Why the iLok hate?

[robotmonkey]

Anyway, even IF iLok was just a way to scare of the "casual pirate", it seems that companies using iLok seem to think that this overcompensates the lost sales, thus it´s all a matter of market forces. I reckon it´ll be hard to please everyone, some people prefer a solution like Native Access, I detest it. etc.

Native Access is much fairer, and any problem you have, you deal with the company, not third parties (actually arrogant bastards third parties, that don't even honor their own guarantee).

Besides, your licenses are stored THERE, on their site. and attached to your account. No one can steal them, and no key can be broken with them.

I am using iLOK because I have certain software that uses it, but I strongly dislike it, and would gladly get rid of it. I am not against dongles, but in what concerns dongles, I think eLicenser is way better.

NI is actually a great comparison. I have used their software pretty much since they started out and haved had literally zero problems with their activation since then. These were the good old times when iLok was bluescreening your computer to death every other day.

[epiphaneia]

Native Access is much fairer, and any problem you have, you deal with the company, not third parties (actually arrogant bastards third parties, that don't even honor their own guarantee).

I like Native Instruments as a company, and I personally have nothing but good experiences with them (even though there´s probably as many people at KVR who have had issues with NI in the past as there are people who have had issues with their iLoks...).

I also like the /idea/ of something like Native Access (who knows, NI might be smart enough to offer that as a centralized licensing/installation solution to other developers one day...), I just think that the current state of NA is extremely poorly executed.

Plus, it´s painfully obvious that NI has too many teams working on similar solutions in parallel... install stuff via Native Access, then first open the Komplete Kontrol standalone software for the full scan of installed libraries, or was it Maschine? And what happens if I move a Kontakt library between disks and change the path in Kontakt, but not in Native Access? Why is there no proper way to uninstall a Kontakt library, instead I have to manually delete preference files somewhere in the system folders?

[VariKusBrainZ]

iLok is apparently the only copy protection scheme that after many years still has not been widely cracked, and seeing how big a problem software piracy can be for small boutique software companies, I understand the reasoning behind it.

That is patently false. Every single iLok plugin has been cracked and gets cracked pretty quickly for several years already. And it does not matter if its soft iLok or hardware iLok. This makes it even more insulting to everyone who has to put up with it for their paid software.

I would actually ask how you know all that, and to prove it, but, that could prove embarrassing for you, couldn't it?

Apart from it being false most likely as well.

Google, its available to everyone, even the criminals

[fmr]

Read again. "What if all of those had their own activation and licensing software installed on your computer". So you'd end up with dozens of license managers on your systems. It's already a nightmare for me to have 3 or 4 of those on my machine. Worst thing ever. I even prefer iLok or eLicenser over those, at least, those are systems which work for several plugin vendors, not just 1.

I READ IT WELL THE FIRST TIME. And I maintain what I wrote. I already have more than four of those, and it never bothered me. Actually, I have more trouble with the dongles drivers and software, which are just three (iLOK, eLicenser and WiBu CodeMeter).

Now, imagine "all of those had their own dongle licensing software installed on your computer"

[epiphaneia]

Imagine all of those had their own activation and licensing software installed on your computer.

What will be the problem? It's just another piece of software. It doesn't take that much space on the hard drive, and you will only have to run it when you want to check and install updates

Native Access. Plugin Alliance. IK Manager. izotope. Gobbler (Softube). Melda. FXPansion. XLN. YT (Best Service Engine). Spitfire. Output. 8dio. All these and more want me to use their "little helpers".

I see how you wouldn´t mind that, I find that annoying.

Let´s just agree to disagree here, it´s a matter of preference after all, like "do we like to put files on the desktop or not?"

[VariKusBrainZ]

Gobbler isnt required
Dont forget Arturia

[AdvancedFollower]

but there are countless horror stories online about people having to fight tooth and claw to get their legally purchased licenses back when a dongle inevitably fails, gets lost or stolen.

It should be as simple as sending an email to their customer support - "Hi, my iLok with serial number ### failed, please deactivate and transfer all licenses back to my account so I can put them on a new dongle".

I remember a dev commenting on how many mails they get a week with "the dongle got lost/stolen please give me new licenses" The devs have no clue if it really got stolen or you're just using it on an offline system for next 10 years and only want other licenses for free. That's why it is totally legit that licenses on lost or stolen dongles do not get replaced, unless they can be immediately permanently terminated. I often asked myself how one manages to lose it or let it be stolen.

If it fails you'll of course get everything back, because you have to send them the broken dongle. They then can assure you won't use it anymore and transfer the licenses from it to another one.

Dongles are a way better system to me than 100 license manager from different companies, machine activations or serial hell.

The difference is that you have an account on iLok, which is protected by a password. This account is linked to en email address, and to the serial number of your iLok dongle. So if they get en email from the same, registered email address, and the person is able to identify the serial number of the dongle they want de-activated, that's already a lot more secure than some random dude whose email address isn't even registered, asking for a free license. It wouldn't take them much effort to expand this system to include SMS/phone verification or some other form of two-factor authentication, in addition to IP logging when downloading licenses, which I assume they are already doing.

Yes, you shouldn't lose a dongle, but it could happen. It's tiny and looks like any old USB key. Flash memory also has a limited life span (the cells gradually leak until they can no longer be read), so it's not a question of if, but when it will fail. When this happens, they effectively hold your licenses hostage, charging for ZDT, expediency fees and who knows what else, and requiring you to ship the iLok half way around the world, before they'll even consider helping you.

[AnX]

absolute bullshit

After reading your finely worded, profound analysis of the issue at hand, I acknowledge your intellectual superiority.

Never mind that I apparently know the difference between "raising prices" and "calculating prices that take factors like piracy into account" (because I have been doing, and evaluating, such pricing schemes for more than 10 years, and have seen many companies disappear who haven´t been successful at that) - when someone says it´s "absolute bullshit", he can surely back that up with his own proven business savvy and track record.

so the original price of a synth on V1 takes into account the assymption 1. the synth will be cracked 2. how much money will be lost and 3. over a defined amount of time, as the price never changes

wow, thats some serious nostradamus stuff they do

there is no way to tell how much, if any, money is lost through warez, so "calculating prices that take factors like piracy into account" is utter bullshit.

[DPhil]

there is no way to tell how much, if any, money is lost through warez, so "calculating prices that take factors like piracy into account" is utter bullshit.

Devs know how much money they have to make to keep their business running. Devs can see how income goes down once a plugin has been cracked (doesn't have to be their own plugin, devs communicate with each other too). So yes, they take lost money into account when calculating new prices as much as they consider the loss through license transfers, big discount sales or bundles. That's basic business economics...

[jancivil]

Anyway, even IF iLok was just a way to scare of the "casual pirate", it seems that companies using iLok seem to think that this overcompensates the lost sales, thus it´s all a matter of market forces. I reckon it´ll be hard to please everyone, some people prefer a solution like Native Access, I detest it. etc.

Native Access is much fairer, and any problem you have, you deal with the company, not third parties (actually arrogant bastards third parties, that don't even honor their own guarantee).

Besides, your licenses are stored THERE, on their site. and attached to your account. No one can steal them, and no key can be broken with them.

Someone can steal your account by stealing your computer. This is a fact. Not likely to happen to most people but that's how it works. So, I proved most of my purchases with NI, and SonicCouture which also licenses on the NI account, and all of my account is restored.

I am using iLOK because I have certain software that uses it, but I strongly dislike it, and would gladly get rid of it. I am not against dongles, but in what concerns dongles, I think eLicenser is way better.

iLok, then Softube, Soundtoys all restored activations on the soft iLok, again. I had an unactivated Cubase 9 license the thief activated off of the hijacked account; Steinberg doesn't care that I proved the purchase of it. All of this was via google remembering passwords and easy login. (Voxengo also told me to FO; another product I can lose and not care, though.) So I lost everything Cubase-oriented. I'm actually doing 60 day trials of Nuendo til I die the way it looks now. The elicenser application informed me the way to get a new trial was get a new dongle.

Generally I prefer the dongle, but I have a 4-port hub I like, I'm not going to pay for another or pay for another hard iLok key and that's my line in the sand. All the things I use which are protected by the iLok system are soft activations. I acquired Softube Metal Amp Room this year, for instance.

I'm of the disposition that deciding 'I absolutely won't use it' is a bit silly, but it's their life.
Pretty much everything I care about keeping comes from a vendor I'm pretty sure is going to outlive me.

[epiphaneia]

there is no way to tell how much, if any, money is lost through warez, so "calculating prices that take factors like piracy into account" is utter bullshit.

Devs know how much money they have to make to keep their business running. Devs can see how income goes down once a plugin has been cracked (doesn't have to be their own plugin, devs communicate with each other too). So yes, they take lost money into account when calculating new prices as much as they consider the loss through license transfers, big discount sales or bundles. That's basic business economics...

Exactly, just to understand primary school level-economics, one would first have to reach primary school level. Or, of course, replace all that stupid business and enterprise knowledge with „bullshit bullshit“ shouting. I reckon 90+% of the software companies I know are doing it wrong then

[AnX]

there is no way to tell how much, if any, money is lost through warez, so "calculating prices that take factors like piracy into account" is utter bullshit.

Devs know how much money they have to make to keep their business running. Devs can see how income goes down once a plugin has been cracked (doesn't have to be their own plugin, devs communicate with each other too). So yes, they take lost money into account when calculating new prices as much as they consider the loss through license transfers, big discount sales or bundles. That's basic business economics...

again, thats predicting the future, and isnt possible. Product prices are set against time spent developing, and profit, not how much they need to make to survive.

Again, there is NO evidence available that tells a company how much money they may have lost due to warez. Has every warez user done a survey and said they def would/wouldnt buy the product if no cracked version was available?

[AnX]

to understand primary school level-economics, one would first have to reach primary school level.

good luck with that, until then, stop spreading misinformation

[DPhil]

Again, there is NO evidence available that tells a company how much money they may have lost due to warez. Has every warez user done a survey and said they def would/wouldnt buy the product if no cracked version was available?

A company has insights of how many copies they've already sold, when and to what price. They also knwo their audience, the size of the market and natural sales fall-off. They obviously experience sudden breaks in that pattern and can check what's causing it. Maybe a competitor released a similar plugin or has a sale, maybe the last release was a buggy version or maybe the plugin got cracked. All of these can easily be researched.

You assume that the ones writing complex math algortihms for the plugins we use cannot read a sales chart or don't know the story of cause and effect They don't ask theirself "what if" or "how much would we have lost" - they have statistics about how much they've actually lost. They're able to extrapolate their data and compensate their losses.

[lajosuti]

With Native Access and the rest you not only get the license handling but they will help you to install/upgrade your products. With iLok eSomething you install that PACE service (or how it is called) but you still have to install/upgrade your products somehow.