Reply To: Kirk Hunter Farewell Sale

[Peter Woods]

Yan wrote:

On doug said

The other thread about the sale does have one of the moderators questioning the legitimacy of the sale. That is sad.

It’s Mike Greene, the owner of Vi-Control

I’m just going to say it plain. Years ago, the head of ethics at Wharton stated that every Wharton student should be reading my writing due to my deep understanding of business ethics. I have not known of any business person with worse ethics than Mike Greene in my career. He is the inspiration for me doing this site. It’s not Cakewalk. Over a decade ago, Mike Greene, a user by the name of re-peat, NYC Composer and Paolo from Fluffy Audio all participated in a despicable bullying series of posts targeting Kirk. They ended up attacking and defaming me when I tried to stop their attacks against Kirk (who was not participating in the thread, but the thread made VI-Control an incredibly hostile and toxic environment for Kirk).

Last year, Mike Greene using proxies and participating directly, made an attack thread on 8Dio. The basis of that attack was a fabrication of a story by a Kontakt scripter employed by Mike’s friend Andrew Aversa, Impact Soundworks. The Kontakt scripter 14 years earlier had turned to a developer, who turned to me, after the scripter had done a fake review of a sample library he worked on, probably got paid royalties on, praising the library and comparing it to ToneHammer’s similar library, stating how the library he worked on and made royalties on was superior — except he never disclosed that he worked on that library and made royalties on it. He deceived the community by withholding that vital info.  Troels — later. a cofounder of 8Dio with Tawnia, his wife — contacted that scripter — heck it was Mario / Evil Dragon — and told him (very accurately) that what he did was unethical and not legal and he could destroy his reputation and be sued. Troels pushed him to make things right. So, the developer that mentored Mario called me up and I gave the advice that Mario should apologize to Troels, and never engage in that kind of unethical behavior again.

14 years later, Mario participated in a thread at VI-Control with his Impact Soundworks co-worker, Sarah. attacking 8Dio claiming that he was bullied 14 years prior simply for doing an honest review. When Troels posted the completely accurate story, Mario called him a liar, all of this egged on by Mike Greene — as anyone could see in the thread — Mike was calling Troels all sorts of names, it was clearly libel. So, I posted in the thread that I was the person who gave Mario advice all those years  ago and his story in that thread was untrue. Mario acknowledged that what posted was true. Mike Greene freaked out. Deleted my posts and Mario’s responding posts acknowledging that what I wrote was true (Mario and I have always gotten along well, FTR, but I will not be party to these unethical acts). So behind the scenes, Greene and I argued. Greene acknowledged that what he  was doing wasn’t ethical but that he hates 8Dio for various reasons and that they’re heavy discounting of their libraries is destroying the industry. Greene also tried to persuade me to never work with 8Dio. I cc’ed 8Dio’s CEO, Tawnia on this, in my reply to Greene. When I told him that I thought his behavior was reprehensible and I was cc’ing Tawnia so she could be aware of his libel, Greene threatened to humiliate me on his forum. Which he did. First by libeling me, calling me mentally ill and other names. Tawnia persuaded him that was legally problematic and an easy lawsuit.

Now since then, Greene has gone after three other developers. The most recent of which is Cinesamples. He’s been spreading a rumor that they’re on the verge of going under.

Now, I don’t engage in libel. I can verify everything I wrote as fact if Greene came after me and countersue. But this is how Mike Greene operates and I stood up for two developers Greene bullied and used proxies to bully. Hans Zimmer called Vi-Control toxic, So did Christian Henson. Henson wrote that it was so toxic that he needs to take breaks from it. I can tell everyone that developers are afraid that they will be next on Greene’s list to be attacked. He exploited my friend Cory Pelizarri when Cory was in a terrible mental state. I had pleaded with Greene to stop exploiting Cory, that it deeply troubled him and Cory actually asked me to make posts on his behalf — but I never did it. Tawnia knows all of this from back then. So I pleaded and pleaded that this was causing Cory to go into a tailspin. Greene did not care. Cory eventually took his life and there was also another person who had a suicide attempt during all of this. Greene didn’t care.

Sorry for sidetracking your thread, Kirk. I do want people to know about this guy. I wouldn’t be doing this forum if it wasn’t for him. And FTR, that doesn’t mean I’m competing against him. I’m not. I made this forum to be a place for people who want to avoid that toxicity. That was why I created a bunch of graphics about it. It is significant to me. I realize that people just care about great deals. But I care about people, including developers. I loathe bullying. I’ve raised my kids to not just stand up for themselves, but to stand up for others. I could have avoided being bullied by Greene if I just STFU like he told me. But I knew that what he and Impact Soundworks employees were doing was all based on a lie in order to destroy a competitor’s

Greene and Andrew Aversa (Impact Soundworks) sent Tawnia a series of electronic messages I would consider gaslighting, bullying, demeaning and just plain demented taunting. She sent them all to me. I was and still am repulsed by any individuals who can do that to anyone. I doubt that they would have demeaned the CEO the way they did if Tawnia was a man and not a woman. That was blatant misogyny, IMO.

Business doesn’t have to be that way. Most developers are decent people. I’ve become friends with a bunch of them and a bunch of them are afraid Greene will harm their business. They’re afraid to work with 8Dio / SoundPaint — and that is part of Greene’s mission — because they’re afraid Greene will retaliate against them if they work with 8Dio. And I’m sure many are afraid to come to my forum because they’ll be on Greene’s enemies list even though I’m not a competitor to Greene’s forum and have no intention to spend money to attempt to attract people here. I’m super happy just to have my friends from Cakewalk Forum here. I’m simple AF.

Vent over. But every word of what I just shared is true. Kirk is my friend. I haven’t consulted to his business in a decade. But we chat a lot and it’s a beautiful friendship. It’s not business. He’s my friend. That’s all there it to our relationship. But I’m sickened by Mike Greene and his unethical behavior. I’m calling it out.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Peter Woods.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Peter Woods.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Peter Woods.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Peter Woods.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Peter Woods.

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