Native Instruments file for insolvency...

[billinder33]

ok, so if i would freeze my mac now, take it off of the web, NOT updating my mac OS again, would everything NI continue to run properly ? I guess it would, no ? *


i´m not hyperventilating vs. NI and its situation, ......i´m well aware since some time that the day might come where this market will force me to just freeze my Mac, -and live with what i have-, anyway.

* a answer would be appreciated

I'd like an answer to this too. I may go as far as going out buying an extra Mac M4 just to install absolutely the full NI Komplete system on it and then setting that machine aside as a backup "hardware" synth system.

You could 'in theory' run Kontakt on a Virtual Machine (VM) and if your configuration is set up correctly, you would have a near seamless, time-sync'd setup between Kontakt and your DAW. Way cheaper and ultimately more convenient than a physical hardware instance. Plus it would always be able to follow you when you buy a new host machine.

Feed the following question into Google Gemini to get a general idea of how it would work: "If I licensed Kontakt to a virtual machine, would that be persistent across physical hardware? Also, could I time sync and route my Kontakt instance on VM to my DAW running on the native host system? "

Ask Gemini any follow-up questions as needed.

[Sascha Franck]

You could 'in theory' run Kontakt on a Virtual Machine (VM) and if your configuration is set up correctly, you would have a near seamless, time-sync'd setup between Kontakt and your DAW. Way cheaper and ultimately more convenient than a physical hardware instance. Plus it would always be able to follow you when you buy a new host machine.

In reality, you'd likely run into audio performance issues.

[billinder33]

Let alone they abandoned a galore of products for no reasons and even rendered plenty of hardware devices electro trash.

I bought Maschine years ago bundled with Komplete and their policy (at least at that time) was that the hardware and software licensing were inseparable. So when I ultimately decided that I had no need for a physical 'beat box', I was stuck with it as a detached hardware dongle, unable to sell it without giving up my Komplete license.

So now it's just e-waste sitting in a landfill somewhere polluting the environment. I find it hard to believe that this wasn't contemplated or understood when they chose this business model, but they ultimately chose profit over the environment.

[billinder33]

You could 'in theory' run Kontakt on a Virtual Machine (VM) and if your configuration is set up correctly, you would have a near seamless, time-sync'd setup between Kontakt and your DAW. Way cheaper and ultimately more convenient than a physical hardware instance. Plus it would always be able to follow you when you buy a new host machine.

In reality, you'd likely run into audio performance issues.

Using AudioGridder should help get your latency down to ~10ms or so, which would be sufficient for all but the most sensitive of skilled performance pianists/keyboardists, and certainly unnoticeable for loop-based producers and melody-peckers.

The performer would need to decide what's more important - suffering a tiny amount of 'time sponginess' or the permanence and resilience of the Kontakt software license. Because without virtualization, when the host instance eventually dies your software license is effectively permanently terminated.

[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.

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.

Sorry, but everything I've found, and that's quite a few legal websites, says exactly the opposite. If you like, I can post the links. It seems that the license holder has lost in Germany. But let's leave it at that until someone with legal experience can clarify the matter.

[Cuauhtli]

I find it sort of humorous how people think these people buying out companies sole purpose is to bankrupt them. You do know they WANT to make money right? They don't buy something to kill it.

In the US anyway, that is a profitable tactic.

how so?

One strategy is buying a business, borrowing money on its equity, funneling the money elsewhere and then filing for bankruptcy (or suckering other investors to take over). US tax code allows them write-off their 'losses'. They bleed the business dry and get a tax break. Pretty sweet deal.

[IvyBirds]

Using AudioGridder should help get your latency down to ~10ms or so, which would be sufficient for all but the most sensitive of skilled performance pianists/keyboardists, and certainly unnoticeable for loop-based producers and melody-peckers.

you can also use AudioGridder to offload your plugins off of your main studio PC onto a secondary one. That will give you significant performance upgrades as each instance will reside on its own dedicated core and if you don't exceed the cores on that machine will be the only thing on it

Once it's up and working disable any and all updates on that machine and don't allow it to connect to the internet. In the event that the NI or Izotope servers stop working that will give you lots of life still, and you can switch out your main studio PC without issues as long as you want

[surreal]

Is there really a possibility that we lose access to software licenses that we paid money for if NI goes bankrupt?

That's always been the problem with challenge response systems. If the severs go poof there is nothing to validate licenses going forward.

So yes, some day you will not be able to authorise you ni products. Whether that will happen now, nobody knows.

Novation V station and Ni Pro53 with service center is proof of this

[surreal]

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.

How did you manage that?

[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.

How did you manage that?

Actually it was before I installed windows 11, but I used this article:

https://support.native-instruments.com/ ... 1627127754

But if Native Access stops working, then it’s over.

[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.

Sorry, but everything I've found, and that's quite a few legal websites, says exactly the opposite. If you like, I can post the links. It seems that the license holder has lost in Germany. But let's leave it at that until someone with legal experience can clarify the matter.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-cont ... ction.html

Limitations of those exclusive rights (no need for prior authorisation from the rights-holder)

A lawful acquirer of a program may reproduce, translate, adapt, arrange or alter the program, when it is necessary in order to use the program in accordance with its intended purpose.

[HM]

When Creative did eat E-mu ,.. the killed it shortly after ,.. without reel dedication to save it

Then after a a relatively short periode they also shot down the CR-server ,.. making Emulator X3 worthless

They could have given a unlocked version to us who paid for a license at least ,.. but not even that they cared for


Don't know about old Cakewalk accounts ,.. if ALL old stuff can still be activated ,.. after Gibson killed them


iLok becomes more and more my obvious choise, I prefer that, as long as you have your dongle
and installer you are fine

You could even have an extra safety dongle with the 2-3 most important licenses needed be


I guess Waves with USB-stick as dongle is also proof

[NothanUmber]

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-cont ... ction.html

Thanks for the link! What is imho (deliberately?) ambigious is the order how these priorities apply:
1) Exclusive rights of the copyright holder (changing the program, distributing the program etc.)
2) Limitations of those exclusive rights (limiting the exclusive rights in certain cases)
3) Special measures of protection: "Measures must be taken by EU countries against persons who commit any of the following: [...] putting into circulation or owning, for commercial purposes, any means whose sole purpose is to allow the unauthorised removal or bypassing of any technical protection device."

Point 3 is below point 2 and point 2 restricts point 1. So, is it now allowed to "own" a crack for a program that I otherwise cannot use (e.g. because authorization servers are down) when I use that program for commercial purposes (e.g. music production)?

Would have been clearer to put the limitation last, so it is clear that I can take any measures necessary to make/keep software I legally own a license for usable in any case.

[Matt67]

On the one hand, that is the case, and on the other hand, §95a of the German Copyright Act (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__95a.html) also restricts all corresponding measures. Therefore, I would prefer it if someone with legal knowledge could write something here. What I am writing here is only half-knowledge (Google knowledge).

[sjm]

1) Exclusive rights of the copyright holder (changing the program, distributing the program etc.)
2) Limitations of those exclusive rights (limiting the exclusive rights in certain cases)
3) Special measures of protection: "Measures must be taken by EU countries against persons who commit any of the following: [...] putting into circulation or owning, for commercial purposes, any means whose sole purpose is to allow the unauthorised removal or bypassing of any technical protection device."

Point 3 is below point 2 and point 2 restricts point 1. So, is it now allowed to "own" a crack for a program that I otherwise cannot use (e.g. because authorization servers are down) when I use that program for commercial purposes (e.g. music production)?

Would have been clearer to put the limitation last, so it is clear that I can take any measures necessary to make/keep software I legally own a license for usable in any case.

Point 3 does not restrict point 2. You can alter the software, but you cannot publicly distribute a crack.

Point 2 indeed restricts point 1, but I don't see an issue there. Having different sections for each just makes thm easier to find and easier to modify at a later date.