I Hate Censorsh

Question

You know things are bad when a company starts censoring things it said itself. Also locking the thread hoping it will sink away won't make the fiasco go with it. Perhaps "Creative" should base itself in Iran, China or North Korea where censorship is standard practice.
Dale-CL wrote:
Daniel_K:
We are aware that you have been assisting owners of our Creative sound cards for some time now, by providing unofficial driver packages for Vista that deli'ver more of the original functionality that was found in the equivalent XP packages for those sound cards. In principle we don't have a problem with you helping users in this way, so long as they understand that any driver packages you supply are not supported by Creative. Where we do have a problem is when technology and IP owned by Creative or other companies that Creative has licensed from, are made to run on other products for which they are not intended. We took action to remove your thread because, like you, Creative and its technology partners think it is only fair to be compensated for goods and services. The difference in this case is that we own the rights to the materials that you are distributing. By enabling our technology and IP to run on sound cards for which it was not originally offered or intended, you are in effect, stealing our goods. When you solicit donations for providing packages like this, you are profiting from something that you do not own. If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, that is a business decision that only we have the right to make.
Although you say you have discontinued your practice of distributing unauthorized software packages for Creative sound cards we have seen evidence of them elsewhere along with donation requests from you. We also note in a recent post of yours on these forums, that you appear to be contemplating the release of further packages. To be clear, we are asking you to respect our legal rights in this matter and cease all further unauthorized distribution of our technology and IP. In addition we request that you observe our forum rules and respect our right to enforce those rules. If you are in any doubt as to what we would consider unacceptable then please request clarification through one of our forum moderators before posting.
Phil O'Shaughnessy
VP Corporate Communications
Creative Labs Inc.

Answer 1

No, they definitely altered it. This was my response in the official response thread...
Indeed they manipulated the original message, because many articles link to it and just like the original message they are arrogant, dishonest and underhanded. The message will still be posted and read, any sensible company would have left it be as is. ? However, would you expect anything less than incompetence from a company which intentionally cripples the hardware you purchased in order to force consumers to buy an upgrade and believes it to be an ethical and sound business decision?
Creative Labs is not the same company it once was, it is a sinking ship. It used to mean innovation, quality, dependability and value. Creative has degenerated into something that closely resembles Enron... corporate greed, dishonest business ethics, shoddy management, deplorable support and above all a total and unmitigated contempt for their consumers and business partners.
Creative is obfuscating the fact that the company has already begun the slow decline to eventual failure. In order to cover the financial bleeding they have resorted to liquidating assets and arranging third party licensing of proprietary technology in order to publish reports of positi've fiscal profits. Anyone with half a brain for business knows this for what it is, a desperate cannibalization of the corporate infrastructure in order to maintain an appearance of fiscal viability that in truth is not really there.
Creative was already dying, they just nailed the coffin shut and engraved the epitaph on the headstone with this display of contempt for consumer loyalty and corporate accountability.