Ilok busted?

[Compyfox]

So after poking through a few NFO files, it looks like they have managed to develop a wrapper of some kind to emulate the Ilok2.

The crack doesn't need the Ilok2 driver, or the licence manager. It's basically a self-contained setup making it really easy to install.

So this one kid, that bragged about it weeks ago on one "grey zone" board to reverse engineer, did pull it off? Though after a quick google, it seems to be a "new group" rather than one individual person.

So... is the iLok3 imminent now? One of the head of the Hydra has been cut off. The question is, when will a new one grow back? And how strong will it be? v2 did hold out for a couple of years (since 2009 IIRC). If there are no counter measures taken, then this "beast" sure isn't worth the maintenance.

Which reminds me of the Syncrosoft Elicenser. Wasn't this also "reverse engineered" and maintained until shortly after Cubase 5 came out? And then the devs were like "not maintaining that anymore - the updates are faster than we can 'emulate' all eventualities". Here, the once cut off head of the monster did eventually grow back. Which makes me wonder, will that happen for the iLok as well?

So to me, it seems that people currently play a "game on time". Who can hold the fort longer than the other?


Don't get me wrong, I still prefer USB keys for managing licenses over C/R. However, this is clearly stating "Hey, we've cracked your code - it's your turn now". So if anything, it shows that these two systems are definitely not 100% secure either, and some "services" like the "ZDT solution" and "transfer fees" are just nonsense.

Actually, the whole manager is kind of moot IMO. Dev's can't delete "timed out" licenses (I encountered this while beta testing, very annoying if you have "dead weight" in your account). And ZDT? Why pay 100bucks a year and then nothing happens? Can't I just pay once in advance, and half at that price? Or remember the transfer fees debacle from... was it last year?! The "removed licenses" drama (that also happened years ago on iLok 1 with Nomad Factory), the iLokalypse that crippled various iLoks for weeks if you force-updated the manager drivers, etc.

So one one hand - yes, this is bad news. On the other hand, I think it's a much deserved smack into the face with a fencepost for Pace/iLok.

And another thing that is mostly overlooked - we talk about the tools in question. More so than before, maybe even more critical. Isn't that kind of a good thing?

I'm afraid the biggest losers of this situation are the companies that offer reasonably priced software without intrusive copy protection. Many people will think "hey, why buy the budget version if I can get the pro stuff for free".

I sadly think that you're right in this case.
Though not every "pro prices" version is also a "pro tool". At least IMO. But... marketing.

One needs to keep in mind that the iLok ecosystem is not only about copy protection but also about "being upmarket". That is, for a company to be successful in this realm, you need to either be cracked ("can't afford not to") or boutique (not cracked but price up). The opposites however don't mix.

Upmarked, yes. Especially on the "our tools can't be cracked part". But I've thankfully seen affordable iLok2 based plugins/modules. Some UVI stuff and Slate comes to mind. If we talk about Sonnox, or certain companies that focus on metering tools however... *cough*

I for one pray for a day where building AAX does not involve iLok dongles on each developer machine and build server. It's an unnecessary obstacle that cost us a lot of time (just yesterday everything stopped for a few hours, again). It's the obscurity and the helplessness that bugs me.

As Beta Tester, I also heard/know about this. And isn't the license to get the SDK also super expensive, not to mention recurring? This is nonsense IMO. If you should (rather "must") support a specific plugin standard, and you want to push it (since you want to be the "leader" in the industry, yet you still refuse to go the VST route and rather cook your own thing), then you shouldn't be forced to invest a lot of money as dev team (small ones even) just to get the content out to the masses.

But maybe I'm thinking a bit too naive in this case.

All in all I think the developers and the users would be better off without iLoks. But maybe also I'm just miffed with people who profit from piracy, on both sides of the fence.

See, this is a topic I still don't quite understand. By that I mean - what is cracked, not to mention "why", and what is not? Is it the popularity of the company or the tools? And why are some tools still not "cracked" or "warez'd" and others are up and down? I kind of don't understand the selection.

Sample Packages and Sound Sets - yes, they were and will always shared (especially if there are no demos, no easily accessible manual and bad presentations). But I've seen a lot of low budget tools being cracked, while other similar priced ones are not (yet the company is fairly popular in the industry/the music realm). And these companies in question don't use any time bombing or C/R systems.

So that's for starters.


However I also agree that those that "profit from piracy" should be branded first. And sadly, the "Future Music" studio videos come to mind again... these folks didn't even see a smack on the fingers. We freelancers in turn work our butts off, wait for deals every couple of months and still(!) can't invest for something new. This can be more than frustrating and let's you easily show beyond the boarders (which is instantly frowned upon, of course).

And if you look for s/h stuff - you can be happy that a company doesn't refuse to resell, turns the licenses in NFR and/or asks for hefty fees on top of that.



This all is a viscous cycle.

And in the 20+ years I'm in this realm, I've only heard "talking" about this whole thing. This... giant balloon of blurb, camp building, etc. I even still remember the initiatives to create a unified USB c/p system without the need for specific USB keys (years before the Plugin Alliance delivered). But nothing improved. Demos are still crippled or "locked away", samples can't be demoed (and the presentations are often misleading), documentation of tools is a luxurity, we're swamped with clones of clones of clones with even crazier pricing and buzz-word marketing. And then there is the trade press, that literally tells us "what are professional tools" and "what are not". Always use this/that - else you're not professional.


And who is the target audience? The beginners - the "upcoming new celebrities", those that don't bother to invest a bit more time with their tools to properly learn them. And those either don't have the funds (and will never have it) or the patience to jump through hoops, but rather see "ooooh - cracked version, might as well use it... since EVERYBODY does it".

Cycle closed.




Summary - I will have an eye on this. See how this develops.
Also this thread...

[robotmonkey]

ilok allowed small companies to evolve and built itself up paying a small team of devs for doing a fulltime job on doing amazing things for us. Do you see how good the quality of digital processing has got better and better over the years - especially from small companies?

I think that's not the case at all as most of the innovative small developers have never used iLok protection. iLok protection does cost a considerable sum of money after all.

[robotmonkey]

Hey Urs,

thank you for your perspective. For me it goes quite the other way around. I think: with many well developed and affordable quality products around nowadays, why would I use an unreliable cracked plugin? Yes, the idea of freely using a plugin that usually retails at 300€ seems quite attractive at first sight, but then I realize that:

1) a lot of these 300€ plugins are not worth their enormous price in the first place

2) that I might get possibly malicious software when using a crack and

3) that I can often get a competitive product by an "indie developer" for much less, while supporting said "indie developer" at the same time, so that they will continue to develope great products for audio enthusiasts like us.

Urs makes a good point. First it's a perception thing - you get to use the tools the pros use. And second, many of the expensive plugins do justify their price and/or are unique in some way (Sound Toys and Eventide for example). So it is quite understandable why many would go with cracked versions of the more "elite" plugins instead of looking at the alternatives. Though, I'd say u-he plugins pretty much belong to the same "elite" category, imho.

[Obsolete236871]

Urs makes a good point.

No one has doubted that he has a good point. I said that it's quite the other way around for me personally.

I personally rather use a well developed product by a small / indie developer, than using a cracked version of an overhyped plugin. The kind of plugins that I invest my money in, often give me considerably more "bang for the buck", than the overhyped and overpriced products of some big players - and the cracked versions of the latter are not an option for me (I named my reasons for not wanting cracked software in my HD multiple times by now).

[toothnclaw]

Why pay 100bucks a year...

why would I use an unreliable cracked plugin?

Pay - don't pay, use - don't use, it's up to you guys. No one is forcing your hand to do anything. This is so childish, I'm really getting concerned

[original flipper]

Hi

I suppose any discussion on the merits (or not) of software protection is likely to be based upon assumptions.
I am not aware of any available research into the use of 'cracked' software so it is hard to define the significance of the current issue under discussion.
I am aware that in the past more than one developer has put forth information which indicated that purchases of (his) software and the appearance of a cracked version resulted in a drop in sales - so some people are likely to go for the 'free' option, given the chance.
What is evident is that there is not likely to be a move away from these types of protection schemes because the revenue lost is deemed to be a show stopper - the difference between making a profit and a loss.
From a consumers perspective though, what becomes difficult to align with is the vast range of such applications - Cakewalk have recently jumped on board with their propriety update/authorization system (CCC) - a user with a large collection of software could potentially have several dongles, multiple authorization applications, serial, keyfile and goodness knows whatever other CP applications I have missed!
I don't see this situation changing any time soon - this is to the detriment of the user - goodness knows we battle to set our computers/operating systems up to run as fast and 'clean' as possible, having all these extra applications interfering with that process is just not good for multiple reasons.
I do of course sympathize with developers trying to earn a living.

[Daags]

i'll be damned if I'm paying for an ilok3 this soon after ilok2...

which isn't to say it won't happen. just that i'll be damned.

[bungle]

Weird that, Ilok fails and users have to pay more, it's a great business model haha

[jsp1979]

Weird that, Ilok fails and users have to pay more, it's a great business model haha

This is the comment award winner for this thread.

Seriously.

[bigcat1969]

I think URS is right, I must admit that my thought when I saw the news was 'Who on earth is going to want my silly little instruments when they just cracked PLAY." Yup I can be that selfish, though for me it doesn't really matter since they are free anyway.

Yeah I don't like ILok and would never buy it as I've made clear, but I do like companies being able to exist and make cool instruments and I can see that those companies might decline based on this. Still maybe a better method of sales will come about because of this. I remember the days in PC gaming when they used massively intrusive copy protection like Starfire, now Steam has somehow become a wildly successful digital platform that seems to be unobtrusive.

On the game front back in the day we used to buy games and then download the no-disk, no-protection crack because we would lose our CD or just didn't want to bother changing CDs a 100 times a day and the no-protection cracks often worked much better than the 'official' version. So that concept is nothing new. Copy protection benefits the seller not the buyer by definition.

[2ZrgE]

..

See, this is a topic I still don't quite understand. By that I mean - what is cracked, not to mention "why", and what is not? Is it the popularity of the company or the tools? And why are some tools still not "cracked" or "warez'd" and others are up and down? I kind of don't understand the selection.
...

Actually that's quite easy: What can be cracked (within a reasonable amount of time and effort) will be cracked - the tools which are not cracked yet just happen to have a very good protection (Cubase, Reason, Nexus 2, U-he for example).

Those crackers even crack 10 dollar plugins, just because they can.

[jowen]

Urs wrote:
It's the obscurity and the helplessness that bugs me.

We also went thru a iLokalypse the last two years, were our studio has very big trouble with our iLok2 dongles and threre was no help from the developers, pace or the sales people. They all take our money and told us its not their vault. They knew about the problem but they did not help for a solution. Now the problems are solved after a lot of investigation from our side and some more money from us.

So be shure that there is no tear about a very black christmas for developers and pace!

and

Urs wrote:
All in all I think the developers and the users would be better off without iLoks. But maybe also I'm just miffed with people who profit from piracy, on both sides of the fence.

yes, they will not get any more money from us

[Compyfox]

Why pay 100bucks a year...

why would I use an unreliable cracked plugin?

Pay - don't pay, use - don't use, it's up to you guys. No one is forcing your hand to do anything.

You're right - nobody is forcing me to shell out 40 quids for an USB stick of unknown size (in both terms of "wasted space that you can't access" and "how many licenses it can hold"), neither do I need to invest 100bucks per year(!, not once per stick until sh*t hits the fan) for ZDT. This whole thing is definitely my personal problem.

That this kind of thinking is still nonsense, is therefore totally off the plate.
[/sarcasm]

This is so childish, I'm really getting concerned

And I find it childish to constantly counter argument with "I find this childish".

Actually, do we even know the meaning of what is childish and what not?
Oh hey! I found a stick!

..

See, this is a topic I still don't quite understand. By that I mean - what is cracked, not to mention "why", and what is not? Is it the popularity of the company or the tools? And why are some tools still not "cracked" or "warez'd" and others are up and down? I kind of don't understand the selection.
...

Actually that's quite easy: What can be cracked (within a reasonable amount of time and effort) will be cracked - the tools which are not cracked yet just happen to have a very good protection (Cubase, Reason, Nexus 2, U-he for example).

Those crackers even crack 10 dollar plugins, just because they can.

Sorry, but I can't agree on that end.

There are tools on the market that use a serial number system and not C/P, between 50 to 150bucks as full bundle and they are still not cracked. One of these tools are Jamstix - and yes, while there are elder/cracked versions circling around, v3.x (I think we're on 3.7 at this point, haven't checked my account in a while) and the upgrade packs still aren't.

Sometimes there are cracks of even the most crippled demos, sometimes there are never cracks of even the currently most popular tool. So is there a "code of honor" after all if a developer says "don't crack this" or "please remove the crack"?

The selection is kind arbitrary - and you can't colour everyone with the same brush.



So granted, I will never fully understand the mentality behind all this. Other than the thrill to break/crack a code, show that certain C/P systems are just a nuisance for the user (some devs even make a game out of this, hide messages in their code for these people!), offering a "proper demo" (samples come to mind again) and/or also spread the word of the company.

Which was actually one of the main points this... "scene" made back in the days, where demos were rare and the Internet not common place. Not to mention did we not get swamped with tools. So this was also free promotion (Waves was a prime example in the early days, which even spawned "fake client studio visits", which was talked about in the industry... so even with a bad situation, you kind of win).


That this is also a two edged blade is nothing to disregard of course.
But there are always several sides to a medal and different shades than just black and white.

Sometimes I really miss that in discussions like this.

[murnau]

eLic is still safe!

[Compyfox]

eLic is still safe!

It's save "again".

Sure wasn't between SX2 (or was it SX1 already) and Cubase 5 days... which was... I think... 4-6 years being "dongle emulated" as well. Then the eLic got a code overhaul (yet you could still use your old gen USB keys!) and suddenly - poof.

Except for the occasional hacked LE version.