KVR Audio

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:44 pm

I am as anti-iLok as they come, but I gotta say, after perusing this thread, that I'm considering buying one.

conleec · Post by **conleec** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:48 pm

iainduncan wrote:Further following up, sure there are tons of you saying you don't mind iLok or even you like it. But I maintain that basically none of you would have pirated if Slate didn't use iLok. If you would have purchased either way, your preference is irrelevant to the business question of whether to go with iLok.

Which goes back to my other argument: users of Slate's products might not like pirates being able to use the same plugins for free in the same competitive marketplace. Afterall, they paid good money for the privilege (and yes, it's a privilege) to use them. As I said before, and I stand by, copy protections protects the customers as much as it protects the developers.

Chris Conlee

Shy · Post by **Shy** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:58 pm

iainduncan wrote:But I maintain that basically none of you would have pirated if Slate didn't use iLok. If you would have purchased either way, your preference is irrelevant to the business question of whether to go with iLok.

You can't expect anyone here to say so if they would have, and you trust people too much. This forum really doesn't reflect the grim situation of warez usage in the audio software sector and only rarely does a company go public about the significant increase in sales they've experienced since they started using working copy protection.

subsynq · Post by **subsynq** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:10 pm

Chris Conlee has the elitistic point of view I described earlier. What happened to knowledge and technique? Effectively you're saying that only the latest and the greatest plugin can make your music popular, whatever it is, because only you and a few select others own it...

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:18 pm

[DELETED]

conleec · Post by **conleec** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:29 pm

subsynq wrote:Chris Conlee has the elitistic point of view I described earlier. What happened to knowledge and technique? Effectively you're saying that only the latest and the greatest plugin can make your music popular, whatever it is, because only you and a few select others own it...

WTH are you talking about? If you go to the auto store and they fix your car with a special wrench, that's called capital investment. If you can fix your car without their tool, then have at it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything, except PAY for the software you personally choose to use (which seems to trip some people up). I'm not saying anybody is elitist or anything else, so quit putting words in my mouth, thank you very much.

It's the developers' prerogative to protect their intellectual property.

Lemme ask you this: do you hope to sell your music one day? Why don't you just give it away for free to anybody who wants it?

Chris Conlee

kmonkey · Post by **kmonkey** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:29 pm

conleec wrote:Afterall, they paid good money for the privilege (and yes, it's a privilege) to use them. As I said before, and I stand by, copy protections protects the customers as much as it protects the developers.

Chris Conlee

I don't like ilok but i do like some of the ilok protected plugs such as Relab LX480 and Slate VTM. But anyway care to explain me what the f*** is "privilege" down there when using it? Are you really joking in some insane way or what. What kind of other worldly emotion you have when you use ilok plugs to feel privilege?

You can stand for pink elephant if you will, noone really care for what you (or me) stand for, but your claim is bold as much as pink elephant is - or albino polar bear if you will..

I can not believe in which alienated way you can force yourself to believe that ilok protect you (or developer). For example:

i had to pay for ilok, then i had to pay for plugin. Not to mention that now i have three ilok keys. Two old, which are not used, and one v2 key.

I can clearly see that same plugin is cracked, i can clearly see in real life people use them (i saw that not only once) - without downloading or installing ilok driver (which caused QUITE A LOT OF ISSUES lately), without downloading or installing any weird updates, without ordering ilok itself -

now care to explain me how i am protected here? How? Where is protection? To use plugin i am paying for some sort of obscure tiny usb pimp stick, then for plugin (i am not whining about that) while some of my partners use same thing without shelving any money at all. So much about protection. But even so, it is protection from what? I really can not understand "protection" thing when it comes down to user..

Explain user protection part..

Lotuzia · Post by **Lotuzia** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:32 pm

iainduncan wrote:There are some very questionable economic arguments being made here. .............

I think Slate is doing it wrong because their prices are low enough for non-pro studios to buy, were it not for iLok. I could be wrong. Everything else is irrelevant, everything. Only gross revenue matters in software. I personally think that B is a bigger number than A, and that companies using iLok are wrong. I could be wrong there too, it's a brutally hard thing to test. But I think looking at the health of different software companies, we see an awful lot of success by those who tolerate some degree of piracy in order to have higher sales. Microsoft, Apple, and Sony all figured this out. Seems to me that of the crazy audio software success stories of the last five years, it's companies pricing stuff lower and tolerating a higher degree of piracy to make the purchasing and ownership experience more pleasant that are killing it. .......

Maybe You should choose more wisely your examples, cos I'm not under the impression that Sony's daw is such a success story VS a dongled one like Cubase for example.

kmonkey · Post by **kmonkey** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:34 pm

conleec wrote:
subsynq wrote:Chris Conlee has the elitistic point of view I described earlier. What happened to knowledge and technique? Effectively you're saying that only the latest and the greatest plugin can make your music popular, whatever it is, because only you and a few select others own it...
WTH are you talking about? If you go to the auto store and they fix your car with a special wrench, that's called capital investment. If you can fix your car without their tool, then have at it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything, except PAY for the software you personally choose to use (which seems to trip some people up). I'm not saying anybody is elitist or anything else, so quit putting words in my mouth, thank you very much.

It's the developers' prerogative to protect their intellectual property.

Lemme ask you this: do you hope to sell your music one day? Why don't you just give it away for free to anybody who wants it?

Chris Conlee

Car analogy is very outdated. And you forgot to mention one thing. Music isn't ilok protected. Therefore it is whole different subject. On surface it can look similar but oh so it is not.

I think he called you elitist because you are spreading information on being privileged when using ilok protected plugins - which is hilarious. Probably on pair with being privileged by having UAD 2 DSP card.

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:34 pm

I think I'll buy an i-Lok without anything just to feel privileged...

crimsonwarlock · Post by **crimsonwarlock** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:35 pm

TheoM wrote:If people want it they have to buy it for now, slate vbc included.

If people don't want to pay for it, they are not going to pay for it regardless of the fact that there is no cracked version. They simply move on to the next available 'magic' plugin that IS available as a crack. Slate's plugins are not the be-all-end-all in audio production software, there are alternatives (even free ones). It is indeed elitist to state that this plugin is some 'secret sauce' that you can only have when you get this particular (Slate) plugin, so only people who buy this will be able to make good productions. Let's get real here; a good (or even fabulous) music production does not need Slate plugins. And that's the bottom line. It's just a tool, and it's only as good as the toolman handling it. Nothing, really NOTHING, can change that.

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:46 pm

i-Lok, a must-have for every studio that pretends to be serious:

momalle3 · Post by **momalle3** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:49 pm

I fail to see how I'm "protected" by the ILOK. If I buy a shirt, and a week later it goes on sale and some guy buys it cheaper--or his mm buys it for him--I don't feel like I'm "unprotected

If I was a status conscious tool, and bought a really expensive car precisely because it was expensive, and then they suddenly lowered the price, I'd be mad, because I paid for exclusivity and now everybody has the car, and I'm going to have to go find another expensive car so I can feel cool. I'd want really high prices so my self-esteem could be "protected." Because, in this scenario, I'm a status obsessed tool.

I don't have any pirated software. Some times the prices hurt. But if I see some guy with pirated copies, I don't feel "unprotected," I just feel like that guy's a jerk

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:02 pm

iainduncan wrote:iLok not an inconvenience? Go goole "iLok2 issues". Seriously. What do you find? tons and tons of user complaints and stories about broken iloks, auth problems, servers being down, work interruptions until one gets replaced etc. It's a crappy technology. We deserve to be treated better as working professionals. In other professional computer based industries, people don't tolerate crap from companies that can cost them downtime. If you have an issue with a server, or and RDMBS, or an OS, it can be resolved 24/7 over the internet with no physical intervention required and you back up and running dead fast. It's just crazy that in audio we aren't dealing with the same standards of customer service as other professional software users.

What is darkly amusing to me here is that this is exactly the complaint I make about the entire computer industry in comparison to most any other product category. The computer industry is nothing but troubles, defects, workarounds, and sub-industries making money off the poor state of quality of the whole thing. Yet, who complains? We see special pleading all day long trying to excuse this industry from fitness for a particular purpose. The indoctrination is deep.

Back on topic: I don't buy dongled product anymore either (exception is Reason, since it started without one and the dongle is an option when there's an Internet connection). I've owned several products using them and have only had any trouble at all with iLok (their browser support sucks; I actually am wasting space for a portable edition of an old Firefox just to manage my iLok; any software that purports to be sophisticated which relies on a web browser being used with a plugin, and with limited version support for fundamental functioning of their product is a joke... but they do it because it's a cheat and saves them effort rather than doing it right).

Copy protection methods only impact legit users. Only legit users pay the costs. The less obtrusive and over-developed the method, the better it is for a customer. Software piracy will not be stopped. The perception of lost revenue due to piracy is greatly exaggerated. It happens. It's a fundamental nature of participating in the business. Just like my photos will be stolen and used without my permission if I share them online anywhere. We cannot control everyone and everything and it's a great waste of energy and resources to try. The best bet is to make your product accessible to those who will pay and then live with the fact that there are people who don't have any ethical barrier to using pirated software.

subsynq · Post by **subsynq** » Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:03 pm

conleec wrote:WTH are you talking about? If you go to the auto store and they fix your car with a special wrench, that's called capital investment. If you can fix your car without their tool, then have at it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything, except PAY for the software you personally choose to use (which seems to trip some people up). I'm not saying anybody is elitist or anything else, so quit putting words in my mouth, thank you very much.

It's the developers' prerogative to protect their intellectual property.

Lemme ask you this: do you hope to sell your music one day? Why don't you just give it away for free to anybody who wants it?

Chris Conlee

Of course it's the developers' prerogative to protect their IP, and of course it's the clients' decision to get a dongled software. Choices. I DO pay for the software I use to produce music, nothing to be tripped up with as you say. I even use syncrosoft-protected software, it was my choice after all, even though I disagree with the whole concept.

What you said about music is irrelevant. I have sold/released some of my music, I do give other tracks away for free, I can't do anything about piracy and even if I could "ilok" the tracks, I wouldn't. Music is something different than software when it comes down to the copy protection choices you can make.

Your choice, as you said, was to use only ilok protected plugins. I don't believe that music producers using solely freeware, or commercial plugins with other kinds of protection cannot compete with you. We're in 2013, there is a vast plethora of alternatives for almost anything.

But you cannot deny that certain tools do things that other tools cannot, and if somebody prefers that tool, then they have reason to expect a certain degree of security that their purchase will be protected from mass exploitation because of theft

Same applies to UAD. UAD plugins use their own hardware. It surely is a reasonable enough choice for me, as it off-loads work from the CPU to their card. Same applies to any kind of hardware. If you don't have it, what are you going to do? Shoplift? Nah... A dongle is something different, it adds burden, makes more hardware calls etc, does NOTHING to the sound, and it's only there for you to "feel special" because the other guy can't run X plugin? They may not even care, they'll do the trick with other tools. Nothing is irreplaceable.

As for the car analogy, one, provided that they have both the required knowledge and a good enough technique, can repair various issues using only conventional means...

Open letter to companies still using iLok ( looking at you Slate Digital )