Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[mellotronaut]

https://www.production-expert.com/produ ... roceedings

UPDATE - January 28th 2026 07:15

This update has been posted on the Plugin Alliance Audiophiles Facebook page by a spokesperson for Plugin Alliance:

“As of today, Plugin Alliance entities are not part of the insolvency filing. Our operations in Langenfeld and the US remain outside these proceedings.

For now - It's business as usual. We continue to operate normally - product releases, support, installers and all other activities continue unchanged.

We'll share further updates as the situation develops.

I hope this helps - we remain dedicated to our partners and customers!”

[Gamma-UT]

I fear the unavailability wouldn't make using cracks any more legal. Imho this should change.

In most if not all of EU it's legal under those circumstances.

The US DMCA also allows it, though you're meant to do the jailbreaking yourself not use something off the shelf.

[Matt67]

In most if not all of EU it's legal under those circumstances.

I just searched the web to find out about the rules in Germany. Unfortunately, it looks like the licensee is the loser here in every respect.

However, this statement is without guarantee and only refers to findings from German legal websites. I would be grateful for 100% reliable information.

[Sascha Franck]

But rooting for people to fall because their product doesn’t align with your preferences crosses from evaluation into something personal.

It's not about their products. It's about how they treat their customers.

[Examigan]

Fwiw, if they really shut down their servers one day, that'd be a fantastic justification for using cracks instead of official software. People already did that when Service Center was abandoned.
Another pretty bad side effect of all this.

Recently I was able to get my legal copy of Battery 3 to work without jumping though hoops.

[enCiphered]

But rooting for people to fall because their product doesn’t align with your preferences crosses from evaluation into something personal.

It's not about their products. It's about how they treat their customers.

I’m honestly curious, how exactly were you treated that makes you feel they deserve to fall or worse?

This implies something far beyond a disagreement over features, pricing or communication. If there was actual mistreatment, it should be stated plainly. Otherwise, that level of hostility feels disconnected from the situation and reads like a bittered individual who didn’t get what they wanted.

[Examigan]

I fear the unavailability wouldn't make using cracks any more legal. Imho this should change.

In most if not all of EU it's legal under those circumstances.

I wouldn’t try using them. Besides getting rid of the copy protection, who knows what else they have done to the software. I wouldn’t trust it.

[sjm]

In most if not all of EU it's legal under those circumstances.

I just searched the web to find out about the rules in Germany. Unfortunately, it looks like the licensee is the loser here in every respect.

If you searched specifically for insolvency or bankruptcy you won't find anything. I don't know the German law, but where I live in the EU the wording is something to the effect that you are allowed to bypass the security features if doing so is necessary for the software you own a licence for to work correctly. That would be the case if you can't authorise the license due to the servers going tits up.

[Scoops]

I’m genuinely puzzled by how emotionally charged some of these replies are. Wanting a company to fail over a synth or system you don’t like feels wild.
We’re talking about music software, not ideology or ethics. Dislike it, ignore it, critique it.. all fine. But rooting for people to fall because their product doesn’t align with your preferences crosses from evaluation into something personal. Very ugly.

Let me frame this up for you
You invest thousands of dollars over a long period of time. You use the tools to create things that create emotional responses thru music. You become a part of the "ecosystem". But then the ecosystem starts to decline, and eventually the decline installs a sense of abandonment to the person that has invested A LOT of time and money. The abandonment feeling leads to frustration, and then contempt.

again, my $0.02

[tomato]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

Based on what I’ve personally observed on major Japanese flea market and auction platforms, plugin piracy in Japan may be having a significantly larger impact than is often assumed.

In just six months, two seller accounts alone appear to have sold 1,000+ licenses of high-end audio plugins at prices around $10 each, based on visible transaction counts. These listings explicitly state things like “no license registration,” “no updates,” and “no manufacturer support,” which strongly suggests non-legitimate distribution.

In my experience, reporting such listings rarely leads to consistent enforcement on the platform side, which inevitably increases the incentive for piracy. When this occurs in a market as large—and historically high-spending—as Japan, the resulting damage is not trivial.

Around the same time, a Japanese government (METI) survey estimated total 2025 damage from online piracy and counterfeit goods at ¥10.4 trillion (~$67B), with music listed as one of the affected sectors (¥0.3 trillion). While this figure is broader than music software alone, it underscores how seriously piracy is viewed at a national policy level.

The real impact goes beyond lost one-off sales. It includes the collapse of upgrade paths, lifetime customer value, and long-term pricing expectations. Once users become accustomed to acquiring plugins this way, they rarely return to legitimate purchasing.

Vendor-side DRM or DAW-level checks alone are not sufficient—especially when DAWs themselves can be pirated. Over the long term, this seems like a problem that likely requires OS-rooted or hardware-backed trust, similar to how some centralized license-management systems have reduced piracy without completely disrupting professional workflows.

I’m not suggesting piracy is the sole cause of current industry challenges. However, given the scale and concentration observed even within a limited sample, it’s difficult to believe it isn’t a meaningful contributing factor.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/ ... y-damages/ (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/01/27/japan/crime-legal/digital-content-piracy-damages/)

[Teksonik]

Aimed at the White Knights.....

"Native Instruments has faced criticism for discontinuing support for older, legacy software and hardware, leaving some users unable to reinstall or activate products they previously purchased. Recent reports indicate the company is in preliminary insolvency, raising further concerns about the long-term support of existing products.

NI discontinued products including Absynth, FM7, and older versions of Reaktor and Traktor, rendering them unable to be re-activated.

Users have reported issues with Native Access 3, which has caused problems with activating or running existing products, particularly for long-term or older system users".

To be honest I rarely use NI plugins in projects these days since the company hasn't felt "stable" for quite some time.

The bottom line is just because a company's actions are legal it doesn't automatically make those actions moral. Remember that when you defend any company that cares nothing about you and only about the bottom line.

[Sascha Franck]

Recently I was able to get my legal copy of Battery 3 to work without jumping though hoops.

I assume you're not using any actual ARM based Mac, correct?

[Examigan]

Recently I was able to get my legal copy of Battery 3 to work without jumping though hoops.

I assume you're not using any actual ARM based Mac, correct?

No, it’s a PC with Windows 11.

[Sascha Franck]

I’m honestly curious, how exactly were you treated that makes you feel they deserve to fall or worse?

I own a Kore Kontrol (the one with onboard audio interface), a Rig Kontrol 2 and a Machine Mk1.
As I'm a Mac user, they're all electronic trash, with the Kore system being abandoned before it even was what I'd call a well thought out thing (sure, in that case you could partially blame me).

Add to this that they abandoned several plugins for zero apparent reasons.
And add to this the Battery 4 fiasco. In all these years, I haven't seen a single sucessor of an existing plugin that was done so horribly bad. And yes, many of the issues aren't personal preferences but objectively proveable.

[Sascha Franck]

No, it’s a PC with Windows 11.

Yeah, I know you can still make it work under Windows. No such option for Mac users, gotta live with that Battery 4 turd.