NI have announced they will no longer activate discontinued products

[Gamma-UT]

As a lawyer myself, I commend NI's legal team for drafting such a clearly worded clause in the first place; they are probably now wishing they had been more opaque.

NI has been through a few management changes since then.

I don't envy Matt in this situation. I wouldn't be surprised if this discussion already happened internally with various lower-level staff saying "are you sure you want to do this?" and management sticking their fingers in their ears yelling "I can't hear you. You need to make this happen".

[Matt_NI]

I have asked this question before but the FAQ on NIs site seems to contradict the answers I was given, so...............

What will happen to updates and crossgrades on May 31st if the qualifying base product is deleted by NI servers ?

At present if you sell a base product then updates and crossgrades become inactive.

Will the qualifying base product always remain in the users account even though it will not be able to be sold or activated ?

You can see on the article: “The discontinuation will not affect any update, upgrade or crossgrade paths. All of your updates, upgrades and crossgrades based on these products will stay intact”

No changes on that front

[fmr]

I wouldn't be surprised if this discussion already happened internally with various lower-level staff saying "are you sure you want to do this?" and management sticking their fingers in their ears yelling "I can't hear you. You need to make this happen".

Yeah... Unfortunately, I witnessed that myself. The managers taking (bad) decisions, and then left the subordinates deal with the situation and the consequences.

[original flipper]

Hi

Strip out all the CP on all those products and make them available with a serial code.
I was planning on using a whole bunch of these - especially as my daw ( mixcraft) loves bridging 32 bit and/or older stuff.
It's bad enough that users have to jump through all kinds of ilok, c&r, cp, dongle hoops and then to be told you can't use your software at all.

[EvilDragon]

Hi

Strip out all the CP on all those products and make them available with a serial code.
I was planning on using a whole bunch of these - especially as my daw ( mixcraft) loves bridging 32 bit and/or older stuff.
It's bad enough that users have to jump through all kinds of ilok, c&r, cp, dongle hoops and then to be told you can't use your software at all.

This requires going back to the source code and modifying each and every product. This is not feasible, considering in a number of cases original people involved are not even with the company anymore.

[JJ_Jettflow]

Checked out Raum perhaps? It's pretty inspiring! There's still good/great coders at NI, that goes without saying.

Raum is amazing.

[SLiC]

Meanwhile....nice update to Maschine just came out today.....

[noiseboyuk]

I don't envy Matt in this situation. I wouldn't be surprised if this discussion already happened internally with various lower-level staff saying "are you sure you want to do this?" and management sticking their fingers in their ears yelling "I can't hear you. You need to make this happen".

Boeing.

I absolutely want to credit Matt here, and others at NI. We're already in an unusual position where effectively the party line is - "give us a bit of time, we're trying to figure something out". It's easy to be cynical, but this is no small thing. I can't remember anything similar in NI's history when breaking bad news. Normally when it's announced, it's done. (No shortage of wise-heads here saying any dialogue with NI will be a waste of time)

I think I understand a little better now why these authorisations are such a pain for NI technically, they just jumped a little too rashly into "ah, they're old libraries, just nix 'em" rather than coming up with a less destructive solution. Whether the will to now find a solution is driven by a belated horrified realisation they've violated their own EULA or it is more benevolent is a point of conjecture. But if it ends up with a better end state, then good.

Let's hope this ends up setting a precedent for future better relations between NI and its customers, and a wider example to the industry re CP.

[Sascha Franck]

I'm saying we are trying to be practical here and focus on solutions not have our legal team debate this decision with you guys.

Ok, let's be very serious here for once.

I'll quote this from your EULA again:

Should Native Instruments for whatever reasons no longer be able to fulfill its obligations to deliver the activation key, it will provide the Licensee with a key which ensures the continued use of the software independent of changes of the computer.

And then NI comes up with this:

Is Native Instruments currently looking into any other solutions for affected customers?

Yes, in specific cases we might be able to provide at-your-own risk support for our end-of-life products. We can’t promise anything at this point and technical feasibility needs to be evaluated. We will share more information about this as soon as possible.

1) Specific cases? Are you joking?
2) You don't have to promise anything, there's no need for it.

As far as (1) goes: Your very own EULAs describe *exactly* how to deal with this event. They don't describe it for "specific cases" but for each and every single product that got handed out with this EULA. No way around it. In other words: In case someone decides to install Battery 2 in 2046 on an ancient Win XP machine, you will have to supply an activation method. Otherwise they'll sue you and win. And, let me add that: Rightly so!

As far as (2) goes: No, "technical feasibility" doesn't need to be evaluated. You had more than a decade of time to think about evaluating technical feasibilities. All too apparently, you didn't.

All I'm reading from your updated info page is as if it'd be a huge favour coming from NI to at least "think about it". It's not. It's not a favour. It's just nothing. Legally spoken, this added paragraph isn't even worth the bytes it takes on your server. You're trying to sort of manipulate your EULAs after the fact.
Really, there seems to be some severe issue with NIs self-perception. As if you were the gods in plugin land, allowed to treat their own EULAs as if they weren't even existing. I highly recommend doing some research on some forums. NIs special status these days is reduced to "Hmpf, too bad Kontakt became the de facto sampler standard, so unfortunately we have to deal with it". Ask people for their favourite other plugin and most likely NI won't even make it into the top 10 anymore.

In all seriousness: If you don't solve this once and forever (without any "special cases" and "feasibility" blurb), this likely won't just break your leg, it will possibly break your neck. People will be over you again and again. In 5, 10, 20 years to come. Just because they can. And each time, it'll make the round through all sorts of audio production related forums. "Uh, you really want to buy NI stuff? See what they've done in '20, they will do this again and again!" - and well, in case your users will let you get away with this, you will likely do it again. Which is why your users possibly won't let you get away with it. Well, maybe they even will. For a year. Or two. Or even 10. And then someone will just detect his old computer and Komplete 2 CDs. I'm not saying it will necessarily happen, but *if* it will happen, NI will be royally f***ed each time it does.
This is what you guys have to consider. Not any "feasibilities".

[audiot]

Let's hope this ends up setting a precedent for future better relations between NI and its customers, and a wider example to the industry re CP.

[Matt_NI]

I don't envy Matt in this situation. I wouldn't be surprised if this discussion already happened internally with various lower-level staff saying "are you sure you want to do this?" and management sticking their fingers in their ears yelling "I can't hear you. You need to make this happen".

Boeing.

I absolutely want to credit Matt here, and others at NI. We're already in an unusual position where effectively the party line is - "give us a bit of time, we're trying to figure something out". It's easy to be cynical, but this is no small thing. I can't remember anything similar in NI's history when breaking bad news. Normally when it's announced, it's done. (No shortage of wise-heads here saying any dialogue with NI will be a waste of time)

I think I understand a little better now why these authorisations are such a pain for NI technically, they just jumped a little too rashly into "ah, they're old libraries, just nix 'em" rather than coming up with a less destructive solution. Whether the will to now find a solution is driven by a belated horrified realisation they've violated their own EULA or it is more benevolent is a point of conjecture. But if it ends up with a better end state, then good.

Let's hope this ends up setting a precedent for future better relations between NI and its customers, and a wider example to the industry re CP.

I very much appreciate you getting on top of this topic in our own forum and being patient with all this. Credit to everyone too, threads such as this one allowed teams to really reflect on the impact of this announcement.

I will make sure all I come across here is being actively discussed internally and that we get a full picture. On Friday, I should have a better understanding on where things stand at the moment.

[cyberterror]

Corporate Greed.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Hi

Strip out all the CP on all those products and make them available with a serial code.
I was planning on using a whole bunch of these - especially as my daw ( mixcraft) loves bridging 32 bit and/or older stuff.
It's bad enough that users have to jump through all kinds of ilok, c&r, cp, dongle hoops and then to be told you can't use your software at all.

This requires going back to the source code and modifying each and every product. This is not feasible, considering in a number of cases original people involved are not even with the company anymore.

I don't see why this should be so difficult. Even if the original coder(s) left, you really think that other programmers at NI couldn't go in and just remove the copy protection? Obviously talking about NI's own plugins here.
And for third party kontakt instruments, that should be easy too. Can't Native Access and/or Kontakt simply white list certain products so that they will work without activation?

I honestly don't fault NI at all for not wanting to support these old products, but if a company can develop a product like Maschine or Massive X, they should be able to work out a way to remove the need for activation for some products. That is not the most complex part of the code for these things.

[EvilDragon]

It is not as easy as that at all, but I can understand why you might think it is.

[Sascha Franck]

It doesn't exactly matter whether it's easy. Really not.