Image Line Acquires UVI

[starflakeprj]

Your case is nothing like Netflix.

They do agree with us. They are cracking down on account sharing.

And how do you think its not the same?

Netflix is not losing customers due du account sharing though, the are are losing them because 80% of what they produce today is crap, and there are so many competitors nowadays. I pay for ten streaming services, plus one for magazines, but far from everyone can afford that.

[martinjuenke]

I pay for ten streaming services, plus one for magazines

When do you make music?

[machinesworking]

We are highly profitable. More profitable than all other DAWs I have seen the financial data on.

I have a question for you. Do you know what percentage of Ableton Live sales come from upgrade vs new customers?

Unless you do, you don't know anything about how profitable Lifetime Free Updates is, compared to the alternatives.

Regards Scott

I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone in their right mind would argue against lifetime upgrades, but this is KVR, as you can tell there's a lot of eh, divergent opinions here.

Personally I own a lot of software, and I love your business model. Developers think it's great to charge 50 to 60% of the original cost at times for upgrades and if you own enough software, you're paying a lot of large bills just to keep products you already own current.

Plus, unless your software phones home at random times to check on the license, or is in a subscription model, or the dreaded dongle, if it's just a single phone home to check the validity of the keyfile,I really don't see why CR is that bad. People IMO will argue anything.

Anyway I appreciate the openness here on the IMO non issues people are making. I've got way too many DAWs, but FL since it can run as a VST in another DAW and your internet presence despite the "experts" here telling you how to run your business makes me seriously think about picking FL up.

[Frankie.T]

Image-line adopted a 'challenge response' product activation system last year. The interests of corporate bean counters was placed above user friendly keyfile activation.

That was 100% my decision, and came because account sharing was exploding. Among other things, I manage the IP and Trust and Safety aspects of our business.

Notice this problem is affecting Netflix and others too. Its the new 'piracy'.

Our Regkey unlock system was completely open for abuse, and was. To be clear, since we have Lifetime Free Updates, and only get to sell FL Studio once to each customer, we are particularly sensitive to account fraud and sharing. This included:

• Sub-leasing their licenses.
• Sharing them with friends
• Reselling multiple copies (shops on Ebay, Amazon, FB etc devoted to it)

The numbers were staggering in come cases, one guy had a network of users in the 100's.

We have seen Regkeys in use in the 10,000's numbers also.

Pirates could take a key, bundle it with a version of FL Studio that didn't phone home and voilà!. Almost effort free crack.

So not just sharing with your best friend, but outright fraud, possible because Regkey licenses were not restricted in the number of installs in any way.

So, put yourself in my position, what would you have done?

You are talking to Scott Fisher (COO).

I understand and i really appreciate your explanation, and your efforts to keep FL up and running with no "spyware" as auth systems (such iLok).

Anyway there are people that are concerned for different reasons, about a dependency to a product they bought from a company/server/remote systems or just other people decisions.

Tbh i don't like when someone else have the control over something i bought and i rely on for my job.
Too much stuff can go wrong, from my internet connection, to your servers, from international hacker attack, to a different owner with a different will. I also read online, related to few other (audio plugins) companies that russian accounts were suspended or even deleted because of the war.
As many if not all of you, i'm against the war, every war tbh, i strongly believe in peace and harmony. Anyway i feel the pain of some russian musician and engineers that have nothing to do with wars, and they may even hate Putin for that, but saw their purchases to fly away for other people decisions.

These are just few examples, i may even add, what if IL go bankrupt in 10 years from now, or if a new buyer decide something different? Along other scenarios.

The point is: I understand the why of your decision, i even appreciate the fact you choce one of the good alternative methods along lots of very bad systems, but i'd like to know if would be possible, if even exist another method that allow legit users to own for real, a copy of FL Studio we can use without living with the fingers crossed that everything goes for the best.

Because if i have to rely on external systems/will to use something i bought i don't own the product (anymore), i just payed the king permission to work his lands, but the kings for whatever reason can revoke my land, as he can die or a bad prince can kill him and take his lands back

We are highly profitable. More profitable than all other DAWs I have seen the financial data on.

This should be enough to keep a more user friendly system that doesn't punish legit users imo

[Urs]

Interesting conversation!

Thing is, the old argument that "piracy users will never buy" is flawed: A vast percentage buys if the already pirated copy is taken away from them. FLS is probably the software with the most beneficial factors to do so that can think of, and unlike Photoshop they can pull it off without going subscription.

Apparently IL is super healthy as a company. Their C/R servers won't go out of service anytime soon. If that is how future free updates are financed by, then it seems not the worst of options (think of subscription as the alternative).

Just my 2c

- U

[Frankie.T]

I don't think piracy users will never buy it's true, i think the opposite tbh.
As someone else already wrote, lots of people start with pirated software, then get used to them, cause they use what they like. Once they can financially afford what they are used to use, they buy it. I believe this is one of the factor FL Studio is so popular tbh.

As user i prefer to pay for updates but have the full ownership of my software, i don't like to depend on other people will, or different external factors that may fail.

As buyer i usually consider this when i make purchases, i already had bad experience with iLok software and companies that get irresponsive, or long waiting times while i had the need to get the job done, and this is way frustrating, and also not correct, since i payed for the software, while piracy user do everything with no issues at all.

I see there are companies that are healthy just with reg files, and i don't even need to make examples, cause IL is one of them, so it's proven that it's possible to be healty and user friendly.

[noiseboyuk]

Can I just say thanks to Scott and Urs here for their openness and patience with the KVR bowels of righteousness.

[Dionysos]

Your case is nothing like Netflix.

They do agree with us. They are cracking down on account sharing.

And how do you think its not the same?

FL Studio licenses were always only valid for a single user, while Netflix has had more expensive plans explicitly for multiple users/profiles.

I don't think Netflix used to explicitly limit the usage of these multi-profile plans to a single household in the past, or if they did it was hidden away in the EULA. At least I've bought a multi-user plan explicitly to share it with less tech savvy members of my family who don't live in my house, and I didn't think I was doing anything illegal when I did.

Now that Netflix wants to crack down on account sharing, I'll simply downgrade to a single-user plan and tell my family members to get their own plan if they think it's worth it.

[revvy]

His argument is bollocks. Wanna see Netflix piracy? It’s folks I know using snide boxes that give them access to all streaming platforms, not my family using our paid-for multi person logins.

When IL becomes a streaming-only subscription service (oh how I’d lol) that allows for family plans, then we can make informed comparisons.

[ATS]

i hate people

pic or didn't happen

[N__K]

Interesting conversation!

Thing is, the old argument that "piracy users will never buy" is flawed: A vast percentage buys if the already pirated copy is taken away from them. FLS is probably the software with the most beneficial factors to do so that can think of, and unlike Photoshop they can pull it off without going subscription.

Apparently IL is super healthy as a company. Their C/R servers won't go out of service anytime soon. If that is how future free updates are financed by, then it seems not the worst of options (think of subscription as the alternative).

Just my 2c

- U

I think that gatekeeping licensees' usage of software via C/R and other kinds of DRM is as deplorable as wealthy people using warez versions without paying for a license.

I agree with Scott in that actions of folks without a moral compass (or with a badly malfunctioning one) make things harder for everyone.
On the other hand, the logic of "some of our users are amoral idiots, so let's now treat all of our users as thieves by default" is not a good solution either.

IL used to be one of the few remaining companies which chose not to resort to DRM on principle, despite being aware of rampant piracy. Not anymore. I understand the reasons, too - among them, expansion into countries where warezing is the norm.

But at the core of it, DRM is a technical solution to a social problem; and the more we normalize DRM, the further we drift into dystopias.


***


It may also be asked, does a company with 29 million euros pre-tax profit need to test every idiot kid's ability to find a properly cracked version vs. asking mom for her credit card.
Or should they perhaps continue to let a few thing slide short-term, while relying on long-term formation of moral fiber in their young users. The latter worked in the past; it seems a common thing at IL forums for now-licensed users to admit to having used warezed versions as kids. There are such people even on IL staff.

[martinjuenke]

But at the core of it, DRM is a technical solution to a social reality

FTFY

[N__K]

But at the core of it, DRM is a technical solution to a social reality

FTFY

Thanks for sort-of putting words in my mouth, heh...

Now answer this: if what you wrote there is true, why is it so?


And what can we do to create a social reality where everyone can afford to pay for software, and is civilized enough to choose to do so out of their free will - instead of being forced into it via technological means?

[jamcat]

Image-line adopted a 'challenge response' product activation system last year. The interests of corporate bean counters was placed above user friendly keyfile activation.

That was 100% my decision, and came because account sharing was exploding. Among other things, I manage the IP and Trust and Safety aspects of our business.

Notice this problem is affecting Netflix and others too. Its the new 'piracy'.

Our Regkey unlock system was completely open for abuse, and was. Te clear, since we have Lifetime Free Updates, and only get to sell FL Studio once to each customer, we are particularly sensitive to account fraud and sharing. This included:

• Sub-leasing their licenses.
• Sharing them with friends
• Reselling multiple copies (shops on Ebay, Amazon, FB etc devoted to it)

The numbers were staggering in come cases, one guy had a network of users in the 100's.

We have seen Regkeys in use in the 10,000's numbers also.

Pirates could take a key, bundle it with a version of FL Studio that didn't phone home and voilà!. Almost effort free crack.

So not just sharing with your best friend, but outright fraud, possible because Regkey licenses were not restricted in the number of installs in any way.

So, put yourself in my position, what would you have done?

You are talking to Scott Fisher (COO).

I’m actually a little confused why you felt this was necessary, since FL had always used a simple regfile for the past 20+ years, and “an already popular FL Studio exploded in popularity about 10 years ago,” long before the C/R switch was initiated.

Perhaps it’s too soon to tell, but I’m wondering, have you actually seen a significant jump in sales as a result of changing to a C/R system that would validate your decision?

[WatchTheGuitar]

Just to prevent it seeming like an anti-DRM echo chamber in here, I don’t have a problem with it unless it screws with my disk (like old Sony DRM did) and I am fine with a once in a while online call home. It’s usually a 2 second wait for authorisation and done. I bet I’ve spent a lot less time of my life waiting for online DRM authentication than reading about how much people hate it on here.

Also, telling someone whose company made $29 million pre-tax profit with their DRM system in place to just let a few things slide and abandon it and rely on ‘moral fiber’ gave me a rare laugh on a Monday morning so thanks for that.