Vengeance Producer Suite - AVENGER - 1.8.5 the main thread

[Kian Russell]

Sometimes copy protection promotes paranoia.
Things go way too far.
Those things get projected on honest users who have to pay the price in more than one way.

[Norrin_Radd]

For me, it's a simple matter of principle. Software dongles are no different than Roland putting their synth VSTs behind the cloud, which is a move I did not support and will not support.

It embeds in our work flow a foreign agent that only works against our best interests. Should there be any single problem, ever, the benefit of the doubt is removed and you are left without access as a matter of default. DRM adds additional layers of failure to what should be a simple matter of opening a piece of software.

I don't agree to the terms of service, and I suspect if people really knew what the terms were or what was going on, they may have some concerns. I personally would NEVER use this type of DRM on any professional project, because you just can't guarantee you have access to what you purchased. Always, from now on, there is an additional screening you must pass before you have access to what you paid for, especially months or years down the line.

At least with hardware dongles, it is offline. Remove the cloud and I can at least deal with it a little better.

[GMusic]

I start up Avenger today (just used it like a week or two ago) and it says license not found. Really.

At first I didn't mind the Codemeter, but with bs like this...what a turn off. Way to annoy legit customers.

[nonstatic]

Most of us do understand the desire to protect intellectual property. However, many professionals keep their studios offline. I am one of them. There is no way I can use a product with such an invasive CP. My license has been sold. Wishing them the best of luck, it's a great synth.

[bftucker]

Sometimes copy protection promotes paranoia.
Things go way too far.
Those things get projected on honest users who have to pay the price in more than one way.

As an "honest user" and someone who agrees that it is "a great synth," I am willing "to pay the price" if Avenger's creators consider CP necessary if they are to continue future development.

Others may disagree.

[chk071]

Most of us do understand the desire to protect intellectual property.

Do we? I don't have the impression that many of the "critics" really do. They rather only see their theirselves. Shortsightedly, because, a healthy company who effectively protects their IP is beneficial for the customers, because it can offer products for lower prices.

[sacer]

What’s the problem with this copy protection?
Look at the native Instruments topic, how they solve copy protection for their old stuff ....

e.g. cm container broken, server not available/error during activation, activated multiple or none licenses, issues with beta/regular licenses, processes running *all the time* which are needed for the cp, issues in combination with other copy protection mechanisms, manual renewal after x days, antivirus triggering because cm uses malware like methods internet data exchange.

btw the same problem NI has right now with customers not being able to activate their older products is something Avenger customers will face too.

ah ok, now i am also affected... it has first worked very stable on my system, maybe the update 1.55 - really angry wasn't able to open my last propject in ableton and if you have used many plugins, it is always hard to identify the problem, so I had to read the ableton crash report:

Ausnahmefehler bei 0x00007FF9E2F7806B (VPS Avenger_x64.dll) in Live_10.1.13b1_2020-03-05_a4d962a3e4_2020_03_14__11_48_51.dmp: 0xC0000005: Zugriffsverletzung beim Lesen an Position 0x0000000000004958

[sacer]

laziness or incompetence

laziness or incompetence. Seems like you are really a nice guy
Correct, developing a (good) system takes 2 things: time and knowledge/experience of crypting. We had not the time, since Avenger is already an ambitious project for 1 person and furthermore Rene is also not a specialist in programming copy protections, he is better at other things. First system was made by him, took months but lasted only 2 years (which is actually not too bad)
We dont have more employees and had not found any other person who could do this as third party for money in short time... wait not true, we did... Wibu/Codemeter was even a complete team, who developed a CP for over 10 years.

what about ilok online without dongle protection, it is also used by many compoanys like softube, uvi, soundtoys, eventide, xils lab and many others.....often as second alternative like xils lab, or izotope

[zvenx]

He said they were too expensive an option.

(Technically he said expansive, but I think he meant expensive)
rsp

[cleverr1]

CodeMeter Question:
My Avenger license is showing as valid until March 19. Do I have to do anything or will this automatically update itself?

[zvenx]

CodeMeter Question:
My Avenger license is showing as valid until March 19. Do I have to do anything or will this automatically update itself?

Unless there is a new vman that comes out before (I am skeptical there is) you have to do something.

They really should do a FAQ on this.
rsp

[dreamvoid]

Most of us do understand the desire to protect intellectual property.

Do we? I don't have the impression that many of the "critics" really do. They rather only see their theirselves. Shortsightedly, because, a healthy company who effectively protects their IP is beneficial for the customers, because it can offer products for lower prices.

I absolutely do - I make a comfortable living by selling the usage rights for my music and audio design since many years. Therefore it is absolutely understandable that companies protect their intellectual properties - we're in the same boat. Currently I have over a dozen active dongles for protecting software on several computers and I'm fine with it. It is the specific scheme and implementation of Avenger that makes me upset. And as if I asked for it, yesterday I had to re-authorize Avenger - no warning before, probably because I stopped using it. While I was trying to re-create a similar sound in Falcon 2, I loaded Avenger for comparison and it didn't work, downloaded V-Manager and I had to log in. New obstacle: no copy/paste of my complex password possible - I had to manually type it in - what a drag again! Authorization was successful - but I will sell Avenger soon nevertheless. The copy protection made this software a pita. I need ease of mind while working and not interruptions.

[cleverr1]

CodeMeter Question:
My Avenger license is showing as valid until March 19. Do I have to do anything or will this automatically update itself?

Unless there is a new vman that comes out before (I am skeptical there is) you have to do something.

They really should do a FAQ on this.
rsp

On my main PC I managed to muddle my way through creating a license request and doing a file based thing using a non-Microsoft browser which eventually resulted in me downloading a license update which installed automatically. However, I couldn't repeat this on my laptop, but I ended up removing the license and then activating it again from Chrome.

This is far too technical to expect end users to do every 3 months, especially without providing proper instructions in the FAQ as you mentioned.

[craggvalehouse]

Bftucker I 100% agree..
"As an "honest user" and someone who agrees that it is "a great synth," I am willing "to pay the price" if Avenger's creators consider CP necessary if they are to continue future development".

If they keep doing updates and making it into a dream synth then f**k it lets work through a few problems - I spend 50 hours a week making music now and all the "pros" that can't handle a few seconds disruption I don't think actually exist..

[MissOptimyst]

My two cents, the synth itself is amazing, but like others are mentioning I think more documentation in FAQs about all of this licensing stuff would be ideal. I do not feel currently it is transparent enough unless you dig deep into forums like these. I had no idea what I was doing when I tried setting it up and I'm glad I found this forum to help walk me through.

That being said, I am going to continue to use it, but I'm not sure how much I feel comfortable investing in it further (i.e. sound packs, updates) until it seems more stable and more of these kinks are worked out. I'm a Mac user and it concerns me that optimization for Mac isn't being considered a priority or even that much of a high regard currently.