Roland Cloud

[EnochLight]

That's funny, as I was in contact with their support 3 days ago and they said - let me quote: "Sorry, enrollment in the early adopter program ended at the beginning of 2019. If you enrolled in the program during that time, you will receive two instruments per 12 months of ultimate membership for a maximum of 10 instruments."

Oh damn. Guess I won't complain since I was one of those early adopters.

Sucks for new enrollees, though.

[gentleclockdivider]

Can someone educate me on the following

quote

Purchase a Lifetime Key and use your chosen instrument for as long as your Roland account is active—even if you’re not a paying member.

unquote

What does this even mean , so when I purchase an instrument/Lifetime key , it stops working after I de-activate my account ?

[EnochLight]

Can someone educate me on the following

quote

Purchase a Lifetime Key and use your chosen instrument for as long as your Roland account is active—even if you’re not a paying member.

unquote

What does this even mean , so when I purchase an instrument/Lifetime key , it stops working after I de-activate my account ?

An active Roland Account (more importantly, the Cloud Manager service on your computer) - whether free or sub - is required to periodically authenticate your instruments. If you deactivate your account, your Lifetime Key can’t call home to authenticate and will go into demo mode (occasional white noise).

[WatchTheGuitar]

Can someone educate me on the following

quote

Purchase a Lifetime Key and use your chosen instrument for as long as your Roland account is active—even if you’re not a paying member.

unquote

What does this even mean , so when I purchase an instrument/Lifetime key , it stops working after I de-activate my account ?

it means you need an active membership, a functional Roland Cloud account. So it means, for instance, the Roland Cloud service has to be running and it will prompt you for your login occasionally, maybe every 2 weeks can’t remember.

Edit: sorry didn’t see EL’s post that says the same thing

[Scotty]

Does anyone know if Roland converts those cloud authenticated plugins into permanent no online authentication licences should they abandon their cloud based system at some point in the future? The wording is problematic to me.

[rezoneight]

Does anyone know if Roland converts those cloud authenticated plugins into permanent no online authentication licences should they abandon their cloud based system at some point in the future? The wording is problematic to me.

Do they do that now? I think it's pretty clear that the answer is no, you need an active Roland Cloud account. In the future? Well, I would hope yes but have they specifically said so? I don't believe so.

[EnochLight]

it means you need an active membership, a functional Roland Cloud account. So it means, for instance, the Roland Cloud service has to be running and it will prompt you for your login occasionally, maybe every 2 weeks can’t remember.

Edit: sorry didn’t see EL’s post that says the same thing

No worries! But to clarify to everyone: "active membership" does not mean "paid subscription" (not that WatchTheGuitar was implying this).

You just need to keep your account open so Roland Cloud authenticator can communicate with the authentication server under your account to verify the lifetime license occasionally.

[Gamma-UT]

Does anyone know if Roland converts those cloud authenticated plugins into permanent no online authentication licences should they abandon their cloud based system at some point in the future? The wording is problematic to me.

Even companies that have said they will do that haven't.

And this is Roland. So be prepared for the whole thing to get pulled at some point.

If that's an issue, don't do it.

I've got an active sub...but I'm prepared for the inevitable Rolanding of the service.

[EnochLight]

Even companies that have said they will do that haven't.

What does this mean? My King's is generally pretty good, but I'm struggling here.

[Gamma-UT]

Even companies that have said they will do that haven't.

What does this mean? My King's is generally pretty good, but I'm struggling here.

Companies have promised they will convert temporary licences (eg machine-locked C/R licences) to permanent (eg serial only) if they couldn't keep the online licence server going. They didn't.

I didn't want to mention specifics in case it turned into an O/T bunfight, but one is NI. It made the promise in older EULAs then decided against it (not least because it would involve going back to software tools that got thrown out years ago). I was just making the point that even if such a promise is made, it's probably not worth much.

[Tj Shredder]

I have just the free Zenology installed. I was bothered by the Roland cloud manager opening on every restart. I moved it out of the launch agents on my Mac. Then the free Zenology will not work. I can still start it by hand and it will authorize the free plugin.
I would call this a spy in the system. Clearly something to avoid...

But beside that does anybody know if Zenology listens to program changes? I could not get it to work in Bitwig...
I mean its Roland, one of the pioneers of Midi...

[EnochLight]

Companies have promised they will convert temporary licences (eg machine-locked C/R licences) to permanent (eg serial only) if they couldn't keep the online licence server going. They didn't.

I didn't want to mention specifics in case it turned into an O/T bunfight, but one is NI. It made the promise in older EULAs then decided against it (not least because it would involve going back to software tools that got thrown out years ago). I was just making the point that even if such a promise is made, it's probably not worth much.

I see. I feel my only concern is if Roland Cloud itself, the service/product, is discontinued and goes bunk or Roland is sold to another company that deprecates it. My understanding is that at this point, lifetime licenses should be converted into permanent offline licenses that don't require server auth, but this is not stated anywhere in their EULA's. This is just hopeful thinking.

It's a similar situation with people who buy Reason Studios Reason and Rack Extension licenses. They both require an authentication server, yet if Reason Studios goes bust (or a new buyer deprecates the products), what happens? We all hope they'll convert what we paid for into permanent offline licenses, but their EULA doesn't state that is the case.

There's always risk when buying software, that's for sure. It's just the world we live in.

[Gamma-UT]

I let RCM launch at boot and then just quit it from the toolbar.

There should be a way to change the launchd parameters to make it launch and die automatically at boot once it's OKed the licence rather than staying alive but I haven't had time to figure it out.

[Gamma-UT]

I see. I feel my only concern is if Roland Cloud itself, the service/product, is discontinued and goes bunk or Roland is sold to another company that deprecates it. My understanding is that at this point, lifetime licenses should be converted into permanent offline licenses that don't require server auth, but this is not stated anywhere in their EULA's. This is just hopeful thinking.

It's a similar situation with people who buy Reason Studios Reason and Rack Extension licenses. They both require an authentication server, yet if Reason Studios goes bust (or a new buyer deprecates the products), what happens? We all hope they'll convert what we paid for into permanent offline licenses, but their EULA doesn't state that is the case.

All you can do is make sure you print any tracks that are important so you've got something to go back to if you need to revive a project if and when this stuff has gone to software heaven.

It's not a bad habit in any case. Though Reason/Reason Rack would be a major PITA if that died because of all the plumbing you can do that's tough to replicate in other things. Roland is, after all, just a bunch of synths and samples.

Is Cakewalk's authorisation server still running for those plugins? I retired Z3ta as it didn't seem worth the aggro of trying to keep it going so haven't checked myself.

[WatchTheGuitar]

The only time I'd consider yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum code would be in a situation where the company goes belly up and there's no way to authenticate the logins. In that case it may not be legal by the letter of the law, but I'd find a way.