BabaBooey

Thank you for this totally reasonable and thoughtful contribution to the conversation. 
 
I will be very sure to use this comment as the defacto standard for a highly reasonable comment. 

@LinusTech
My 2 Canadian cents on this is that you probably need some kind of licensing admin to make sure all the software you're showing on screen is in fact used appropriately and paid for properly. I think what has the community so riled up is that you said a thing that was a hot take and then found yourself in exactly that situation, the internet thrives on drama especially when fueled by irony. This is like a teenager getting reprimanded for a speeding ticket only watch their parent speed themselves. I know I know, you didn't reprimand anyone but equivocating adblock to piracy and piracy is bad sure feels like being reprimanded. You kind of can't tell people something they're doing is bad without people feeling like they're being put down for it, I'm sure you know this. Put some checks and balances in place to make sure it doesn't happen again and it'll just become a funny footnote I'm sure.
 
As for the dev of OCCT it's possible that they have some kind of social impediment that makes it very difficult for them to deal with people in certain situations and this was brewing for a long time until it just word vomited out all at once in a kind of ugly manner. I think a lot of us can commiserate or have dealt with this or people who have this kind of issue when it comes to potentially stressful interactions with other people.
 
And finally, it's nice to see you here addressing this personally but I feel you're just adding more fuel to the fire in a way.

This sounds awfully close to "I'll pay you in exposure!".  Don't be that guy.

 

Respectfully, I think you're wrong on this one. In ancient times something like this has been tried in courts: skipping ads using DVRs. It was ruled legal and compared to fast-forwarding through ads. The courts have always upheld that it is legal to modify legally acquired copyrighted content (like removing ads from a DVR recording), for personal use. 
 
Only when content is redistributed does it become a legal issue. This has also been tried in the courts, and means that an ISP for example cannot implement global ad blocking for its customers. 

The ultimate irony of this entire situation is that you are now under such severe scrutiny because you yourself drew a very flawed parallel that you refuse to back down from. Instead you focused on the more ridiculous responses to your flawed parallel (the viewership knows your stance on piracy writ large so those who claimed you don't abide it were off base) instead of the ones that wanted you to acknowledge the fundamental legal distinctions between piracy and ad blocking/skipping.

@LinusTech Although I understand your point of view from the adblocker scenario and obviously humans aren't perfect. A similar situation occurred like this in one of your videos from last year in the Home Theatre in a Storage Locker video where you were watching a pirated release of a movie ("Your Name") for which the UHD version of the bluray wasn't released in the US or Canada. I understand that, as you are the host and not the writer, you can't be held liable for someone else's actions. But isn't that directly hypocritical to your statement on adblockers. Obviously I'm not posting the screenshot where the pirated release filename was cuz I don't intend folks to pirate that media.
 
Moral or not, everyone can do whatever they want, if it means pirating something, I don't care. But I feel there must be some clarity when it comes to speaking publicly about something controversial like this topic.
 
Just my point of view and I intend no harm.

But surely you realize there's a vast chasm between use in an actual classroom and your own use, right? That there is some degree of educational intent in your use does not render them the same, in the same way that wheels on a plane lend it some limited functions found in a car, but don't make it one. Those things are mostly meant to fly, even if they roll around a bit, and your videos are mostly meant to sell water bottles, even if one "learns" about a new piece of software / a new corporate product. Your dominant intent is commercial. 
 
An 11th grade CS teacher's dominant intent is education. I don't remember mine ever showcasing something new accompanied by an affiliate link. 
 
As to the idea that this was less of a "commercial use" because it did not use the software for its intended purpose and instead "showcased" it--that's not how commercial use is determined. The question is whether use contributed to a commercial enterprise. And here, it did. The enterprise being a heavily monetized video intended to generate income. 
 
To analogize: Monetization of the listening experience is the primary means of making commercial use of music. If I were to make large prints of the lyrics to my favorite songs, place them in an aesthetically pleasing setting, and charge individuals for the opportunity to be exposed to what I believe to be fantastic lyricism, I've monetized that copyrighted work in a way that is different from the way in which the original artist chose to monetize. I haven't done what was intended--no playing, live or from the recording. My gallery-esque display is surely distinguishable.  But the fact that it contributes to my money making enterprise renders it commercial use, and I would be held accountable for that, regardless of how much I believe my audience "learned" about these great pieces of music. 
 
You're entitled to your opinion on how "commercial use" ought to be determined, and the terms of OCCT's licensing may bind you to a different or idiosyncratic notion of use that is in line with that. But in the US and Canada, the above is how commercial use is determined as a default matter. 

Although it's silly drama, it did make me sign up to the LTT forums to comment about it, so that's nice 😄

That's a pretty darn big assumption right there. That's called I'm an influencer and I think I can get away with not paying. Pretty crazy coming from a guy reprimanding people for using AdBlock. By that same assumption everyone can assume your videos are for educational purposes and so we don't need to pay for them or watch ads.

@LinusTechi strongly disagree with this sentiment. You use the software in your video. A video, which you produce to make money with constant ads for your store (even on the "adfree" floatplane), sponsors etc.That is commercial use and there is no way to sugar coat it.
That said, the dev's webpage is badly designed and doesn't make it clear enough and the drama he used to get you to subscribe to his service was stupid as hell.
I don't think it's justified to be outraged about it - i guess you ruffled some feathers with your hot takes and in the end you corrected a simple to fix error.

While I understand the thought process, it is still against the terms of service. A company like LMG should take those license agreements seriously, because if Microsoft decides to go after them they will have to pay really hefty fines.
You are not allowed to take illegal shortcuts just because you feel like it makes your life easier.
 
If they want to easily activate Windows then I would suggest getting a KMS host. It would require them to also activate other machines with the KMS since it only works with at least 25 monthly devices, but at the scale LMG is they probably should do that anyway.
 
There is also a Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation version that is actually meant for testing purposes (the grace period is not a testing period like some people believe). Not sure what Microsoft's license says about using the evaluation version for benchmark though, when the benchmarks are used in for-profit content creation like what Linus does.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-10-enterprise
 
 
Here is a more detailed post talking about Windows 10 licensing that I think anyone using Windows in a corporate environment should read.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/windows-10-free-dominique-côté?articleId=6628642711412973568

I'm always amazed by how quickly the LTT community is to brigade/argue in bad faith against some things at the drop of a hat, but also how quickly they will justify and/or defend/argue in good faith for any bad action done by Linus/LMG.
 
 
I wish you luck OP.
I think this was an oversight on LMG's part and they thought the software was free. I think Linus and the gang still think they are some small startup that plays fast and loose with the rules and as a result don't really care about doing things like checking the license agreements for things they use. If you somehow manage to reach them they will probably pay you at least once and then pay you again if they want to keep using your product, or switch to something else.
 
Advice to Linus if you see this. When you run a large company like you do, it's a good idea to evaluate the tools you use. If a tool you use as a "purchase" tab on its website, it's usually an indication that you might need to pay to use it in some circumstances. Going to the about page or reading the EULA is probably a good idea.
As it stands right now, the only thing standing between you and being sued, is the kindness of the developer. Piracy is a serious crime.
 
 
AD = Active Directory
AAD =  Azure AD = Azure Active Directory
 
There is no "Azure Directory". But you're right, I doubt Linus has their testbench AD-joined. I kind of doubt they have their other computers AD joined either, even thought they really should.
 
 
By the way, using Windows the way Linus does is piracy as well.
You are not allowed to use the activation grace period the way Linus does. Microsoft could, if they wanted to, sue Linus for not activating Windows on his test machines.
This is what the Windows 10 license agreement says:
 
 
The important part was highlighted by me.
Just because it runs doesn't mean you are allowed to run it.
 
So in one video, Linus has actually committed two acts of actual piracy.

That's called hypocrite. That's what Linus is.
 
 

Upgraded the connection a tad 
 

Edit, measured the speed a little later, it got even better

Just got my fiber connection
Will probably upgrade to 500/500 or 1000/1000, but 100/100 is a good start
 
300 NOK(45 USD/35 EUR)

Yes, we know. You have told us that 4 times already.

WINNERS: 
Surface 3 - Fedeger
Computer - MyMouseGoesWROOOM
Laptop - antoainb
 
You've got two weeks to claim your prize, then we'll re-draw!
 
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all for giving us the opportunity to do a job that we love - a job that is truly one of the best in the world.
 

 
As thanks, please accept this small token of appreciation - a pretty awesome giveaway for our awesome Linus Tech Tips community members
 
PRIZES
 
Microsoft Surface Pro 3
 
Custom PC Built by Linus, with a case that is "signed and designed" by the Linus Media Group crew
 
ASUS G550J - One of the laptops used on the HighLANder excursion, signed by Linus Media Group, Tek Syndicate, Austin Evans, and Newegg TV
 
 
GIVEAWAY RULES
 
Post ONCE in this thread to enter. Include whatever you want in the post - how you found Linus Tech Tips, your favourite series or style of video on Linus Tech Tips, what product you would like to see us review in the future, heck, we'll even take a post about your favourite food. Creativity is always welcome

This contest will run from 9/10/2014 until 9/19/2014 at 4:30pm PDT. Winners will be drawn live on The WAN Show using a random number generator.

The Surface Pro and the custom system will be given to the first two posts that are selected in the draw, the G550J will go to a random member that we feel embodies the attitude of the linustechtips.com community (who has posted in this thread ).

Winners will be contacted through the forum and will have 3 days to reply to claim the prize before we re-draw!

Good luck, and again, thank you all for supporting us thus far
 
EDIT:
 
WINNERS:
Surface Pro 3 - Fedeger
Computer - MyMouseGoesWROOOM
Laptop - antoainb

I'd just like to say that all hard drive manufacturers are going to have drives that fail. Sometimes you just happen to have ordered drives from a bad batch or you just got one that didn't last long. It doesn't mean any particular company's drives "all suck" or that they're terrible. Let's do some math to demonstrate this.
 
Let's say a manufacturer ships just 1 million hard drives. If they had a 1% failure rate that would be 10,000 drives that failed.
 
In 4 years from 2008 to 2012 Seagate shipped a total 1 billion hard drives, a meager 1% failure rate would be a whopping 10 million failed hard drives.
 
People really need to hop off the fanboyism train. All major hard drive manufacturers make great drives and all manufacturers will have failures.
 
Other than that, I am looking at getting 4 or 8 of the 6 TB Red drives for a 24 or 48 TB NAS. My meager 2 TB drive in my desktop isn't cutting it anymore.

WD has announced the expansion of WD Red line of SATA hard drives for home and small office NAS systems with the release of a 5TB and first-to-market 6TB capacity for NAS-specific storage as well as the introduction of WD Red Pro hard drives, which are designed specifically for the medium to large business NAS market. The WD Red 3.5-inch hard drives are now shipping in 1TB to 6TB capacities, while the new WD Red Pro 3.5-inch hard drives are available in 2TB to 4TB capacities.
 

 
WD Red NASware 3.0
WD Red hard drives are architected specifically for the distinct environment of NAS as well as the increasing demand for affordable, reliable, and compatible storage that strive to reduce customer total cost of ownership. The 5TB and 6TB models allow for greater storage capacity and increased performance with NASware 3.0, which is an enhanced version of WD’s original NASware technology that is designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime, and to simplify the integration process. In addition, the WD Red line of HDDs feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology that substantially improves overall drive performance and reliability.
Features:
WD Red is designed for SOHO and Consumer NAS systems that require compatible and efficient storage 3.5 Inch, 1.2TB; 5-platter design (6TB) Support  1-8 bay NAS systems with NASWare 3.0 Capacities offered: 5TB, 6TB 64MB buffer, 6Gb/sec, Intellipower Low acoustics, low power Advanced format technology 3-year limited warranty ​WD Red Pro
The WD Red pro line is designed for medium to large businesses, supporting eight to 16 bay NAS systems either in tower or rack form factors. The enhanced functionality provides reliable, high performance storage powered by NASware 3.0.
Features:
WD Red Pro is designed for medium to large-scale business NAS storage systems that require robust and highly reliable storage 3.5 Inch, 800GB; 5-platter design (4TB) Supports up to 16 bay NAS systems with NASWare 3.0 Capacities offered: 2TB – 4TB capacities 64MB buffer, 6Gb/s, 7200 rpm Supports up to 16 bay NAS systems Extended thermal cycle burn-in testing Hardware-based vibration compensation Advanced format technology 5-year limited warranty WD Green
Also announced is the expansion of the WD Green line of cool and quiet hard drives, which are now available in 5TB and 6TB models for high capacity consumer storage.
All high capacity WD 6TB hard drives integrate easily with WD’s My Cloud, My Cloud EX2, My Cloud EX4, My Cloud Mirror personal cloud storage in addition to the My Book and My Book Duo external drive solutions. Additionally, they support a wide array of WD OEM NAS partners.
 
Availability and Pricing
WD Red and WD Red Pro are now available at select U.S. retailers and distributors and come with three- and five-year limited regional warranties, respectively. WD offers free premium 24x7 dedicated support for WD Red customers.
The following are the MSRPs:
WD Red 5TB (model #: WD50EFRX) $249.00 WD Red 6TB (model #: WD60EFRX) $299.00 WD Red Pro 2TB (model #: WD2001FFSX) $159.00 WD Red Pro 3TB (model #: WD3001FFSX) $199.00 WD Red Pro 4TB (model #: WD4001FFSX) $259.00  
 
Source: http://www.storagereview.com/wd_red_pro_and_expanded_capacities_of_wd_red_hdds_released

WD has announced the expansion of WD Red line of SATA hard drives for home and small office NAS systems with the release of a 5TB and first-to-market 6TB capacity for NAS-specific storage as well as the introduction of WD Red Pro hard drives, which are designed specifically for the medium to large business NAS market. The WD Red 3.5-inch hard drives are now shipping in 1TB to 6TB capacities, while the new WD Red Pro 3.5-inch hard drives are available in 2TB to 4TB capacities.
 

 
WD Red NASware 3.0
WD Red hard drives are architected specifically for the distinct environment of NAS as well as the increasing demand for affordable, reliable, and compatible storage that strive to reduce customer total cost of ownership. The 5TB and 6TB models allow for greater storage capacity and increased performance with NASware 3.0, which is an enhanced version of WD’s original NASware technology that is designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime, and to simplify the integration process. In addition, the WD Red line of HDDs feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology that substantially improves overall drive performance and reliability.
Features:
WD Red is designed for SOHO and Consumer NAS systems that require compatible and efficient storage 3.5 Inch, 1.2TB; 5-platter design (6TB) Support  1-8 bay NAS systems with NASWare 3.0 Capacities offered: 5TB, 6TB 64MB buffer, 6Gb/sec, Intellipower Low acoustics, low power Advanced format technology 3-year limited warranty ​WD Red Pro
The WD Red pro line is designed for medium to large businesses, supporting eight to 16 bay NAS systems either in tower or rack form factors. The enhanced functionality provides reliable, high performance storage powered by NASware 3.0.
Features:
WD Red Pro is designed for medium to large-scale business NAS storage systems that require robust and highly reliable storage 3.5 Inch, 800GB; 5-platter design (4TB) Supports up to 16 bay NAS systems with NASWare 3.0 Capacities offered: 2TB – 4TB capacities 64MB buffer, 6Gb/s, 7200 rpm Supports up to 16 bay NAS systems Extended thermal cycle burn-in testing Hardware-based vibration compensation Advanced format technology 5-year limited warranty WD Green
Also announced is the expansion of the WD Green line of cool and quiet hard drives, which are now available in 5TB and 6TB models for high capacity consumer storage.
All high capacity WD 6TB hard drives integrate easily with WD’s My Cloud, My Cloud EX2, My Cloud EX4, My Cloud Mirror personal cloud storage in addition to the My Book and My Book Duo external drive solutions. Additionally, they support a wide array of WD OEM NAS partners.
 
Availability and Pricing
WD Red and WD Red Pro are now available at select U.S. retailers and distributors and come with three- and five-year limited regional warranties, respectively. WD offers free premium 24x7 dedicated support for WD Red customers.
The following are the MSRPs:
WD Red 5TB (model #: WD50EFRX) $249.00 WD Red 6TB (model #: WD60EFRX) $299.00 WD Red Pro 2TB (model #: WD2001FFSX) $159.00 WD Red Pro 3TB (model #: WD3001FFSX) $199.00 WD Red Pro 4TB (model #: WD4001FFSX) $259.00  
 
Source: http://www.storagereview.com/wd_red_pro_and_expanded_capacities_of_wd_red_hdds_released

Norwegian triple-play provider Altibox, which boasts the country’s largest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network, has announced plans to introduce downlink transmission speeds of up to 10Gbps for residential subscribers.
From 1 August 2014 a 10Gbps package will be priced at NOK 14,900 (USD 2,500), while a 1Gbps subscription will cost NOK 1,490 per month. Elsewhere, existing subscribers will see their download speeds increased incrementally, at no extra cost. The base level 25Mbps package is being boosted to 35Mbps (NOK 449 per month), and 60Mbps subscriptions will be raised to 75Mbps (NOK 549 per month).
 
If you order the 10 Gbps package, they will come home to you and install the needed equipment. You will need a small rack and a proper A/C.
Why do they offer this insane speed you ask? Because they can
 
35/35 Mb/s  NOK 449 (USD 75) 75/75 Mb/s  NOK 549 (USD 92)  150/150 Mb/s  NOK 649 (USD 109) 300/300 Mb/s NOK 749 (USD 126) 500/500 Mb/s NOK 990 (USD 166) 1/1 Gb/s  NOK 1490 (USD 251) 10/10 Gb/s  NOK 14,900 (USD 2,500)  
 

That's because Romania went from nothing to fiber, of course its cheap
Not to mention, Norway is a pretty rich country. The average salary is (yearly, before taxes) 76,000+ USD. Even though everything is expensive here, due to our oil driven economy, our purchasing power are not that bad
But you have to be pretty rich to get a 10Gbps package though. That will be a special order.
And 1 Gbps package is also pretty expensive, but affordable

120 AUD for that connection 
Holy balls! You are being robbed in broad daylight. Your connection is the equivalent of 2 cups and a string. It's unbelievable!
120 AUD is 666 NOK, is that a sign? 
 
I think it's time to bring out the torches and pitchforks and storm the parliament 

Thanks so much for joining. My vision is a community based on positive member interaction and helping each other. I believe that if we all work together toward this goal, we will have success in the long run.
We don't have official forum rules or anything like that yet, but as long as everyone is respectful of each other, and patient with the growing pains that we are going to experience (vBulletin 5 is VERY beta right now) we can make this into an AWESOME community forum.
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If only it were IPS...