Why the iLok hate?

[robotmonkey]

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

This has been debated in plenty of academic research and it is not as clear cut as some make it out to be. It certainly is not as simple as every cracked copy download equals a lost sale. That kind of equality has proven to be false again and again. No one is arguing that piracy does not hurt companies - I'm sure it in some cases does to some extent. But there are also positive effects of piracy that have shown to often even out the negatives or even lead to positive outcomes. So yes, calculation all of this is not a elementary school math.

Image-Line is a great example. Fruityloops is probably the most pirated DAW and maybe even the most pirated piece of music software ever. Yet, despite this, IL has been thriving for decades. And they have been using a simple reg key as a protection. They probably have the largest user base of any DAW.

It often matters more how a company treats its customers and how it reacts to piracy. The differences are often clearly evident between the devs.

[AnX]

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

im not assuming anything, but there is still NO evidence regarding warez/lost sales.

There may be 1 million logged downloads of cracked FL, but that in itself is not evidence of 1 million lost sales.

[AnX]

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.

i would like to see those stats, the ones that prove exactly how much money a company has lost thru warez.

infact, if one single company here can prove how many lost sales they have exactly, down to cracks, i will take them out for dinner.

they cannot of course because they cannot trace every copy/download, nor prove that the user would buy it anyway.... jesus, some ppl collect shit like this just to show their mates and have no intention of using it, let alone buying it.

[chk071]

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

im not assuming anything, but there is still NO evidence regarding warez/lost sales.

There may be 1 million logged downloads of cracked FL, but that in itself is not evidence of 1 million lost sales.

You're absolutely right, there are no figures in that regard. Just imagine, though, you developed commercial software. Wouldn't you want to keep the threshold up, so that people pay you what you deserve? Every shop owner take precautions against theft. Why keep software developers from doing so?

IF we have to hold a general discussion about copy protections. Again, I'm not an advocate for dongles, I don't like the things either. I understand why they're there, though. If everyone would be like you and me, a.k.a. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be a need for copy protections.

Again, I'd rather have iLok cloud as an option.

[ontol]

This comment is based on my own experience using iLok over the last 20+ years and in no way seeks to invalidate, contradict, or challenge anyone else's experience nor convince anyone to like it. It's just how I feel about my own experience.

My own personal experience with iLok has been positive. I'm older, and actually remember being excited by finally getting issued my own iLok after seeing many engineers with them. It was akin to getting my driver's license.

It's a portable way to have your licenses available no matter what system you are using. Over the years I found it extremely simple when setting up a new system because allI had to do was install--no validation required.

I also like the simplicity when buying software. Most of the time the license is quickly dropped into my account and a simple assignment to the dongle and go. I buy the software I really want, and do not sell or trade so the fee really isn't at issue for me.

I've been fortunate and never once had any trouble with lost licenses or broken dongles. Even in the great iLokalypse a few years back.

I like the soft-iLok for demos to not clutter up the dongle with expired demos.

I prefer the iLok to other other DRM.

Again, just my experience, not looking to deny or argue anyone else's.

[fmr]

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

Music labels followed the same path in the eighties and nineties, and look where that lead them. They, too, had people with all that "business and enterprise knowledge", and yet they failed miserably at understanding where things were going, until it was too late.

And I have seen several big software labels, who also have all that "business and enterprise knowledge" commiting BIG mistakes. The most clever ones don't talk about piracy, and look for solutions to keep their faithfull customers.

NI is allegedly one of the most successful companies in the business nowadays, and doesn't need dongles. Avid, OTOH, is struggling to keep its head above water, despite iLOK. The first keeps its management since the beginning. The second changed CEOs like four or five times already.

Yet, I'm sure all Avid CEOs had lots of "business and enterprise knowledge".

ex Gibson CEO (AKA Henry da Vandal) also had lots of "business and enterprise knowledge". So much so that he F***d the company. In the process, he buried lots of good companys, like Opcode, Steinberger, Oberheim, etc.

[VariKusBrainZ]

It makes transferring a licence to another user a piece of piss though.
A little expensive but if youre selling price is high it makes it bearable

[melomood]

It uses up that other USB hole

Exactly. Imagine if every category of software we buy - video games, music plugins, accounting software, video editing software - has a dongle each. Crazy for just a music plugin to take an entire usb slot.

No problem, you could just use one of these

Holy crap


I think I might need one of those soon

[Greybox Audio]

My iLok experience so far:

Pro:
- I can handle lots of licenses from different plugin manufacturers with ease
- iLok cloud for Pro Tools works like a charm! srsly, I hope more manufacturers add this as an option

Con:
- they don't accept Paypal for license transfers & ZDT -.-
- PACE simply provide the license framework and don't give a shit about anything else. I once ran into the issue, that the license manager decided to dedicate a new hardware ID to my system and all my active licenses became unavailable in an instant. PACE support was not helping at all, besides telling me that I had to contact every single manufacturer to reset the activations, even though the issue was caused by their own frickin software! Fortunately most manufacturers grant you multiple activations and they all handled my request within 24 hours. Still, it was a pain in the a$$ and this had a big impact on my trust in PACE.

[I'm Ant]

Soundtoys just released a new version of their plugins they no longer require ilok you can use activation codes.

[zvenx]

Soundtoys just released a new version of their plugins they no longer require ilok you can use activation codes.

The back end of it is still ilok/pace... you just don't need an ilok account... afaik
rsp

[Lesha]

I don't use iLok because I don't want any copy protection permanently resident in my system memory. Software gets cracked anyway so I choose to deal with devs and companies who don't use Pace or provide another copy protection scheme, or no protection at all like Klanghelm. The way you treat your customers is the way you will be treated.

[bite_me]

My ilok broke a few days ago

Now, it has to be sent to USA, estimated shipping is 50 dollars (one way), transferring my licenses to a new (free) ilok costs 49 dollars.

And I can only pay with credit card, which I don´t have

[tapper mike]

It's funny, I worked for a software company with it's own copy protection scheme. It worked. It worked great, If someone wanted to sell their purchased license they could simply go to the account and change the details online. Working in support I'd get requests for ilok very very rarely. But when they did come along the non purchaser would be rather insistent. I'd seen all the issues with ilok over the years and I'd have all the links available. Simply stating that due to the history of issues associated with ilok it wasn't worth it to us as a software provider or the consumer.

Years later our company went bust. But we provided a means so that anyone wanting to use our software could do so... So long as the the OS could run it. The company is long gone, the website has long been removed but the solution for users whether they bought the product or not is available on our facebook page.

[HanafiH]

I finally relented and went with software iLok because I just had to have Softube's Mutator. It's been no problem at all and I bought a whole wodge of Softube stuff I otherwise wouldn't. So, hey ho, you pays your money and you makes your choice.