Selling VST2 after October 2018: Steinberg agreement

[BobDog]

Thanks Urs, that 9.8 section I had missed.

This is a bit of a bugger!

[BobDog]

When does this come into effect exactly?

I guess the moment you sign one of the VST 3 agreements with the 9.8 clause.

I dug out my VST 2 agreement, under section 9 "TERM OF THE AGREEMENT" the only termination cause is breach of obligations from the licensee.

I guess signing the VST 3 agreement with section 9.8 though nullifies that.

[Blue Cat Audio]

In the VST3 SDK license agreement, available as pdf from their Github:

https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk

§1.6 specifically does not include a license for VST2

§9.8 terminates all prior agreements with Steinberg, including any prior VST2 or VST3 ones.

This is not subject to any interpretation from my side, we have clarified this with Steinberg's legal department. Unfortunately that exchange is subject to an NDA, so I guess you'd have to go through it yourself if you want to hear it from them.

That's a new paragraph that was added in SDK version 3.7.10. I guess this means that if you use older versions of the SDK (3.7.9 and older), your agreement is not cancelled, unless they are allowed to change the terms of the agreement after it has been signed...

[EDIT: they actually can, as explained in the termination paragraph:

4. Steinberg is entitled to terminate this Agreement with 6 months written notice if Steinberg publishes a new version of VST Software Developer Kit subject to a separate licensing Agreement.

So I guess they may be planning to legally terminate VST2 within the next 6 months...]

It looks like it's definitely time to dig deeper into CLAP! I am really tired of this!

[BobDog]

Ah but then there is this:

4. Steinberg is entitled to terminate this Agreement with 6 months written notice if Steinberg publishes a new version of VST Software Developer Kit subject to a separate licensing Agreement.

[BobDog]

Ah you got there first

[Urs]

Guys, I would not worry too much.

If I had any advice, it's take your time, prepare for a good transition. Bug host developers to support IPluginCompatibility.

I also think there's difference between distributing and publishing. Afaiaa *distributing* a VST2 plug-in or host has never required any agreement, because otherwise resellers would have had to have agreements, which I'm sure they do not. I think what one can not do any further is *publish* VST2 plug-ins or hosts. Take with grain of salt, IANAL.

We have decided to do a two year transition. We prepared it for one year by internally replacing VST2 with CLAP, we isolated derivative work of VST2 within our codebase, and we can switch it off with a checkbox. We also made sure that our CLAPs run with the CLAP-as-VST3 wrapper, so even if Steinberg was for whatever reason terminating our VST3 license agreement, we'd still be compatible with VST3 hosts.

[seafire]

Oh well, good job there are wrappers such as Blue Cat etc

[BobDog]

Wouldn't you still need a Steinberg agreement to use the wrapper though?

[Blue Cat Audio]

We also made sure that our CLAPs run with the CLAP-as-VST3 wrapper, so even if Steinberg was for whatever reason terminating our VST3 license agreement, we'd still be compatible with VST3 hosts.

Are you allowed to do that, even with no VST3 agreement?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Oh well, good job there are wrappers such as Blue Cat etc

If our VST2 license is legally terminated at some point, it means that future updates would not be allowed to include VST2 support anymore, be it as a host or a plug-in.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Wouldn't you still need a Steinberg agreement to use the wrapper though?

Fortunately, using a plug-in does not require a legal agreement, so that's not an issue .

[seafire]

Oh well, good job there are wrappers such as Blue Cat etc

If our VST2 license is legally terminated at some point, it means that future updates would not be allowed to include VST2 support anymore, be it as a host or a plug-in.

If I already own it tho, I'm good for a few years

[Urs]

Wouldn't you still need a Steinberg agreement to use the wrapper though?

Yes, if we build and publish it as closed source. But such wrapper neither has to be built by us, published by us, nor distributed by us. It's a general CLAP-as-VST3 wrapper that turns any (almost*) CLAP into a VST3 plug-in, regardless if the wrapper is built with the GPL'd version of VST3 or the proprietary license.

* there are CLAPs that are MIDI sequencers and stuff, those won't work with the wrapper as VST3 does not (yet) support MIDI Note output.

[BobDog]

So the wrapper is actually a pre compiled plugin not something you use to produce/build a VST3?

[Urs]

Wouldn't you still need a Steinberg agreement to use the wrapper though?

Fortunately, using a plug-in does not require a legal agreement, so that's not an issue .

Yep, and that is the point about the wrapper. Users can install and use a VST3-as-CLAP wrapper built by anyone, even one built with the GPL'd version of the VST3 SDK. Users can do what they want with it, even host plug-ins by developers which do not provide VST3 plug-ins.

CLAP was never only about "adding one more standard", it was always also about fixing the issue of dependency and legal risks posed by existing standards ("platforms").

I do not think we're 100% there yet, but it is looking very good for that.