New Website And New Formats Question

[thysm00]

What's so free about requiring an iLok to use the freebies?

You don't need an iLok to use the freebies.

Also, what's the deal w/ supporting iLok v1? Isn't that old hardware cracked? So what exactly is being protected?

Also supporting the iLok V1 is to avoid v1 users to buy another key.
What you don't know is that iLok v1 has been cracked, but partly, and our soundbanks use the part that has not been cracked. But you know what, i'm sure some smart cracker might come with a solution one day, just not now.

And actually the battle was lost before when there was no copy protection and some "not so smart guy" bought it on our website and gave it to a friend that gave it to a friend too... and it ended up on all websites, torrents and peer to peer networks. Seriously when you work hard, try to make some great stuff that people will like and use for creation and it ends up being free for everybody and kills your business, you find the best solution you can.
I'm sorry if it sounds a little harsh, but it's exactly as some thief stealing money from your bank account and it's very very very upsetting.

Sorry for the dumb question...I've downloaded the "AS-FreePack.ufs" file but it won't open (I won't extract/unzip)...what I'm I doing wrong?
Thanks

The UFS file is not someting that needs to be extracted... you need to use the UVI Workstation to use it. Just check the FAQ and the second video will explain everything (acousticsamples.net/faq)

[kbaccki]

I understand that your property needs to be suitably protected... I guess I'm just a little miffed that the proven and mature kontakt platform has lost another fine vendor. I personally have no interest in jumping on Yet Another Platform Gravy Train and all the costs and overhead and headaches associated with it, especially if it involves fiddling w/ my dongle just to lay down a decent piano track. I already did the tascam thing back in the day, and NI is enough to deal with... UVI? Play? Mach Five? etc.? Good or bad, I'll never know, unless NI pulls a tascam... Anyhoo... good luck w/ your new business model, hopefully you can make up for some lost sales...

[yomanfree]

Hello
just a stupid question.... I can read for the upgrade:
"Don't forget that you need to order as many upgrades as the number of products that you wish to upgrade."
Does it mean that if for exemple someone owns 10 products, he will pay 150euros (+ilok) to upgrade all AcousticsampleS libraries ? Because if it is the case, it is clear that there is then no interest to upgrade (typically this is not so far of the Kontakt price during a promo period).
Additionnally, -if it is the case-, no interest to buy a new AcousticsampleS product in the future for 'old' customers: having some AcousticSamples libraries in Kontakt and some others in UVI would be too painfull ....

If it is 15e per product, I'd be really disappointed because a feeling that this strategy is not fair for the 'old' customer (even if I understand that you do your best -for good reason- to protect your products)

Thanks

[thysm00]

Yes, the upgrade is per product, but if you own 10 products, then i'm sure there is something that we can do

Then the upgrade is not only for the new version, it's also for the iLok protection (but you got that already) AND the player. Our products are now delivered with a powerful player and this makes a big difference, it's just like a library made for kontakt and a kontakt powered library, there is the player.

So the iLok protection + the licensing of the engine + the updates that we made have a cost for us and believe me, we are not making any profit on these upgrades.

[yomanfree]

not 10 but 9
Yes I've no doubt that you dont really have profit with this upgrade, but just you want to protect your work (no problem on my side for this, and I think that all company should even more take care about this: because if a company sells a lot, the price can decrease -in theory-) and stabilize your platform.
I'm often a lot surprised to see how much a lot of companies like yours are fair and honest for customers.
I just think that your strategy is probably good for the future (even if I'm not sure that UVI is the best choice vs Kontakt, because UVI is not common compared to Kontakt), but no so for customers who already owns several products.

I will take a bit more time to know what I will do, but as I dont really plan to use UVI ....

PS: just another -stupid- question, but why to have not proposed Kontakt player with the NI protection system (no ilok and engine to pay)?

[thysm00]

even if I'm not sure that UVI is the best choice vs Kontakt, because UVI is not common compared to Kontakt

We'll see about that in a few month I've heard that quite a few devs are really interested

PS: just another -stupid- question, but why to have not proposed Kontakt player with the NI protection system (no ilok and engine to pay)?

For multiple reasons, first NI is not really helping much the devs and some features have been asked for years and never implemented, i even remember they introduced a bug in kontakt that broke most of our libraries and they fixed it only 4 month later...

Secondly, the UVI engine is basically a MachFive 3 player, and i don't know if you have heard of the new functionnalities in it, but they are far superior to kontakt, from the script engine to the graphics and the tweaking possibilities, for example, the Telematic (acousticsamples.net/telematic) cannot be done in Kontakt, or at least without writing millions of lines of code.

And then, the kontakt player protection is a joke, 99% of the time, the kontakt player libraries are on the torrent and sharing websites the day after the release. And believe me that is making a lot of devs angry...
So UVI was the simplest, easyest, most secure solution or us, and i think that it could become the new standard or at least a serious competitor.