outside of using your subs.