Plugins "calling home": what do you think about it?

[highkoo]

Once again, I tend to believe that 90% of the people who are afraid of "calling home", just like with iLoks, are the ones that have something to hide.

haha, right, lets all get chipped then!

(...you dont have anything to hide..?)


there has to be compromise here somewhere, but there is a definite line to be crossed in my mind.

my DAW is offline, always. it will occasionally connect to my home network, for no more than two minutes at a time, and that is maybe three times a year.
so, no, i wont pay for anything that wont work without the internet.

but that is just it- if it will work without internet, then im ok. if i miss an auto-update because of it, well thats on me imo. its just my option to not let it connect, and to go grab updates when i need them.

but, if a plugin that is paid for will not even function as bought without an internet connection on the DAW pc, then im out. that, i think, is ridiculous. same goes for 'anti-piracy' measures that rely on web access. those will often keep a plugin from being functional, and add no value for the customer, and use their bandwidth.

[robogone]

Expectation of Internet access is a pain in the ass. For this reason my Line6 plugins are not working on my DAW as I'm not dragging the hardware to another machine just so that I can register them then move files back to my DAW.

[S-N-S]

my music computers are not online that often,i try to only have them online when i need to update software

[eduardo_b]

Expectation of Internet access is a pain in the ass. For this reason my Line6 plugins are not working on my DAW as I'm not dragging the hardware to another machine just so that I can register them then move files back to my DAW.

There's no offline registration option?

[djanthonyw]

Plugins "calling home": what do you think about it?

I think the developer doesn't want my money.

[robogone]

Expectation of Internet access is a pain in the ass. For this reason my Line6 plugins are not working on my DAW as I'm not dragging the hardware to another machine just so that I can register them then move files back to my DAW.

There's no offline registration option?

Nope. You have to drag your hardware to an online machine, install the drivers there, register it online, grab the files created by that process, take your hardware back to your DAW, copy the files to your DAW, then it works.

Screw that.

[Jesse J]

I don't like programs/plugins interrupting my recording/workflow/thought in the middle of my work.

I usually don't opt to upgrade unless it is necessary or it benefits me, I'm all for "don't fix it if it ain't broken" and I rather read the whats new / bugfixes list from an email and then decide if I need to take any action.

I don't really see a point in plugins or any other applications "calling home" unless I requested it myself.

[asseca]

Well, Reaper does check for updates online...

ONLY when the user wants to, see MainMenu >> Options >> Preferences >> General >> checkbox: "Automatically check fir new versions of REAPER on startup"

[D N A]

1. When I click that small Ableton Live icon on my screen , it means that I want to create some music NOT upgrade my software

My DAW is online but if some plugin would display me popup (during composing) - "ooops, we have a new upgrade. Check it out ! ", I would just stop using it. Even if it was on DAW startup then imagine 10, 20 plugins with few popups: "new update", "new update", "new update available". pretty annoying I would say

2. Reading emails is more comfortable to me than clicking "check for update" button or having a "calling home" plugin. Why ? Because checking email is my daily routine, it's up to me to decide whether I want to update or not. I have all control with it - there are no fancy popups or something. Even if I initially wasnt satisfied with Service Center installed by NI (dont like additional software - 50 small applications CAN make the OS slower), I got used to it. First they send email with an information : "Traktor update bla bla. If you want to upgrade, run NI Service Center" and then I can decide.

Anti-piracy solution ? To be honest I'm not sure which one "works". As much as I can see, the goal changed from "make uncrackable software" into "at least make it uncrackable for few days after release". I always wondered about such solution:
1. every copy sold is unique (some watermark or whatever) and bound to some buyer (physical person with name, surname, address etc.)
2. if it shows on warez then download it, check who does it belong to and ... sue him for spreading piracy ?

I mean, is it possible ? Probably such company would gain bad reputation but ... is it possible ? Well, most probably crackers would crack the "watermark"...

[eduardo_b]

Anti-piracy solution ? To be honest I'm not sure which one "works".

I'm sure there's some attraction to using phoning home as a form of copy protection, but many, perhaps most, customers do not want lots of programs and associated software going online for this reason, or probably any reason, without their permission.

[mtilli]

Like some other posters, my firewall blocks all outgoing connections so this kind of protection would cause some extra hassle which I don't really need.

[thecontrolcentre]

haha, right, lets all get chipped then!

[brok landers]

Lately I've been thinking about changing DDMF's updating system such that each effect would automatically check for updates at the DDMF server at startup. This would prevent me from having to send out emails every time, half of which never arrive due to various reasons (mailboxes full, spam filters etc). Then, after a while I thought that maybe it would also be good to set up some simple anti-cracking scheme via plugin-server-interaction. Now naturally some problems could arise in this context: not everybody's workstation is online all the time, and users also might not like the idea that data like MAC-addresses are automatically sent to my server. So this poll is to find out the general opinion about these things... just to get some feedback before pursuing something that in the end nobody likes. Thanks!

i'd do it optional, so the user has to pull a menue entry to check for the updates, i wouldn't do it automatically. i'd never use a plugin that does it automatically on start up. i don't want to be cluttered/bothered by this, also some hosts might have problems with this automatic implementation, when calling up old songs with numerous plugins that would do so ... i mean imagine every plugin would do so, and you load up a song that is a year old: you'd have to click away windows for hours just to start up the song, imagine this happens with the client right in your neck ... a real nogo. also not necessarily the newest update is for the better (though in your specific case i wouldn't worry ). i always check the update first, having the previous installer intact, ready to be reinstalled, just in case the update does no good. if the update routine updated the plugin and i have no chance to go back to the previous version if the update does no good, what then?
so:
- user-forcable updating from the gui - yes, if it has a roll back to any previous version
- automatically? - no way