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Kanye West gets caught pirating copy of $200 Logic Pro plug-in on his Mac

Kanye-West-Serum-tweet

Kanye West must actually be $50 million in debt like he claimed, as today he’s getting called out for exposing his own illegal downloading activity in a tweet.

West was only trying to show off a YouTube video he was listening to, but eagle-eyed followers — including electronic music producer Deadmau5 — spotted a few tabs in the background of Safari that show West was browsing PirateBay download pages for torrents of a popular $200 plug-in called Serum (pictured below).

Kanye-tweet-screenshot

Serum is a synthesizer plug-in popular among electronic music and hip-hop producers available as standard VST or AU files to be used inside of music production apps like Apple’s own Logic Pro X, ProTools, and other similar audio production suites. It’s developed by XferRecords, a company co-founded by Deadmau5 and partners for side projects including the Serum plug-in.

Sure it’s possible Kanye could claim it wasn’t his computer and he was just using it, but it’s hard to imagine why a musician of Kanye’s caliber (and with his bank account) would be in any studio stealing copies of a $200 piece of software made by a small developer. 

Kanye-West-Serum

West hasn’t responded to the criticism of the apparent torrenting activity, which many are quick to point out follows reports that West was considering legal action related to a record number of illegal downloads of his latest album. That’s the same album he decided to make only available on streaming music service Tidal while recently cancelling planned releases for Apple Music and other competitive services.

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 10.47.52 AM

Kanye responded with some jabs at Deadmau5 on Twitter, accusing him of not contributing to helping raise subscription numbers for Tidal, the Jay-Z owned streaming service Kanye has a stake in and that both artists helped to promote when it launched last year:

Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 1.46.24 PM

And if you want to help Kanye afford a copy of Serum, there’s a gofundme project set up here to contribute.

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Comments

  1. 89p13 - 8 years ago

    No. Shock. Here!

    IMO – He’s a real low-life who thinks he entitled to everything. Definitely belongs with the Kardashian Klan

    • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

      He and the kardashians are talentless ignorant, very unintelligent people that deserve absolutely nothing they have. It’s hilarious that they have what they do, it’s a testament to how embarrassingly stupid people are, to actually follow and support these useless humans.

      • skeevangogh - 8 years ago

        Talentless? He’s made one of the most classic hip hop albums of all time in The College Dropout. Does he lack proper judgement at times? Yes. But he’s far from talentless/useless as you state.

  2. surfingarbo - 8 years ago

    FYI: That gofundme project is no longer up and running.

  3. o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

    He’s a piece of shit and deserves absolutely no recognition.hes garbage in every sense of the word.

    • Ninasky Antonioli - 8 years ago

      Hater. don’t be mad your life sucks and you have accomplished nothing in life.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        I’m assuming that was a joke on what Kanye does hahah in which case good one

  4. Ninasky Antonioli - 8 years ago

    He was probably checking it out to see that indeed they still had his album on there. People need to stop speculating. Kanye is the last person that want’s music to be downloaded for free.

    • It is very clear that he has the page for Serum download open. Stop sucking KW’s dick on the internet and go suck him in real life if you like him so much.

  5. Georgi Yanakiev - 8 years ago

    The app on the back is actually Pro Tools not Logic :)

  6. robertsm76 - 8 years ago

    Im not a litigious person but Serum should sue him. Teach him a lesson

  7. Adam Tanner - 8 years ago

    He also had MacKeeper and other Mac malware windows open next to it so somehow this seems suspicious.

  8. srgmac - 8 years ago

    Pure. Scum.

  9. vasilios300 - 8 years ago

    He’s clearly trolling everyone and seems to be winning. Sad how you so called “tech nerds” can’t figure that out. Is it not a coincidence that he has the highest selling , shoes, album and doubled Tidals subscribers? Exactly..

    • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

      No it’s not a coincidence people are actually stupid enough to purchase things associated with him.

  10. J james (@JBowerz) - 8 years ago

    show the comment where Deadmau5 says kanye should preform at his own kids party seeing kanye is the biggest fucking clown deadmau5 or anyone has ever seen… lolol every one of you news outlets leaves that part out…. get the story right

  11. Trent B. Tulpo - 8 years ago

    Did he also bootleg his copy of Autotune?

  12. PJ (@D00mM4r1n3) - 8 years ago

    The only good song Kanye ever recorded was when his mouth was wired shut.

  13. i wish all of u could show me “evidence” of buying all “VSTs” u own give me a BREAK ! #likenormalpeoplepayforshit

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.