Tuesday Tech Alert: The Audacity of Change

Whatever the July 4th celebrations may have looked like in your neck of the woods, fireworks of a different kind began flying through many voiceover groups across the internet. Muse Group, the new owners of Audacity, publicly announced changes to their data collection policy which lit the internet’s fuse. A variety of articles and posts began labeling the audio recording application as “malware” or “spyware” without a lot of specifics. Most of those seemed to quote other articles which chose the most sensational posts.

I’m not saying there is no threat. In all honesty, it does seem to be a concerning development. But there’s been nothing to support the idea that it’s actively harming your computer system (which is what malware does) and it’s hard to call it “spyware” if they tell you what data will be shared (assuming that’s all they share).

This article from Engadget seems to have the most cogent information. If you use Audacity as your main recording tool, I would recommend reading it so that you understand the story so far. Of course, all of that could change as Muse refines or updates their initial policy statement. At this point, they have said little and not replied to public questions.

(UPDATE – please see the additional articles and posts which I have linked below).

Should You Use Audacity Moving Forward?

Two things caught my attention:

1. The collection of user data seems to be starting with the next version (Audacity V3.0.3), which means if you are using any Audacity version which is current as of this writing, or a version earlier than V3.0.3, the application should not be collecting/transmitting data.
   
2. Most of the data collection is consistent with “Crash Reports” applications utilize to transmit failures back to the developers. We’ve all seen those pop-ups during the rare unanticipated shutdown of an application. It’s the additional, non-“hashed” user information which gets maintained for 24 hours that causes concern. Plus that data is potentially getting shared with the main office in Russia. I would continue to pay attention to how Muse corrects or refines that policy.

This will likely continue to play out over the coming weeks. Meanwhile, I hear the collective groans of people who have established workflows in Audacity and are dreading the change. In many cases, it may be the only audio recording software you have ever used. It’s scary to think about a change to something less familiar.

How Painful Will Change Be?

I’d like to offer some hope there.

In addition to learning the specifics of Audacity (or any recording software you have used), you’ve actually learned a fair amount about voiceover recording in general. File formats, input levels, the basics of Amplification and Normalization, audio signal paths and editing skills will all transfer over into any new recording software which you choose to use.

Sure, there will be some annoyances when a certain keyboard combination or mouse trick doesn’t quite work the same way. That’s just mechanics. You’ll learn new muscle memory fairly quickly (and you can also assign old keyboard shortcuts to the new applications).

How to Change to New Recording Software? Dive in!

Over the years, I’ve used and discarded many different software tools (does anyone remember Opcode Studio Vision?). But each time I did so, the process actually became easier. When I kept focusing upon what I wanted to do rather than the specific steps in the program, the conversion went more smoothly. Faced with a new program, I’d approach the challenge from that point of view. The result was that as I got more familiar with the new working environment, it became a translation process.

Within a few sessions, I found that the clumsiness disappeared.

If you plan to make a change away from Audacity, I’d look for a lull in your production schedule, or block out some studio “play” time to try other software options when you aren’t up against a deadline. I’d certainly encourage a move to Twisted Wave if you are already on MacOS (and there is still space in this month’s Twisted Wave Deep Dive workshop on July 23rd).

Alternatively, Adobe Audition is certainly a solid option, as is Studio One or Ocenaudio. All of those are set up nicely “out of the box” and can be optimized for voiceover workflows. If you want to tinker a bit, then I’d consider Reaper, which will require a more fine tuned setup process. I’m happy to assist in any way.

Updates & Further Reading –

Since the earlier original email to my community, a couple more articles and posts on the subject of Audacity software and the privacy policy have appeared. There have been supporting comments by members of the Audacity developer team and a some clarifications.

As I said in the original article – Audacity is neither Spyware or Malware. But there have been changes to the type of information which it will share in future versions.
 
This has a pretty cogent and level-headed description of the points in the original stated Privacy Policy by Muse Group – https://librearts.org/2021/07/audacity-privacy/

This is a statement on GitHub (a code repository) with a clarification from someone who claims to be from Muse Group (the folks who now own Audacity). Some of the comments get pretty harsh, coming as they are from strong open-source proponents (which is a bit component of GitHub).
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1225

Update – 7/22/21 – Refinement of terms by Muse Group

Posted to GitHub on 7/22/21 – “Update to Our Privacy Policy” by Muse Group (owners of Audacity)
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1353?

“Today, we are introducing a revised privacy policy to address the concerns raised with the previous privacy policy published earlier in July. The original policy, which was drafted in anticipation of the release of Audacity 3.0.3, received a large amount of media attention due to the inclusion of a few key provisions that appeared to some to violate promises we had previously made. We want to address the issues that were raised, give assurances about our intentions, and provide verifiable proof of what information is actually sent from Audacity. The new privacy policy uses clearer language that we hope will explain our intentions more accurately this time. We are deeply sorry for the significant lapse in communication caused by the original privacy policy document.

Updated privacy policy
https://www.audacityteam.org/about/desktop-privacy-notice/

Summary of main changes

• Phrasing has been adjusted to remove ambiguity or aid in transparency, in particular that we do not collect any additional information for law enforcement or any other purpose
• We have explained the purpose of the two networking features, error reporting and update checking
• We have removed the provision that discourages children under 13 years old from using Audacity
• We have taken steps to ensure that we never store a full IP address (we now truncate it before hashing or discard it entirely) and have reflected this change in the privacy policy document
• We have made some changes to how we process error reports to ensure that we never store any potentially identifiable information”

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