Do you avoid buying plugins with copy protection?

[fluffy_little_something]

What is left for you to use?! Doesn't any decent software come with such protection these days?
Most of my stuff uses the ID and key system. I assume it is not the best protection, but I have never had any problems with it. You enter it once and that's it. Some hosts keep messing up registrations, Tracktion for instance. But that is not the plugins' fault.

Yes. Copy protection these days is one of the main reasons I will usually skip buying a plugin.

I have pretty much everything covered so I do not need any additional plugins. So if anything that I'm looking at has some form of shitty CP I will immediately skip it. Even if the software is heavily discounted during a sale. End of story.

Also due to consultation work and from personal experience I have grown to hate all kind of CP. If you have one plugin that malfunctions due to CP, you can maybe suck it up. But these days dealing with CP problems has grown into almost full time job. It is not only the music software but software in general that uses all kinds of CP that is hostile to users. It all adds up pretty fast. Over the past year I have probably spent time worth of several weeks dealing with various kinds of CP related problems. Will any dev care to compensate me the productive time lost? So in short I have grown pretty intolerant towards any CP problems. If something malfunctions if possible I will drop the manufacturer or just patch out the CP by unofficial means. I'm not willing to take this crap anymore.

So whenever possible I will buy serial/keyfile protected only. CP is only acceptable if it functions 100% 24/7 365. Anything less is just not acceptable. It should never get in a way of a paying customer. Never.

[bailees7irish]

I chose "I avoid Dongles".
However, I'd like to add something.

Air Loom is on sale for the rest of the month, and at $50 it seems like a steal. I have wanted this synth since it came out! But I just cannot get over the stupid PACE system. I have constant hard drive crashes (dammit, porn!), so I just know I'll end up losing this synth within a year or so. Then where will I be? I get one more download and then I'm f u c k k k e d. Sure, I could add an extra $6 and get 2 years of extra downloads if I need it. But still, a.) how many downloads will that actually be? As many as I need? It isn't specified. And b.) at the end of those 2 years, I'm sh*t-out-of-luck again. See, I like to feel like I actually OWN my VSTs. Sure, they're only digital and they'll never feel quite like owning a piece of tangible equipment; but I like the idea that if I want to take a dll and copy the sh*t out of it (for my own personal use, of course) to make sure I have at least 20 backups in different locations so that a future hard drive crash won't leave me high and dry, I want the freedom to do that. So unfortunately, as badly as I want Loom, in the end I'm essentially renting the damn thing instead of buying it - and even at $50, that's just too much for something I most likely won't have forever - so Air loses a sale. If it had less intrusive copy protection such as a serial, I'd buy it within the next 5 minutes...

[hibidy]

I'll betacha dongle
I'll betacha betchca wanna dongle
I'll betacha dongle....

Ode to copy protection :

Oh how I covet thee
Thy licenses are exquisite
Excitement runnith wild
With anticipation overwhelming

But your pace left me flat
I do not feel at ease
I challenge you to respond
and you do, most of the time

Dearest friends I tell
In order to be free
Do not worry about such unimportant things
just make music, and have fun

[ghettosynth]

I'll betacha dongle
I'll betacha betchca wanna dongle
I'll betacha dongle....

You know I'm all about that pace, no challenge,
yeah I'm all about that pace, no challenge.
Cause I'm all about that pace, no challenge,
yeah I'm all about that pace, no challenge,

I'm bringing dongle baaaaaaaack....

[ATS]

I can't believe people prefer challenge response over dongles.

[Aloysius]

I'm more of a Response Challenged person myself.

[t3toooo]

I can't vote because there aren't more options available but i will explain my decisions if i buy plugins.

1:
I don't like dongles but i think e-licenser works pretty great and silently on my system.
I also get windows notifications if an update is available (for my "card reader" lol),this works very well.

2:
I rather avoid smaller company's C/R but i like and trust the bigger ones.
(simple as that)

3:
I like key file serial numbers for all plugins from smaller company's.

[ghettosynth]

I can't believe people prefer challenge response over dongles.

I don't get it either.

[hibidy]

All the stuff I did today. Not once did I think about copy protection.

[hibidy]

I'll betacha dongle
I'll betacha betchca wanna dongle
I'll betacha dongle....

You know I'm all about that pace, no challenge,
yeah I'm all about that pace, no challenge.
Cause I'm all about that pace, no challenge,
yeah I'm all about that pace, no challenge,

I'm bringing dongle baaaaaaaack....

It has the makings of a song, but unfortunately, copy protection WILL be an issue

[Arglebargle]

I can't believe people prefer challenge response over dongles.

Dongles have the intial setup bullshit of CR, with the additional burden of a background process checking for the dongle. Plus the one-time cost of the dongle. I guess if you garbage up your system often and need to factory reinstall, or have really bad luck with failing hard drives, the dongle is better.

[ghettosynth]

I can't believe people prefer challenge response over dongles.

Dongles have the intial setup bullshit of CR, with the additional burden of a background process checking for the dongle.

Once I set up my dongles, there is no additional "per plugin" setup. With C/R the setup has to be repeated for every plugin. This is a pain when you are changing computers. Nothing C/R except Komplete made the last upgrade. I just couldn't be bothered to run all of the extra setup and trying to re-authorize and potentially re-email every vendor for permission.

I guess if you garbage up your system often and need to factory reinstall, or have really bad luck with failing hard drives, the dongle is better.

There are many situations where the dongle is better, as I've already described. The most valuable to me is that it is easy to use my dongled software on multiple machines. For much of my C/R software, this just isnt' possible. Additionally, it's not about "garbaging up" one's machines. I replace my machines more often than I replace my software. Another factor is that I sometimes use machines temporarily for music and it's nice to be able to use my software.

What I hear over and over again are complaints about dongles from people who just don't have a need for the value that they provide. That doesn't mean that there's no value there. I won't go back at this point. Komplete is the only C/R plugin library that I use. I still tolerate C/R for Ableton, but I don't know how long that will last for me. It has already taken a back seat, I don't use it anywhere near as much as I used to. But as far as new plugins, dongle or serial only for me.

[robotmonkey]

I can't believe people prefer challenge response over dongles.

Dongles have the intial setup bullshit of CR, with the additional burden of a background process checking for the dongle. Plus the one-time cost of the dongle. I guess if you garbage up your system often and need to factory reinstall, or have really bad luck with failing hard drives, the dongle is better.

It depends. Dongles are easier if you want to move licenses between computers often. Also doing reinstalls are more comfortable (but how often do you do that these days? once per 2 years or so probably).

But at the same time dongles are horrible form of protection because they put all the expense on paying user (50$ for a cheaply made piece of plastic anyone?). Also if anything happens to dongle then talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. This will be a major expense in shipping cost, lost productivity and so on.

[fese]

It would be interesting to know how many of all those people (me including) speaking against dongles and CR really had any problems with those copy protections schemes or if it is just a general uneasy feeling about what could happen or whatever they read on the internet...

I for myself have an elicenser which has made no problems so far in nearly ten years.
I once had problems with Native Instruments CR which wouldn't authorize my system because I had no C:-partition in Windows (yes, it's possible, though I don't really know why it was like that). This of course is plain bad programming.
Re-licensing all the CR protected software on a new computer is of course a massive pain in the butt...

[ghettosynth]

It would be interesting to know how many of all those people (me including) speaking against dongles and CR really had any problems with those copy protections schemes or if it is just a general uneasy feeling about what could happen or whatever they read on the internet...

I have had problems with C/R. Ableton, specifically. It was the event that really triggered my attitude. Yes, they resolved it, but not quickly enough and I found it annoying that I had to "explain myself."

I for myself have an elicenser which has made no problems so far in nearly ten years.

I've only once had a panic moment with eLicenser, but it was simply a problem of trying to use an old version of the software. I downloaded the latest eLicenser and the problem was fixed. I thought that my Cubase license had vanished, it was fine.

I was concerned about Pace, but so far it has been working well for me. I'm really happy to be able to move Max around.

Re-licensing all the CR protected software on a new computer is of course a massive pain in the butt...

It is, but, with dongles, it's really quite contained. I currently use only six authorization systems including Ableton and, even though it still takes a long time to reinstall, only Ableton authorization causes me concern. Everything else will go without a hitch.