Copy protection for soundbanks?

[hakey]

Might it be possible and desirable to devise a way to copy protect commercial soundbanks for u-he plugins?

[mcnoone]

Might it be possible and desirable to devise a way to copy protect commercial soundbanks for u-he plugins?

There is something that can help.
Yet it's best to discuss in pm or in the developers forum.
I don't think its good to discuss this in the public forum, as that would kind of make the whole purpose of it somewhat less effective.
Don't think plugin developers go about the specifics of their copy protection methods in public.
Why would soundset makers?

[hakey]

To clarify, I'm talking about soundbank copy protection built in to the plugins.

[toothnclaw]

u-he plugins work with individual preset files, there are no 'banks' as such. So Urs would have to provide copy protection at preset level.

If you mean copy-right protection, that could be possible, to save the original author's name + his serial\license info in the preset file as a unique ID.
But if you're talking about the plugin actually recognizing whether preset 'x' is legitimately purchased or stolen, original or modified, I don't see how this could be possible at all. Presets are not read-only files, some can even be modified with a text editor, copy/pasted, etc.

[hakey]

I'm pretty sure it would be possible. iirc, NI's Massive has copy pro for soundbanks.

Whether it's worth the effort for u-he is another matter.

Whether it's worth the effort involved in creating and then trying to sell soundbanks for synth plugins, when they can so easily be copied, is another matter again.

[EvilDragon]

iirc, NI's Massive has copy pro for soundbanks.

It doesn't.

Perhaps you meant LinPlug Spectral.

[Marian W]

Alchemy has such a protection.
It has a flaw, which makes it easy hackable. Having to edit textfiles (in masses) will at least keep some off, but i think it could be secure in general if encrypted?!

I think that U-He would have to sell your soundbanks then for you to keep track of who bought what. (To check the licenses online, or at least create some individual keys with the users u-he license and the patchbank)
That + choosing which of the patchbanks they would want to sell is effort for them.

Lets see Urs´ thoughts

[hakey]

I think that U-He would have to sell your soundbanks then for you to keep track of who bought what.

Alternatively, u-he could make a soundbank encryption tool available. Someone buying a soundbank would give their plugin's serial number, which the vendor would use to generate a uniquely encrypted soundbank. The encryption tool would be updated regularly updated to filter out pirated plugin serial numbers.

@ED - I thought that NI's expansion soundbanks for Massive were copy protected? And it seems that Kontakt soundbanks can also be copy protected.

[Marian W]

Alternatively, u-he could make a soundbank encryption tool available. Someone buying a soundbank would give their plugin's serial number, which the vendor would use to generate a uniquely encrypted soundbank.

For one moment i had that in mind too, but theres no way that they will give them away.
Would be too easy to scam.

[hakey]

Alternatively, u-he could make a soundbank encryption tool available. Someone buying a soundbank would give their plugin's serial number, which the vendor would use to generate a uniquely encrypted soundbank.

For one moment i had that in mind too, but theres no way that they will give them away.
Would be too easy to scam.

Sorry, I don't follow you there. Who wouldn't give what away? What would be too easy to scam and why?

[Marian W]

Alternatively, u-he could make a soundbank encryption tool available. Someone buying a soundbank would give their plugin's serial number, which the vendor would use to generate a uniquely encrypted soundbank.

For one moment i had that in mind too, but theres no way that they will give them away.
Would be too easy to scam.

Sorry, I don't follow you there. Who wouldn't give what away? What would be too easy to scam and why?

Lets say 20 people want to sell soundbanks, how could u-he trust them not to re-sell the licensekeys to others or share them for pirated software.
Even if they´re trustable, they could still leak somehow.
I don´t think u-he can give that responsibility away.
Cheers

[hakey]

Eh? The soundbank vendors wouldn't be gathering license keys off their customers. All that's needed is the name after "this plugin is registered to ...". That would be enough to generate an encrypted file unique to that registered user.

Shooting down ideas is easy - fun, even - and if that's your thing, the simplest objection here is that Urs and u-he have got other fish to fry.

[Marian W]

Someone buying a soundbank would give their plugin's serial number ...

Not shooting down ideas, but naming the arguments against your idea of providing vendors your serial number.
A user name based protection sounds like a good idea.

[hakey]

Fair dos. Sorry to get narky.

[aaron aardvark]

I think the only u-he sound set that they sell is the Dark Zebra sound set that comes with the ZebraHZ. Otherwise I don't see why u-he would want to protect any sound set.