What's up with the activation limit on IK Multimedia instruments?

[xamido]

Clarification: that's 5 simultaneous, 10 overall. My IK account shows 10 for each item... if you burn through 10 activations in a relatively short time, I might want the customer to let me know what's going on too...

See, that's very lenient for me.

Example of activation limit is 2 activation, but this one they gave you 10.

* just checked my IK account and it's really 10 now. Wow.

[robotmonkey]

I have to say it, but, my favorite, so far, (other than Uhe/Cockos) is Waves, they let you use any USB key as a dongle. I dedicated a USB key to them and that's all that ever gets written to it so I'm not that worried about data loss. I only have a few Waves plugins but if they have another super sale I'll probably pick up a few more.

Waves gets my vote too. Though I must say I generally do not approve that kind of CP at all and try to avoid it like a plague but Waves has managed to avoid all the annoying things that eLicenser and iLok have. They do not put extra expenses on paying users for CP, for one. Also their software licensing is solid as is their recovery procedure so you are not likely to depend on their support for getting back to work if something goes wrong. Also Waves has turned from a very arrogant and shitty company to quite customer friendly on recent years so that is a plus.

[xamido]

Waves gets my vote too. Though I must say I generally do not approve that kind of CP at all and try to avoid it like a plague but Waves has managed to avoid all the annoying things that eLicenser and iLok have. They do not put extra expenses on paying users for CP, for one. Also their software licensing is solid as is their recovery procedure so you are not likely to depend on their support for getting back to work if something goes wrong. Also Waves has turned from a very arrogant and shitty company to quite customer friendly on recent years so that is a plus.

The recovery procedure can be used only once a year, you still need to ask their support if you use it already that year.

Besides, are you really going to use all 10 of IK authorization?

[paterpeter]

This is neither a big issue nor an IK specific one. Many companies have "activation limits" to prevent mass activation. In all cases where I reached that limit (e.g. Applied Acoustics or Microsoft), simply contacting the support fixed it quickly. I'm very sure, IK's support will sort this out quickly, too.

This!

Which could take hours, or days. It was not immediate when I had problems with Ableton. I find having to send an email to use software that I paid for annoying and it affects my choice to buy from the same vendor again, or from other vendors with the same policy.

Don't get me wrong: every single form of DRM/copy protection is a hassle for the paying customer. If it was only about me, every vendor could drop any form of copy protection from their product. You know why? Because I'm one of those honest guys who pays for his stuff. It's only because of those who don't play by the rules that those measures exist in the first place.

Do you know why I lock my doors at home? Not for me, but because of those who don't play by the rules. When I lose my key or lock myself out, it's very inconvenient to get that solved.

It sucks, yes, but I understand that those things are necessary to some extent. In the case of C/R, it effectively stops the spreading of uncracked versions of the software - you can't "share" a license among 10 friends for example.

Of course, you're free to choose a different vendor if the specific form of DRM is unacceptable for you and I understand if people do.

What I wanted to say initially is that a) the "limit" typically isn't a strict limit and b) IK is only one of many vendors. No need for IK bashing in this particular case

[4damind]

Waves has the option to move the licenses back to the cloud and after this it can be "attached" to a different computer (or a computer with different hardware). So if users don't forget about this option, they should never need this recovery.

Anyway, I expect that also IKM can reset this manually if you need more authorization?
Waves can do that (I have used this after a bad combination of OS and hardware update... and the Waves support was very quick)

[paterpeter]

Anyway, I expect that also IKM can reset this manually if you need more authorization?

Very, very likely. Also, I wonder if it was even legal to permanently deny a user further authorizations. Depends on the market/jurisdiction, I guess.

[kbaccki]

Well, just in case I checked this moment a go and guess what? Sample Tank Free also has activation limit! Go figure...

Hey, if you don't want to have 20 activations w/ 10 simultaneous of Miroslav or whatever, then that's certainly your prerogative...

[ghettosynth]

This is neither a big issue nor an IK specific one. Many companies have "activation limits" to prevent mass activation. In all cases where I reached that limit (e.g. Applied Acoustics or Microsoft), simply contacting the support fixed it quickly. I'm very sure, IK's support will sort this out quickly, too.

This!

Which could take hours, or days. It was not immediate when I had problems with Ableton. I find having to send an email to use software that I paid for annoying and it affects my choice to buy from the same vendor again, or from other vendors with the same policy.

Don't get me wrong: every single form of DRM/copy protection is a hassle for the paying customer.

Sure, I just think that some are less hassle. Look, I'm even willing to pay for the privilege. I didn't ask Arturia to provide me with a dongle, I brought my own to the table. I am saying clearly that I support vendors that provide choices. I think like most people, in order, I like 1) No protection at all, 2) Simple serial, and then I differ from most because I prefer 3) Dongle of some sort, and 4) C/R. I don't think that anyone (customers) really bitches about (1) or (2), so there is a simple solution for almost all other vendors. If you must have C/R, then allow dongles as a second choice.

It sucks, yes, but I understand that those things are necessary to some extent. In the case of C/R, it effectively stops the spreading of uncracked versions of the software - you can't "share" a license among 10 friends for example.

Does it? Because it completely makes me feel like a chump when I have to ask for permission to install software from a vendor whom I've spent significantly more than $1K with, to include buying their specialized hardware, and I see other people at local music meetups installing as many times as they like with their cracked versions.

I think that it stops some of the installs some of the time. The only thing that it stops 100 percent of the time is installs by legitimate customers who have run out of authorizations. Hopefully, such customers receive timely help from the vendor.

What I wanted to say initially is that a) the "limit" typically isn't a strict limit and b) IK is only one of many vendors. No need for IK bashing in this particular case

I get that, and I started by saying that I have no specific beef with IK and even named the one (music software) vendor that this has been a hassle with for me. That said, the main reason that I post in these threads is promote the idea that some customers are put off by authorization limits enough to not buy your products but that, at least some of, those customers are not put off by the cost(s) of dongles and want vendors to provide that solution as an option. It just so happens that IK is the subject this time.

Am I missing something, do they provide a dongle option like waves, steinberg, or even the many firms that use iLok?

[audientronic]

When I first installed samplemoog, there was an installer bug that crashed and ate one of my installations. I had to use two for the same machine. I contacted support. They got right back to me and said not to worry. When I run out I could just right them and they'd authorize more. I have never run out. Sampletank free gives you five extra. I am sure you can get more for that too, at least until 3 is released.

[robotmonkey]

Well, just in case I checked this moment a go and guess what? Sample Tank Free also has activation limit! Go figure...

Hey, if you don't want to have 20 activations w/ 10 simultaneous of Miroslav or whatever, then that's certainly your prerogative...

well, none of my other instruments have any activation limit at all so... touché

[neverenoughfunk]

not a fan of ik multimedia at all but the activation limit is not a problem. just call support and tell them you changed a piece of hardware (i.e. harddrive) in your machine and they will bump the activation limit by 3.

simple and painless!!!

[Peter - IK Multimedia]

Of course no CP is perfect, so we recently upped the limit to 10 authorizations. We also had used a dongle in the past but dropped that for the same reason we upped the limit here - a large part of our customer base had asked us to. We have made other recent changes like offering T-RackS "singles" without having to use Gear Credits, and have some more changes coming based on customer input (similar to this change in authorizations as well as features for an upcoming full version update of a flagship (outside of SampleTank 3) that come from direct input including requests made here, and more.

Again, I know that no CP is perfect (and I know and understand that some changes and releases are taking longer to implement than some would like) but I do hope we're making some good forward progress recently and that it keeps IK on the radar as we are (like any company) a work in progress. We've grown in many ways over the last 17 years and that can be challenging for any company who brings what we feel we bring to the table. We'll continue to do our best to move forward, so thank you all for the suggestions, concerns, comments and what have you.

[TheKid]

Here are some humble suggestions to move forward:
- Remove copy protection (just like Audio Damage did) or change it at least to a simple license number. C/R is not the right way. You said it yourself, having "no CP is perfect." Sadly enough your software gets cracked and distributed anyway. The ones picking up the soap are your customers, not the ones using illegal copies. I really hate seeing download links to one-click-hosters in any youtube video description, even more from very talented small software developers with low prices who need the support, e.g. ValhallaDSP et al.
- Strip your installers off all the junk that is not required to run the plugin itself. I don't want/need quicktime, online shop stuff within a software, no-frills usability please. Give your customers at least a choice if they would like to install all the marketing stuff.
- Less is more (especially communication). Your screenshot posting spree for ST3 for example is a total turn-off for me. Convince your customers and potential customers with great available products (that you (partially) have), not marketing bullshit bingo.

Sorry, I'm a purist sympathizing with companies like U-he, ValhallaDSP and more who just manage to create really great stuff without the hassle listed above.

You guys have really great products in your arsenal, top compressors, nice EQs, Amplitube and its expansions are really nice, just like your hardware for mobile devices. But still the points listed above won't make me swallow the bitter pill. But maybe you are moving forward. I'd be looking forward to that.

[ghettosynth]

not a fan of ik multimedia at all but the activation limit is not a problem. just call support and tell them you changed a piece of hardware (i.e. harddrive) in your machine and they will bump the activation limit by 3.

simple and painless!!!

You know, we're not stupid, we get that you can just "call", that's not going to change how it makes me, at least, feel. You can make it 100 installs, it won't make a difference to me, even though practically it does.

[Numanoid]

Then did some research into their product registration and authorization and saw that they still have not done away with the arbitrarily set activation limit on their instruments.

I'm using Sample Tank and the other instruments in the total studio so little these days, that I don't think I'll bother reinstalling them if my PC should crash. Even with a limited number of licenses, I think I'll have a enough to last for a long long time.

There are several things I find tedious with them, small GUI, long loading time of patches (compared with UVI player, which is very fast), bloated size of library eats HDD space, and sound quality isn't special enough to justify the hassle of fetching my magnifyier glass to be able to read the GUI when loading up the instruments.