Unfair EULA terms for a product that doesn't do what the company claims

nhill

I recently bought in good faith a piece of music software called EastWest Symphonic Choirs. The company claims this:

Imagine typing words into your computer, in any language, and hearing a world class Symphonic Choir sing those words in any key(s) you play “live” on your keyboard controller! Well imagine no more, that’s exactly what this revolutionary “award-winning” virtual instrument does.

However, the product does not do this. The sound is great and on first listen it sounds real, but in fact the most it can manage is to produce noises similar to the words you want it to sing. It's not intelligible to anyone who doesn't know what it's supposed to be sounding like and therefore does not fulfill what they claim.

Even in their official tutorials the man sound engineer using the software cannot make it sing the words he types.

I enquired about a refund and was told that I could not have one due to the End User License Agreement saying there is no refund available!

I told them them the terms were wholly unfair is there is no option to demo the product before spending hundreds of pounds.

It is not underwear or shoes that I've worn - it's a bunch of DVDs that require a license key to work, something they can simply switch off and have returned as good as new. I can see no reasonable argument as to why they are so reluctant to refund a product that doesn't do what I was led to believe yet all I have had from them is a brick wall.

To add insult to injury the arrogance and sarcasm I received from customer support was unbelievable.

What do I do?

Thanks.

Proc

I must be honest; I can't think of the last time I purchased a text-to-voice choir-emulation package.

I guess without hearing samples it's hard to deduce whether or not you've got a case. I mean whether or not the words that are sang sound like the words typed is completely objective. One person (in this instance you) would say it doesn't sound like it whereas someone else (probably them) would argue that it does. Meanwhile, everyone else will probably just be thinking "!!!!!!?".

I guess a small claims court would decide? What was the cost of the software anyway?

I'm more interested in what specifically was said by their customer services that has clearly upset you?

maninthestreet

It's software - you've only purchased a licence to use the sofware.
Unless it was sold to you as 'try before buy', I don't see how you could claim a refund.

Chambece

I've not got this software, but have played with sample sets and software before, and to be honest, I thought it looked quite good!

What was the the demo that you saw? is that the one on youtube?

What was your expectation for it?

Phonetically it looks really good, and OK, it you wanted it to 'sing' this post, it would probably struggle, but I think anything would... I don't think however that is is a problem with the software, becauase you if you gave this to a choir they could probably sing it an almost infinite number of ways, so a conductor or composer would need to tell them how to sing it, which is effectively what seems to happen here.

The link I was looking at (if I can post it) was
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/08/29/symphonic-choirs/

Edit:

Actually, I have just noticed that I am guessing you have commented on that page, so that would be the link

RadoJo

How can they say: 'that’s exactly what this revolutionary “award-winning” virtual instrument does' - surely it's either award winning or it's not. I can't work out whether they have misplaced the quotes because they are misusung them for emphasis, or they have done it deliberately to mislead customers into thinking this software has won awards. The former is poor practice but the latter is pretty sharp practice, which suggests they are gilding the lily a little with their descriptions.

OP - does it perform in the same way that you can see it in the demo? To my ear that doesn't sound like a real choir, but I presume that's the standard to expect from the software. Also, were you using 'Votox' the language he was using, or were you trying to use English? It looks a little like the kind of software that's easy to use if you know all the tricks to 'naturalise' the sound it produces, but might not produce ideal results from day one until you have learnt your way around the functions which allow you to create the ideal sound.

Chambece

RadoJo wrote: »

How can they say: 'that’s exactly what this revolutionary “award-winning” virtual instrument does' - surely it's either award winning or it's not.

From this, which references this and http://emusician.com/2006_editors_choice_awards/ it has certainly won at least one

Another review at http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov05/articles/ewsymphonic.htm
is also quite favorable, and I have rated this magazine quite highly in the past.

Again, I think it comes down to what the expection was by the user. For example this definitely seems targeted at the pro-audio type person, especially with its price and marketing. On the other end of the scale you could have a keyboard player for a local church who buys it hoping that by using thier PC they can do full choir backing tracks, just by cutting and pasting the words to the song. I agree that this could be implied with the text, but given the target market, I would imagine that most would know that this would be a 'best case' scenario, that would not happen very often! Now if it was advertised in a regular PC mag, or some "Church Musician Monthly" type thing, I would argue that, yeah, perhaps it is being mis-represented to the target audience...

Just out of interest, OP, where did you see it advertised?

I agree with RadoJo though, in so far as I think you will need to learn the tricks and play with it in order to get the best out of it....

RadoJo

Thanks Chambece - I normally assume that misplaced inverted commas are down to confusion over their purpose, but their use on this site did make me wonder whether they were talking about a theoretical ability to be award-winning or actual awards won!

DVardysShadow

maninthestreet wrote: »

It's software - you've only purchased a licence to use the sofware.
Unless it was sold to you as 'try before buy', I don't see how you could claim a refund.

But it has to be fit for purpose.

The licence makes it a purchase of the use of the software, not the physical media. That is fine, OP is not alleging damaged, broken or non functioning media. OP is saying software does not do as claimed.

Chambece

DVardysShadow wrote: »

But it has to be fit for purpose.

From the demos that I have seen, it would certainly seem to be fit for 'standard' purposes, and by that I mean a professional choiral sample set, with word editing ability.

The only way I would hazard a guess at this being an issue was if you went along the "fit for the purpose specified" and said, to use my keyboardist in a chuch example, "would I, a user with no prior sample knowledge, be able to use it to replace a choir in my church"...

I know from my experience of software packages that what is achievable, and achievable my myself in reasonable timeframe is a world apart, and I do it for a living!

bbelt

where are you getting it needs to be fit for purpose from?