Plugins/Companies using serial, a keyfile, or watermark copy protection

[noiseresearch]

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[audiojunkie]

Bummer..... It's getting harder and harder to find plugins without challenge/response or intrusive copy protection...

[audiojunkie]

I'm not interested in Serum 2. However, I try to avoid challenge-response copy protection (and similar) as good as I can. I would not mind such copy protection if the company could assure that there is a way to bypass the challenge response in case the business went down or a prepared build of the software without copy protection. I'm not sure how companies implement their challenge response schemes, but I doubt there is a way to bypass it if needed.

I've been thinking a lot about this as well. There has to be a way that works for everyone. It's not right that the pirates don't get punished, but the honest do....

[gelly-vapor]

is serum 2 released ?!

[Frankie.T]

is serum 2 released ?!

Not yet, is still in development.

Although for me it's time to search for an alternative. Vital is nice, but i hope to find something better.

[Sound_Bear]

United Plugins officially (*) retired individual installer downloads in favour of the new "UnitedPluginsManager" app.

I'm not clear yet how this will affect offline installation and activation in the future. In my account, individual activation files in the ".licence" format are still available for download, so for now, it's probably possible to make backups of the VST2/3 files the manager downloads and use those together with the .licence files on any offline computer to have unlimited future activations as before. However, UP recently introduced a licence transfer system after years of not allowing resales of activated licenses, which raises the question whether they track activations now. Also, the files downloaded by the UPM are definitly not identical to the latest individual installers because they no longer provide 32-bit VST2 and VST3 (which were always included until directly before the change, and yes, there are still people using them).

(*) For the time being, there's a possibility to still get at the old individual installers with a bit of typing and patience. Enter an individual plugin's URL on archive.org, call up the latest archived version of the page that predates mid-January 2025, then click "Try now" and choose your OS. The download will usually fail, but the resulting page will reveal a partial URL that you can then copy & paste to UP's homepage to obtain a working download. I don't know if UP are ok with this method and if they will keep it around; I propose that if you want those files and don't want the UPM, act fast but also let your opinion be known here so UP can read it.

[sjm]

I'm not interested in Serum 2. However, I try to avoid challenge-response copy protection (and similar) as good as I can. I would not mind such copy protection if the company could assure that there is a way to bypass the challenge response in case the business went down or a prepared build of the software without copy protection. I'm not sure how companies implement their challenge response schemes, but I doubt there is a way to bypass it if needed.

I've been thinking a lot about this as well. There has to be a way that works for everyone. It's not right that the pirates don't get punished, but the honest do....

Personally I think this needs to be mandated by law as consumer protection. If you develop software that is reliant on infrastructure outside of the control of the consumer to work (e.g. an auth server), then you should need to create 2 builds of every release. One is the normal build with the code for the authorisation, and another one is a build where the code required to authorise the software is no longer present. This second version would then ideally be deposited with a software escrow provider or similar service (maybe provided by the state/EU/etc.) but not be actually released.

Then, if the developer goes out of business/loses interest in maintaining the servers/gets bought up by another company with other strategic goals/whatever, there is a version already out there that can be released to the public by an independent party that ensures the software will continue to work without any dependence on the now defunct infrastructure.

This way, the developers get to ship a product that contains measures to protect their IP, and the consumers get a product that can be used indefinitely, even if the developers go AWOL.

Ensuring this is part of the build process means you don't have issues where things move fast and despite the best intentions, developers cannot release a version stripped of the CP. For example, a purchase by another company is normally kept under wraps until it is a done deal. By the time the employees learn of the acquisition, the IP belongs to someone else, who won't want you stripping out the security mechanisms - whether or not they intend to keep the software alive or not.

I strongly believe this needs to be legally mandated, which will make it become a common practice and part of the inherent design of the software from the start. It's much easier to design the software from the start with intention of being able to strip out the copy protection with a simple change to the build parameters, than try to surgically remove the copy protection retroactively.

There is actually a current EU petition, "Stop Killing Games" which touches on these issues, albeit in the context of video games.

Videogames are being destroyed! Most video games work indefinitely, but a growing number are designed to stop working as soon as publishers end support. This effectively robs customers, destroys games as an artform, and is unnecessary. Our movement seeks to pass new law in the EU to put an end to this practice. Our proposal would do the following:

• Require video games sold to remain in a working state when support ends.
• Require no connections to the publisher after support ends.
• Not interfere with any business practices while a game is still being supported.

If you are an EU citizen, please sign the Citizens' Initiative!

I would hope that if the petition would succeed, any debate would go beyond just games and touch on all aspects of software where you are handing over your keys to a third party and the rights afforded to you by the EULA can effectively be removed at any time. The EULA is supposed to be binding for both parties, not just the consumer.

[Frankie.T]

United Plugins officially (*) retired individual installer downloads in favour of the new "UnitedPluginsManager" app.

I'm not clear yet how this will affect offline installation and activation in the future. In my account, individual activation files in the ".licence" format are still available for download, so for now, it's probably possible to make backups of the VST2/3 files the manager downloads and use those together with the .licence files on any offline computer to have unlimited future activations as before. However, UP recently introduced a licence transfer system after years of not allowing resales of activated licenses, which raises the question whether they track activations now. Also, the files downloaded by the UPM are definitly not identical to the latest individual installers because they no longer provide 32-bit VST2 and VST3 (which were always included until directly before the change, and yes, there are still people using them).

(*) For the time being, there's a possibility to still get at the old individual installers with a bit of typing and patience. Enter an individual plugin's URL on archive.org, call up the latest archived version of the page that predates mid-January 2025, then click "Try now" and choose your OS. The download will usually fail, but the resulting page will reveal a partial URL that you can then copy & paste to UP's homepage to obtain a working download. I don't know if UP are ok with this method and if they will keep it around; I propose that if you want those files and don't want the UPM, act fast but also let your opinion be known here so UP can read it.

UP should work as Melda, not the best situation imho, but there is still a chance to backup the installer and the data.

It's a shame they both went that way tho.

[Frankie.T]

Another one to add to the list is kilohearts. A big installation file containing all their plugins and a key file (or SN don't remember) is given to be installed on an offline pc. No C/R, that's nice!

[Sound_Bear]

Quick heads-up that HoRNet are having a huge sale until midnight (Italian time). Even the everything-bundle is reduced by 88 %, so you can get the complete product line for € 90. Probably one of the most generous deals ever, especially since many companies that conform to this thread's prerequisites don't play the sales game as hard as the bigger, more commercial ones (exceptions like Melda apply).

[Frankie.T]

I'm searching for a replacement (or more) for Serum, and i have another bad news from tone2, i sent an email asking for their DRM specifically for a synth i had an eye on, and that's their reply.

Hi Frankie, thanks for your interest in Tone2 software

Icarus requires an internet connection only the first time / during registration. After that it won't require it.

I thought it was DRM free, but i was wrong, so a friendly reminder, even if here there's a list always email comnpanies asking for it, because things can change or we may understand something in a wrong way.

And so Tone2 should be removed from the list


EDIT:
Another bad news, also KV331 Audio use challenge/response, that's a truncated quote of a reply i got from them in this forum

....
We use challenge/response keyfile, which requires an internet connection.

[e@rs]

I'm searching for a replacement (or more) for Serum, and i have another bad news from tone2, i sent an email asking for their DRM specifically for a synth i had an eye on, and that's their reply.

Hi Frankie, thanks for your interest in Tone2 software

Icarus requires an internet connection only the first time / during registration. After that it won't require it.

I thought it was DRM free, but i was wrong, so a friendly reminder, even if here there's a list always email comnpanies asking for it, because things can change or we may understand something in a wrong way.

And so Tone2 should be removed from the list

No idea what they meant by that. I have four Tone2 synths including the latest Icarus installed on an offline machine that was never online. All activated fine with keyfiles.

[Frankie.T]

I'm searching for a replacement (or more) for Serum, and i have another bad news from tone2, i sent an email asking for their DRM specifically for a synth i had an eye on, and that's their reply.

Hi Frankie, thanks for your interest in Tone2 software

Icarus requires an internet connection only the first time / during registration. After that it won't require it.

I thought it was DRM free, but i was wrong, so a friendly reminder, even if here there's a list always email comnpanies asking for it, because things can change or we may understand something in a wrong way.

And so Tone2 should be removed from the list

No idea what they meant by that. I have four Tone2 synths including the latest Icarus installed on an offline machine that was never online. All activated fine with keyfiles.

Lol that's weird for sure, anyway if everything works as expected, it's a great news, they makes lots of synths and it's nice to have their works in the "freedom of use" side of business!

[Frankie.T]

Since my big disappointment for Serum 2 DRM, i wanted to share my thoughts and (some of my) experience with DRM within the last 26 years of music production with this video

I feel too many people just don't care about it, while they should, instead they just get stuff and.... that's it.
But this could lead to issues and missing opportunities.

[audiojunkie]

When it comes to samplers, I've come to the realization that having the sample library itself available is the most important part. What I mean by that, is that if you have the WAV files looped and properly named with the information that describes the root note, what the sample is for, etc., then ANY sampler should work. Having the samples in a usable format, such as SFZ would be ideal. But what sampler is used becomes less important as long as you have your sampler library. Over my last 25 years, I've been collecting all of the freebies and open source libraries available. I've also bought many, many libraries. I have close to 300GB of samples in SF2, SFZ, and WAV format. I have been slowly building my own personal "rompler" by organizing my sampled instruments into groups. Although I never stop hunting for better samples for my collection, if I am honest with myself, I could probably be just fine if I never accumulated any more samples for the rest of my life. These are accessible samples. In my case, the sampler I use becomes much more irrelevant. I can simply map my samples to any sampler out there, and it wouldn't take very long to do it either.

So, as far as samplers go, I'm less worried about the Challenge/Response on the samplers. I've got several samplers, since I prefer samplers to synths for many things--especially realistic/acoustic instruments. As far as synths go, we are really spoiled for choice. There are a lot of them out there, and many high quality ones are open source or free!

I guess what I'm saying is this....because of pirates, we understand and accept the existence of copy protection. We prefer it to be the type of copy protection that allows us long use of our software. But, the way of the world seems to be going against us having that. So, maybe the next best thing, if it inevitably comes to the point of having to use C/R, is making sure we build up our sample collections of accessible samples.