⚠ ⚠ Reason 12.6 - No perpetual offline-licence mode anymore! ⚠ ⚠

[dlandis]

It's kind of funny that majority here hates logging in once a year to Reasonstudios and at the same time they do login to these forums multiple times a day.

I’ve never had a forum go under and render my songs with it useless because I was not in a position to save eternal copies. I’ve had that happen with plug ins, so personally permanent licenses are preferred, it’s not that difficult of a concept to understand.

No, it's not difficult to understand, but your personal justification for your position seems different than the reasons of some posting here, which include trying to preserve the plausibility of a possible eventual decision to forgo the internet entirely and some concept of a breach of rights. Your position is rooted largely in the very understandable desire to maintain your creations the way you originally executed them. I would suggest that Atlatnesiti is addressing the comments of some of the other posters and probably not your concerns, per se.

I ask with all due honesty, however: is this a Mac experience (and I am not trying to open a Mac vs. PC argument, I'm just wondering)? I'm on a Windows machine and I can't remember having to retool any of my compositions due to a change of licensing, a company going under, falling into an OS-change chasm, or any issue similar to this. Which company (or companies) hung you up? Did you entirely forgo their products at that point, gradually wean yourself away from their offerings, or take another route entirely? I would find a short account of your experience(s) and the manner in which you resolved it (them) to be helpful, if you would be so kind.

I'm not the person you originally addressed this to, but I noticed that you joined KVR back in 2006. Have you actively participated here all of these years? One who has would automatically know the 20 years of back history and various companies that have screwed people over. It's happened time and time again. Go back and do some KVR forum searches.

EDIT: And as for me personally, I've solved most of the problems by moving to Linux.

Thanks for the note.

I'm specifically asking machineworking about his experience and addressed my note to him because he related an experience that I have not had. I've no question that some companies have over the years acted without integrity: that is a "given" and I have no need to rehash the vitriol that was expended in those clashes. I'm not attempting to defend these companies, but I am hoping to learn from machineworking's experience(s) in order to perhaps avert a similar situation of my own in the future. Please note: he mentioned having to rework his creations due to (what is assumed) to be business practices of one or more companies. This is specifically the situation I am addressing, so doing "some KVR forum searches," as you put it, would seem to be overkill. I am not at all interested in all bad business practices in posing this question, but only those that resulted in a need to engage in an attempt to recreate one's previous creative efforts.

FWIW, I'm not sure what bearing my level of participation on KVR has on what I've asked machineworking, but I've have checked in fairly regularly over the years, often not posting, but keeping up with the news to the extent that is appropriate for my level of activity in other areas of my life. I have, in fact, noted a relatively small number (compared to my perception of the frequency of what is litigated in the nonmusical sector) of complaints here regarding "questionable" business practices. Some of these strike me as perhaps having enough merit to hold up in court proceedings, but then, I am not a lawyer. Of course, one hardly has to survey what is presented on KVR to understand that music/entertainment-oriented merchandizers do not always exhibit the correct level of fealty to established ethical, moral, or legal norms of conduct.

It is nice to hear that you have resolutions in your switch to Linux. Contentment with one's decisions is always pleasant to experience: good for you.

I hope that this short note answers your concerns.

[jlgrimes11]

Authorizing a computer for long-term off-line use

"In addition, if you have an Annual Reason+ subscription or own a standard (perpetual ) Reason 12 license, you can authorize your computer for long-term offline use. This can be useful if you are travelling or working in a studio without internet access, etc. The long-term authorization allows for staying off-line on the authorized computer for one (1) year. If you are a Reason+ subscriber you are limited by the subscription end date, though. In most situations, authorizing a computer for long-term use is not necessary, though."

https://help.reasonstudios.com/hc/en-us ... -and-later

That is very important to know and I will not support this. They call it perpetual even if its not perpetual!!

I'm guessing you will connect to internet to get updates within a year.

That said that is probably there to make sure perpetual users pay for next major release.

[midi_transmission]

I expected exactly something like this since the subscription thing.

I find it unacceptable to be honest. I'm still glad at least Waves got so much negative feedback that they changed their mind.

[Jac459]

Its just a matter of risks. I don‘t have trust in any of the companies that are in that deal and steal economy.

It is quite astonishing to see the level of imagination and phantasm about data management arround here.

Reason Studios is an European company, working under European law. European Union is regulated by GDPR laws for the collection and use of user data. So basically, for Reason Studios to decide to do something illegal about your data, the CEO would have to inform his employees, at least a Product owner, a developer and a tester, to implement this "illegal feature (for the record, everybody in IT knows about GDPR).
Doing so, the CEO would risk both his company AND engage himself legally.
I find this scenario very very unlikely.

I am Head of Engineering for a big French bank. We collect a shit ton of data and ...we do nothing with it outside of the strict law. Nobody would take the risk.

I am less sure for US because in general they are much more lenient about regulation, but not EU. EU will fine the shit out of you if you go against there regulations.
One very simple and efficient way to make sure regulations are followed is that they force the bank to create and hire a "Compliance" department. These people, unlike traders, are not payed enough to take risk for the company, and are legally engaged "physically" (basically they can go to jail). So we can be sure it is working pretty well (not perfectly) but pretty well.

To be clear, I am not saying that "corporate greed" doesn't exist, we have the crazy example of the "dieselgate" with wolkswagen. But it has reduced very much since 15 years (in particular since 2008, with subprime crisis, jerome kerviel, where regulators started to understand the importance of regulations).

It is certainly less true for US, where we have some companies, like Goldman Sachs, regularly being caught cheating with no real impacts (basically, below 100 million euros fine in banking, nobody gives a shit).

So basically, for audio companies, we are safe, in particular in EU.

Now, there's a totally different topic which is malware focused organisations, where there business model is basically stealing you, trying to get/purchase your data in order to create scams. And sometimes, trying to pretend to be legitimate companies in order to trick you to give data. (Example, a simple android application, like a sudoku game or whatever).

The best defense against that is
1 - very regular software updates (IT companies do work to fight this type of crime)
2 - Awareness (which involves not loosing energy being paranoid at companies like Reason and really be extremely cautious where it really matters).

[midi_transmission]

I have not followed every post here but I think you miss the point Jac459.

Data collecting is only a little part. I don't think it's a problem for audio companies as well.

But the other side is the dependency on the good will of a company whether you can use your purchased tools. When the controlls shifts more and more on the company side you have to follow every move or you lose your tools. I want to keep my music tools available and for a long time. These goals are potentially jeopardized by exactly this kind of business conduct and product behavior.

It's not a customer relation on par this way. That's a reason why people are annoyed.

[dlandis]

I have not followed every post here but I think you miss the point Jac459.

Data collecting is only a little part. I don't think it's a problem for audio companies as well.

But the other side is the dependence on the good will of a company. Financially but also in terms of availability. I want to keep my tools available and for a long time. These goals are potentially jeopardized by exactly this kind of business conduct.

It's not a business relation on a par like it used to be.

This is the note from the Reason site, re: Long-term Off-line Authorization. It was quoted by the OP earlier in the thread:

(BOQ)

Authorizing a computer for long-term off-line use

In addition, if you have an Annual Reason+ subscription or own a standard (perpetual) Reason 12 license, you can authorize your computer for long-term offline use. This can be useful if you are travelling or working in a studio without internet access, etc. The long-term authorization allows for staying off-line on the authorized computer for one (1) year. If you are a Reason+ subscriber you are limited by the subscription end date, though. In most situations, authorizing a computer for long-term use is not necessary, though.

(EOQ)

I'm not sure which part of this description gives you fear for your use of Reason; could you point it out? (And, please, if it's something else entirely, please feel free to convey those details.) With all due respect, from what I'm reading, your concerns are clearly strongly felt, but rather vague in the formulation of adequate cause.

I bring this up because, if it's fear of Reason going under behind your comment, I'll possibly be able to put your mind at ease due to the fact that in the few cases that something similar to this this have happened to me, one of two things has happened. In the first case, the companies not supporting a product anymore made arrangements for the product owners to retain rights to their licenses for perpetuity regardless of whatever type of copy protection was in use before the decision to stop supporting the software. Something like this happened when Apple bought Alchemy from Camel Audio. All valid license holders received a notice far in advance of the sale so that they could retain Alchemy for their computers in a manner so that they could (with specific and clear directions from Camel) reinstall the VST and other data on any new computers that they might desire in the future. In the second case (usually very small companies,) the owners stop supporting and manufacturing the software, but often do in conjunction with going out of business. The software continues to work in exactly the same manner on the original machine and very often the owner offers a final distribution to enable the user to continue using/reinstalling the software without issue. This second scenario is reminiscent of a situation that happened several years ago with a unique sounding VST named Enzyme by Humanoid Sound Systems. I happen to own Enzyme and have installed it on a new computer since the demise of Humanoid. I do imagine that at some point (with an OS change probably,) it may stop working, but all is fine now.

It should be noted as well, that Reason considers the off-line licensing an option for a minority of users, and, of course, it costs nothing at all to the user. The rub is that a majority of Reason users probably still haven't noticed any change in the way they use Reason and likely never will. Perhaps a fair question here: if the OP hadn't set this thread in motion, would you have known any better about this perceived issue? If not, should this "change" really give you agita or even minor concern? Again, as Jac459 notes, there are rather stringent laws governing these contractual dealings in the EU. It is not likely that Reason is going to go out of its way to break those laws.

[machinesworking]

It's kind of funny that majority here hates logging in once a year to Reasonstudios and at the same time they do login to these forums multiple times a day.

I’ve never had a forum go under and render my songs with it useless because I was not in a position to save eternal copies. I’ve had that happen with plug ins, so personally permanent licenses are preferred, it’s not that difficult of a concept to understand.

No, it's not difficult to understand, but your personal justification for your position seems different than the reasons of some posting here, which include trying to preserve the plausibility of a possible eventual decision to forgo the internet entirely and some concept of a breach of rights. Your position is rooted largely in the very understandable desire to maintain your creations the way you originally executed them. I would suggest that Atlatnesiti is addressing the comments of some of the other posters and probably not your concerns, per se.

I ask with all due honesty, however: is this a Mac experience (and I am not trying to open a Mac vs. PC argument, I'm just wondering)? I'm on a Windows machine and I can't remember having to retool any of my compositions due to a change of licensing, a company going under, falling into an OS-change chasm, or any issue similar to this. Which company (or companies) hung you up? Did you entirely forgo their products at that point, gradually wean yourself away from their offerings, or take another route entirely? I would find a short account of your experience(s) and the manner in which you resolved it (them) to be helpful, if you would be so kind.

Yeah you're probably right that Atlatnesiti was addressing the more knee jerk reactions.

Mostly I'm thinking about Alchemy, I was super busy on something completely unrelated when they were bought out, so I for some gawdawful reason thought I had secured the final authorized version. I hadn't so a clean instal killed it for me.

Companies dying is a huge concern for anyone really, right now Audiofinder a great Mac all purpose browser and audio tool etc. is working, but the developer has been AWOL for over a year, probably got a job at Meta etc. It will last for years in Rosetta, but at some point some OS change will render it partially or completely useless. I get that the ratio is skewed but even with Windows some software will need tweaking with updates etc.

In the best case scenario what happens if Reason Studios folds? if they don't have perpetual licenses are we to assume they will grant them if they get bought by google or something? I'm not that concerned in the case of Reason, but I would say perpetual licenses are always preferable that's all.

[Jac459]

I have not followed every post here but I think you miss the point Jac459.

Data collecting is only a little part. I don't think it's a problem for audio companies as well.

But the other side is the dependency on the good will of a company whether you can use your purchased tools. When the controlls shifts more and more on the company side you have to follow every move or you lose your tools. I want to keep my music tools available and for a long time. These goals are potentially jeopardized by exactly this kind of business conduct and product behavior.

It's not a customer relation on par this way. That's a reason why people are annoyed.

I didn't miss this point but I indeed was answering to another point.

On your own post, I fully agree with you.

With maybe one remark, when a software company collapse l, it is not necessary a bad news for users.
I give you the link to my github as an example.
https://github.com/jac459/meta

Basically I backed a splendid IOT company selling intelligent remotes. They collapsed. I took over the development of all their software in opensource with a few friends. Now we do everything we want with the product. .. I have a few hundreds users.

So if Reason collapse, it will certainly become opensource, like surge xt. That doesn't mean the death of the product...

[Trancit]

Reason Studios is an European company, working under European law. European Union is regulated by GDPR laws for the collection and use of user data. So basically, for Reason Studios to decide to do something illegal about your data, the CEO would have to inform his employees, at least a Product owner, a developer and a tester, to implement this "illegal feature (for the record, everybody in IT knows about GDPR).
Doing so, the CEO would risk both his company AND engage himself legally.
I find this scenario very very unlikely.

...

You are living in a dream world...

These laws are nothing but fantasy... they are there to protect them but not you!
Just take Amazon´s "Alexa"...

It was confirmed (already, don´t know exactly...10 years ago or more) that Alexa is constantly spying every user and sends everything it records to the Amazon servers... means every conversation, every noise happening around the machine gets send over...

Using electronic monitoring systems on other people is illegal in the complete EU...
You are allowed to own them but you aren´t allowed to use them (what a nonsense...)

Amazon said... Oh, that´s ok, we are using all these data just to improve the user experience!

EU: Oh, ok... if you are just willing to use it for good then we suspend the laws for you!

Nothing happened or changed this this became a known fact...

One crow doesn't peck out another's eye!

[Jac459]

You are living in a dream world...

These laws are nothing but fantasy... they are there to protect them but not you!

I see the world you are living in... I will stay in mine if you don't mind lol...

I am not very much into conspiracy theory. I am part of the stupid people who think earth is round, we really went on the moon, elvis presley is really dead, etc....

[Samiver]

Talking of EU law was their not a case that set the precedent that software can be resold in the EU. There are lots of software providers that do not allow reselling of vst and rs do not allow you to sell RE'S.

[revvy]

5G is at the root of it all. Friday nights, hang with the glitterati.

Do your own presearch, bring your own bottle, go peck out a crow's eye. Simplez.

[LaLivre]

You are living in a dream world...

These laws are nothing but fantasy... they are there to protect them but not you!

I see the world you are living in... I will stay in mine if you don't mind lol...

I am not very much into conspiracy theory. I am part of the stupid people who think earth is round, we really went on the moon, elvis presley is really dead, etc....

What do you think about stuff like the "Bohemian Grove", "Fiat Money ", "Skull and Bones", "Catastrophic Contaigon" or the "Great Reset" to name a few others?

[revvy]

I spend fiat money every day. Everyone does, no?

Bohemian Grove is old but still a good tune; was v groundbreaking at the time.

[LaLivre]

I spend fiat money every day. Everyone does, no?

Bohemian Grove is old but still a good tune; was v groundbreaking at the time.

You are indeed living in a dream world.