Encourage "Create-Pro" to go legit.

12/14/2015

It has been brought to our attention that Create-Pro is once again selling stolen copies of our work. Sadly this isn't the first time. We tried to work a deal out with them, but the terms they requested weren't possible.

If you are a professional in the UK or EU who uses their services, please encourage them to come back to the bargaining table and use honesty, instead of trickery. The end result will be better for everyone if they do.

I just had to rewrite most of the Maxwell EFIs as they have switched RAM chips. One specific GTX 970 card now has four different roms. I can't imagine having to steal a new rom each and every time a card gets revised. They will end up selling buggy cards that won't work well (but still have our name in the System Profiler).

If you have some time on your hands:

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/tom-create-pro-taking-over-mac-gpu-development-create-pro.1813249/

And if anyone can put me in touch with the Prosecutor who convicted Phil Goldsmith for selling stolen property, I would appreciate it. Any current employees of Create Pro who would like to help put this crook where he belongs are also welcome to say "Hello".

34 Comments

BKE

12/17/2015 02:57:24 pm

Greetings,

I read your blog posting wishing that Create Pro would behave legitimately. Unfortunately, that company is run by a convicted criminal:
http://www.suffolk.police.uk/newsandevents/newsstories/2014/june/computertheftupdate.aspx

Consequently, they're unlikely to behave with any honor or integrity. The best thing for professionals in the UK or EU to do would be to avoid them altogether.

Best wishes

MVC link

12/18/2015 03:39:40 pm

Yes, we know all about Phil and his time being prosecuted for selling stolen computers and iPads. He swore to me that he had learned a lesson and was going to deal honestly in the future. Then I got an email asking for support for a card someone bought from them with our name on it. So, it sadly appears that Phil needs more time in the Gray Bar Inn to understand how a civilized society works.

I am still hopeful that he comes to his senses and begins licensing payments as presented to him, but it isn't looking likely.

Singleton Makin

6/3/2016 12:12:21 am

Im not sure i see the crime in selling used gear?
How is it stolen?
That is where i am not understanding
People buy off of ebay everyday
So if a used card gets sold buy a reseller are telling me he is stealing? Or is it the software you are talking about?
In that case OSX and Nvidia would love to be able to help you
Oh i mean Apple
They sue people who tamper with their code
And anything else is Open Source
Unless there is something i am not understanding

Please educate me because i have not bought anything from them but they have written me back numerous times offering free tech support on items they did not sell me. Even to guide me on building my own flash drive for a mac 5,1
Because i said theirs was much too expensive

Now who helps you when you do not buy?

Is that a criminal?

Please help me too because

I bought two titan X cards
One i installed got the driver info from your site Thank You so much!!!! Without your list of vital info i woukd have never found the correct drivers on nvidia site.

But now im stuck
The card doesnt cause kernel panic
And the correct drivers are installed
But i am a bit confused about the power supply cables
My builder says i need both the big and little connected to the power supply
But i got none from the ebay seller. And only one small one from the builder. He will be in touch soon i know.
But in the mean time i desperately need advice or second opinion
Because the Frys salesman said i needed only one or the other but not both!
And now i am getting webdriver manager tool saying
Slot 1 where the TitanX is installed is not ECC compatible and it doesn't say nvidia like the stock 120 nvidia card it came with....
Please do i need this special EFI Maxwell firmware flashing for it to be Mac compatible?

If so how do i get this or do this, and again this is a mac 5,1
Not a hackintosh

Thank you for any advice
Amd i am grateful!!!

MVC

6/3/2016 01:53:44 pm

They have stolen software that we have written. For some time they were selling "Create.Pro" cards that still had our name listed in the System Profiler (they claimed it was a misunderstanding). They also had serious legal trouble in the past for selling hardware that was physically stolen from, I believe, a hospital (though that has nothing to do with us directly the details can be found online).

I see you emailed us as well and will answer the rest via email.

DWL

12/20/2015 04:32:42 pm

As one of your GPU-customers I am shocked about the fact how your good work gets stolen.

They run still promotion for the stolen upgrade EFI as can be seen here at min 10:29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1zjnaSVUZM

I wish you to win at the end over these thief's - as you deserve it!

12/20/2015 04:50:31 pm

There is even a second video showing a "customized" GT 980 being mounted (shurely with your stolen Flash)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeEKPYb8G84

You might post a comment ? under both videos? ;-)

12/22/2015 01:44:25 am

Yeah, I've had emails full of BS from that Richard Rogers guy. About as slimy as they come. Neither one of them has any idea what the truth is. As I pointed out in at least one email to Phil Goldsmith, it's pretty astounding that someone who stood in front of a judge just one year ago and begged 'Oh, your honor, I don't know how all that stolen stuff ended up on our website. It was accident, I swear, I 'll never do it again" is once again selling stolen stuff from his website. He'll be back.

Marek

12/26/2015 12:08:39 pm

Are you still looking for a legal EU partner to market your cards or not ?

12/26/2015 02:01:30 pm

We are in talks with some people, but nothing official yet. You are welcome to email us if you're interested.

12/26/2015 02:12:57 pm

I've send you another e-mail right now to [email protected].

Topic is: "EU partner to market MacVidCards".

Regards,
Marek

ddt

12/30/2015 05:43:28 pm

Phil Goldsmith is as slimy as they come. stealing from hospitals to sell on his site.
disgusting.
scrumpymacs and its sister companies have acted horribly in the past, one story doing the rounds was that they ordered approximately 80k of new imacs from another reseller and defaulted on payments. so they sent a bunch back. on inspection they were old /broken imacs, like G5s and c2d white models.
robbers pretending to be businessmen.

12/31/2015 06:52:00 am

That's why the only way to stop them is to have a loyal EU partner which will dump their prices and make their business non-profitable.

Joey Tranchina

2/2/2016 11:26:05 pm

Marak: I'm not Nostradamus but I'm not as confident as you seem to be that UK will leave the EU. For all the mutual benefits, I think they need us more than we need them.

But for practical purposes of this discussion, I'd recommend finding a Dutch company to partner with. There are several reasons for this: first, less complex regulation but most of all language facility... It is easy to function in the netherlands with English. Almost no one who is not Dutch speaks Dutch and even among those of us who do, few make it sound right. Any Dutch person, who you are likely to do business with, speaks English (as well as most probably German, French and probably some Italian or Danish or Spanish. Believe me, as an American who has lived in Europe for half of the last 20 years, language matters — especially in business.

I don't know your background or how much this information is of use to you... but I'd love to see Create Pro's product line available here at a competitive price from an honorable company.

12/31/2015 03:32:44 pm

Wow, this is a new thing I hadn't heard before. Do you have any details at all? I would love to get in touch and verify this. A link to another forum post, etc?

1/7/2016 04:16:17 am

Please note that UK will probably step-out of EU in 2017, so talking with any UK companies does not make any sense.

Mark

1/8/2016 09:53:32 am

I can't see the UK leaving the EU. Even if they did, there would be an agreement on VAT like there is in other non EU European countries.

ryokryokeken@

9/15/2018 02:25:27 pm

OUCH! On the up side your analysis matches that of every overpriced "expert" out there =)

Iwan

1/31/2016 06:17:06 am

plus 1 for Marek's idea. Like in the youtube video showed earlier , Create Pro work closely together with the guys from Pro Tools Expert (http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/?tag=Create+Pro) Maybe you can contact them and explain your story. Maybe they will drop their collaboration.

1/31/2016 08:58:39 am

I've got an offer from MVC and we will do business with them ;)

1/31/2016 09:05:18 am

Thats great Marek! let me know where to find you!

Koji

2/7/2016 12:34:34 pm

This sounds good. Please MVC confirm that agreement and where to find your products in Europe. :-)

Marek Zakrzewski

2/7/2016 12:39:26 pm

I've sent an e-mail to MVC, but still no reply. The USD/PLN exchange ratio is extremely high now and we are waiting till it will drop a bit.

2/2/2016 10:38:27 pm

Create Pro has a very attractive offering of upgrades for a Mac Pro.
If they are a criminal enterprise, as seems clear from their dealings with you; it could be a good idea to replicate the full range of their Mac Pro upgrade offerings,and compete in their sector with your integrity. Sounds like it would be a good business to me.

I was planing to buy their CPU & memory upgrade but after reading of your experience, I wouldn't touch them with a barge-pole now.

Russ Hughes

2/8/2016 01:49:58 am

Hi Russ here, Managing Editor of Pro Tools Expert. We responded to an email from David Pirelli last week asking him for more information and evidence to support his concerns. To date we have not received a response.

We also reached out to Create Pro asking them to respond to the claims made here and in the email, as well as the information regarding the criminal conviction. Their response was immediate, thorough and satisfactory.

I reiterate my comment made to David in my email, that we take any claims of IP theft seriously and will investigate immediately and if evidence is presented to support the claim will act appropriately.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Russ Hughes

Reuben link

3/28/2016 05:12:35 am

I have an early 2010 (maybe '09? I'm out of town so I can't check...) with 16GB Ram and 2.93gHz Nehalem quadcore CPU. My standard Radeon ATI was getting a bit slow so I bought an EVGA NVIDIA GTX 970 from Create.pro.
It had no discernible benefit to either Adobe or FCPX-- in fact it took 6 minutes to load Adobe AE and even then couldn't get a decent RAM preview of more than 3-4 seconds. This after MANY uninstalls, reinstalls of both the card and software. Now AECS6 won't even work, saying it can't be used with my version of OSX (it was fine until I deleted the preferences file), so I can't use AE in any form.
Create.pro have offered a full refund-- but after reading some of the above, I'm reluctant to spend money to return a US$600 card... if I may not get a refund. The card isn't defective-- it benchmarked well on Onyx. I'm at a loss. Any advice?

2/8/2016 12:24:17 pm

Russ, Sorry I missed your email. I have since responded. I thin you should have more than adequate proof in the two emails I sent.

Look forward to connecting you with our legitimate partner that we have signed in the UK.

2/8/2016 12:35:38 pm

So the UK partner is the first one. We are still willing to do business with you but there was no reply for our PM on forum.netkas.org.

3/21/2016 08:26:23 am

Wow, I bought a GPU (GTX 970) from create.pro which, while not defective, provided precisely no improvement in speed or performance. They have offered a full refund; I am now reluctant to return it to them (at my own expense) for fear they will keep both the card and my money.
Any suggestions?

3/21/2016 04:08:26 pm

You should be able to return it safely if you paid via Paypal or credit card.

Ben(UK)

4/15/2016 02:03:04 am

I am very glad I found this thread and looking forward to my delivery of a Titan X from the legit UK distributer.

Knowledge is power and the best way to combat criminals is to starve them of business. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Anonymous

6/13/2016 04:09:50 am

They are clearly selling card with your modified EFI - last year I purchased a Mac Pro 5.1 system from them with a:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 6144 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x17c8
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: MacVidCards

However, I don't think macvidcards can hold copyright over the changes they did to the EFI, as I'm sure it goes against nVidia and manufacturer's T&C – you are modifying a piece of software without permission. If anything, nVidia could sue you. (I could be wrong... I don't know all the details)
I am not trying to take create.pro's side, but surely if what they did was intellectual property theft you could attack them in court. And you should.
I do agree that if they're applying your modified EFI to video cards themselves, it would be better if they acknowledge your work and license it. Clients would benefit from it, I'm sure.

mark link

1/30/2017 11:10:05 am

i want a titan x card, try to contact the guys from macvidcards but even after many mails, twitter messages until now no answer…

asking create pro - answer in just a minute

so what is my choice (i need this card)???

i bought from create pro some Mac Pro Prozessor upgrade cards without any problem even if there is a service issue - no problem…
its clear if the flash bios is stolen this is inacceptable,

Guillem Ventura

3/31/2017 04:32:09 am

I bought a maxed out 5,1 from create.pro without knowing any of this.
I've had a bunch of sudden reboots, haven't solved them yet...
Create.pro were kind of helpful, they even replaced the (unflashed) Titan-X, although the problem persists.
But I hadn't known about this issue..until I went look for the latest Nvidia drivers to YOUR page, they didn't update the last 10.12.4.
And I learned about their stealing.
As a creator I can't support this attitudes :-/
Anyhow I write to express you need an European vendor. there's no way we can buy cards from the US, wth the delays, taxes, lack of support (RMA would be a nightmare!).
We are waiting for you!!
Thanks for your great work.

Albert Kiefer link

8/14/2017 01:20:48 pm

I can't believe what I am reading here!!! I just last friday bought a card from Create Pro and it does not work! I am totally at a loss here since the card is a replacement for a failed Quadro and I need to be back up and running as soon as possible.

Is there anything possible at all?

MacPro mid 2010/ NVIDIA TITAN Xp

Albert

Encourage "Create-Pro" to go legit.

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