User:Koji
About me
Koji here. I'm on the Consumer Rights Wiki because I care about pushing back against consumer exploitation. Outside of that, my interests are music production, programming, and homelabbing.
Why I'm here
Music production software is one of the more predatory consumer spaces I know of, and it gets away with it because the harm is invisible to anyone outside the craft.
The mechanism is simple. Most modern music software is sold as a service rather than owned outright. Project files reference specific plugins, and those plugins have to be present, authenticated where required, and version-compatible the moment a session is opened. So an artist's back catalogue — sessions they may need to reopen years later for a remix, a remaster, a sync licence, or a stem delivery — stays tied to whichever companies they were renting from at the time. A lapsed subscription doesn't just block new work; it can lock you out of old work the next time the OS, DAW, or hardware moves on. The Waves Update Plan is one documented example.
The industry knows this. The leverage is the product.
Documenting it is the least I can do as someone on the receiving end.
Interests on this wiki
- Software — particularly music production tools, plugins, and sample marketplaces
- Digital rights management and authentication systems that gate access to already-purchased work
- Software as a service and the shift from ownership to rental
- Software bricking and Software-gating
- Lifetime licence removal