Thoughts on Ilok?

[chk071]

What could be more “ultra-capitalistic” than believing you are entitled to sell whatever you want completely unregulated while keeping 100% of your profits?

Laissez-faire For me, but not for thee. Typical hypocrite.

What I recently read elsewhere is even worse.

"My game didn't receive an update to fix bugs 2 weeks after release. I feel entitled to use warez."

People's moral standards are really on a harsh decline these days.

But, yo, it's all ultra capitalists, yo.

Dumb hipsters these days. No brain to think, so they use their arse.

[chk071]

BTW, there are no "ultra capitalists" in this petty business. Hard to understand, I know. At least for rebel musicians.

[jamcat]

And then they wonder why so many audio software companies shut down or get sold off.

[D-Fusion]

iLok is my favorite of the licensing schemes, second only to no licensing scheme. I've got products on my iLok where the companies are out of business and their servers are down, and I can still use the products I purchased. That is not the case with some of my products owned by developers with (as far as I can tell) basic text keys who folded.

I've had to use ZDT and Theft/Loss Coverage twice in the past and both times it was simple, easy, and affordable to get back up and running ASAP.

So you are saying that because it uses Ilok it works after a Company has folded but a simple Serial protection does'nt or do you mean C/R Protected software?

The only products i have had problems with and lost are those that Rely on C/R or online Authorizations.

I was totaly Anti Ilok back in the day when companies started to use it until the day i found something i liked and discovered that it used Ilok after i bought it.

Now i think it is great having all the licenses on a single Usb stick where my products are ready to go as soon as they are installed.

And I still have activations to add to a new one if something happens to my dongle or i could just skip the dongle and tie it to my computer instead if i don't feel like getting a new dongle but then it is very important to de activate that license before you reinstall your OS or Reload a Backup disk image.

[oneway]

So you are saying that because it uses Ilok it works after a Company has folded but a simple Serial protection does'nt or do you mean C/R Protected software?

Both? Even basic serial protections these days seem to require internet access and the company’s servers. I’m no expert- all I know is I’ve had both types of those have issues when a company stopped maintaining them.

Anyway, it is great to have most of my licenses in one location and it’s convenient when you’re on the go. Inevitably there’s always some non-iLok plugin that I need to reactivate while traveling… the iLok ones just work.

[wvshpr]

And then they wonder why so many audio software companies shut down or get sold off.

Companies shut down because of competition and mismanagement, not because a used market exists. IKEA still exists despite people selling stuff on Craig's List. It's a different market segment, there's different tiers of budgets.

The key to survival is: make amazing products and have an amazing customer experience. iLok is not an amazing customer experience. It's just a liability when something goes wrong (server downtime, iLok breaks, machine gets stolen, etc.). It's just something I do not want to have to deal with if I'm about to finish a project.

[underscoreraven]

Now i think it is great having all the licenses on a single Usb stick where my products are ready to go as soon as they are installed.

A serial number scheme offering to enter it via regkey (or equivalents for other OSs if they exist) would be method to to keep all licenses not only on one usb stick, but on one single file. But sadly this seems to have fallen quite out of fashion

Personally I would not want to have an USB stick worth hundreds of dollars, or to tie it to hardware and thus lose everything in cases of hardware dying.

[DCrown]

Now i think it is great having all the licenses on a single Usb stick where my products are ready to go as soon as they are installed.

A serial number scheme offering to enter it via regkey (or equivalents for other OSs if they exist) would be method to to keep all licenses not only on one usb stick, but on one single file. But sadly this seems to have fallen quite out of fashion

Personally I would not want to have an USB stick worth hundreds of dollars, or to tie it to hardware and thus lose everything in cases of hardware dying.

You wouldn't lose anything if you lost usb dongle. All licenses are registered and can be moved to your pc or cloud or dongle in most cases in iLok License Manager.

[midi_transmission]

Now i think it is great having all the licenses on a single Usb stick where my products are ready to go as soon as they are installed.

A serial number scheme offering to enter it via regkey (or equivalents for other OSs if they exist) would be method to to keep all licenses not only on one usb stick, but on one single file. But sadly this seems to have fallen quite out of fashion

Personally I would not want to have an USB stick worth hundreds of dollars, or to tie it to hardware and thus lose everything in cases of hardware dying.

You wouldn't lose anything if you lost usb dongle. All licenses are registered and can be moved to your pc or cloud or dongle in most cases in iLok License Manager.

You can't move the license when you lost it or have a damaged ilok. It depends on each publisher of all registered plugins what happens as understand it.

Please read the official informations.
https://www.ilok.com/#!zdt-coverage

You will need to contact the publishers of the products that were lost for full replacements.

There is ZDT, which has some further restrictions and requires an additional fee per year to restore quickly.

Most of the time there are luckily alternative plugins from hassle free companies like u-he, tdr, DMG, audiority, Klanghelm, Tal, Melda, tb pro audio, fuse, BRA, Atruria, and even and Plugin Alliance etc. where such problems do not exist.

[DCrown]

Never saw any hassles reported

[BONES]

Your reasoning is incorrect for several reasons:
1. Multiple iLok plugins have been hacked and therefore the investment has not been protected.
2. That means that other companies that do not protect with iLok are either not protecting their investments or are dumb.
3. There is a reason why many people don't like iLok. Just because a lot of people think something doesn't make it true, but it doesn't invalidate it either.

1. Just because things have been hacked doesn't mean there has been no protection, just that there wasn't enough.
2. No, it doesn't mean that at all as iLok is not the only way to protect your investment. Lots of products have equally or more intrusive/difficult protection schemes than iLok. Even a simple serial no. offers some measure of protection. Just look at how much easier it is to find pirated mp3s on line than it is to find pirated plugins.
3. Of course there is a reason many people don't like iLok - the world is full of idiots.

[billinder33]

I have 100s of software products, but only 2 that rely on iLok - Soothe 2 and Slate VSX.

iLok's certainly better than it used to be, but I wish I could dump it entirely. It's just another one-off thing to have to manage. My VSX, it stops working without warning. And I never remember that it"s because VSX is one of the 2 things that I own that uses iLok.

[DCrown]

Companies/devs who use iLok

Complete list
https://www.ilok.com/#!ilok-publishers

Some of the best / most popular devs
AIR, Apogee, Audio Ease, Avid
Acousticsamples
Celemony
East West, Empirical Labs,
Eventide, Exponential Audio
Flux, Focusrite, Fractal Audio
George Massenburg,
Izotope, Joey Surgis
Korneff Audio, Kush Audio
Lexicon, Line6
Mark of the Unicorn, Matthew Lane,
McDSP, Metric Halo, Moog
Neural DSP, Nembrini, Nomad factory, Nugen
Oeksound
PSP, Pulsar Audio
Relab
Scuffham Amps
Slate Digital
Softube, SSL, Sonalksis, Sonic Studio
Sonnox, Sound theory, Soundtoys
Strymon
TC
Universal Audio
UVI
Vienna Symphonic Library
Wave Arts
Xils

Some top notch highly regarded plugins of some of above mentioned devs
Xpand2!, Loom, Vacuum, Mini Grand, Boom, Velvet, V-Tines, V-Reeds, B-5 Organ V3, Altiverb, Melodyne, Arousor, H910, SP2016, Black Hole, Ultrachannel, Split EQ,
Phoenix Verb, Nimbus/R4, RX 10, Ozone, Lexicon PCM, Helix Native, DrMS, Tone King Imperial MKii, Archetype: Tim Henson etc, Soothe2, FETpressor, PSP Infinistrip, Massive, LX 480, Sonsig REV-A, S-Gear, Virtual Microphone & Preamp collection, FG-Stress, Tube Tech complete, TSAR-1 reverb, SSL native Channel Strip 2, SSL Bus compressor, Harrison Spectral Comp, Sonnox Inflator, Oxford Reverb, Gullfoss, Decapitator, Tc MD4, Strymon Big Sky, UAD Manley VoxBox CS, Avalon VT-737 Tube CS, Magnetic Tape bundle, UVI Workstation, Falcon, Relayer, etc. etc. etc.

iLok makes it easy to switch computers and whenever you must reload a hdd, it's all automatically authorized without having to search for activation codes or serial numbers

[sacer]

It’s very slow opening plugins, especially if you have Softube Modular, Amp Room or console with lots of other Iloks to check each plugin scan or opening the plugin.
The opening time comes close to Kontakt 7

[MJACau]

If Pace's iLok come into the 21 century and stop punishing it's users by using a modern hardware yubico like hardware 2FA key (than a crappy USB key) I may take them more seriously.