KVR Audio

electro · Post by **electro** » Fri Aug 31, 2012 10:37 pm

Never play with that soft elicenser. Always transfer it to the hardware based dongle. Once you lose the softlicense its equivalent to losing a dongle.

Hard Drive Crash = unrecoverable softlicense.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 12:29 am

electro wrote:Never play with that soft elicenser. Always transfer it to the hardware based dongle. Once you lose the softlicense its equivalent to losing a dongle.

Hard Drive Crash = unrecoverable softlicense.

Exactly. I think Steinberg created the soft eLicenser for those complaining about the dongles, and forgot that anytime someone replaces a hard-drive, reinstalls an operating system, etc., the soft eLicensers kaput. It's the equivalent of a challenge-response authorization. Pace also had that a long time ago (they called that hard-disk authorization), and they abandoned, because it was a constant hassle. USB keys are a great way to authorize software, and once the ket installed on it, one has to worry nomore.
I agree that serial numbers or key files are much better for the user, but dongles are a fact of life.

spikey · Post by **spikey** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:14 pm

If you bought a book, and leave it forgotten somewhere when you returning home, would you go to the bookshop claiming for a new one?

If that book was a virtual one, and I paid for it and registered it on their website, then yes i would ask for another copy. If they sent it I would also praise them for doing so, and order more books from them in the future.

fmr, I understand about the dongle and putting codes on it. I really do. You see I "thought" I had the authorizations on another dongle, but they were not there when I tried to re install and authorize. BTW I know they are there on the new elicenser dongle now. In fact I check every day and make sure.

But, can these dongles not malfunction as well?

The most important part about your comments, is you asked me why my issue?- Whats the problem? Whats the big deal??? Well...,

For one- It just doesnt make sense to me. Never will... Why even list these limited authorizations that belong to you but you cant use any more, on the website? And then why are we HARD limited in new the ones? I can see giving them a reason, like "Spectrasonics" does for example. And add all this protection to including a dongle too? .

You ask me what about "their" rights?

They were PAID fmr. I have not sold or pirated their software, Ive only tried to use it. That payment I sent them includes support, I thought. That support included the ability to request a new authorization when needed per their OWN website, but guess what ??? Someone blew a head gasket and decided at Arturia that they needed to limit these same Authorizations that could NOT EVER BE USED AGAIN, and then list them on the website! Why? What purpose does it serve to list a number you can no longer use? AND THEN In refusing to reset the authorizations by their "support group", you take away the very ability for your customers to fix the problems themselves. Why would you even do this to your bread and butter? Oh Yea, the standard answer is they can do this if they wanted to. Sure they can. Hell they can do anything including cut their own throats if they wanted to, but what logical reason does this serve? You can't even download and install the updates unless you have registered and authorized the synths in the first place. So fmr, these are my reasons, and I do hope you "get" what my problems are now. If not, fine. To each his own. Im glad your eLicenser worked ok. Mine did not, and IMO there is still no reason as to why these guys should not zero out everyones authorizations "just in-case" things happen, when requested by their "customers".... What is there to lose by doing this request, and a better question for them is, what is there to gain? More customers perhaps? More orders? More comments of how Arturia bends over backwards to help their own? But, my requests and reasons for this request to them are unimportant, and I accept and understand that "now". They in turn will be no longer funded from this end. Its my fault for not having these codes on the dongle where I thought they were, I know that. But for me that does not excuse Arturias unwillingness to even discuss resetting our legal authorizations when asked to by a legit customer. I hope this answers your questions fmr.

JimmiG · Post by **JimmiG** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 3:59 pm

electro wrote:Never play with that soft elicenser. Always transfer it to the hardware based dongle. Once you lose the softlicense its equivalent to losing a dongle.

Hard Drive Crash = unrecoverable softlicense.

Dongles can crash too. They're essentially specially formatted USB flash drives, and those are known to be unreliable and not to be used for backing up important data.

There's no technical reason why I would need to plug something into a USB port to use a piece of software. It just makes it harder for me, a legit, paying customer to use the software. If a company makes it too hard to be a legit, paying customer, I take that as a sign that they don't want paying, legit customers, and simply don't buy their products. It just makes life a lot easier.

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 4:51 pm

fmr wrote:I agree that serial numbers or key files are much better for the user, but dongles are a fact of life.

Nope, they are not a fact of life, they are optional, my setup has always been and always will be dongle free.

I would have bought all of the Arturia software by now, but since they use a dongle I refuse to do so. Companies can argue that if they don't use a dongle they will lose too much money or whatever, I see their viewpoint and understand their choice. But my viewpoint is that dongle's are an unnecessary pain for the user and something I will NEVER buy. Also, I have MANY projects that I will be working on for a long time. I might be working on the same project masterpiece 20 years from now, and chances are that my dongle will have disappeared and be unable to obtain by then.

I did buy Arturia's Minibrute though, that's a dongle I can handle.

electro · Post by **electro** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 5:40 pm

JimmiG wrote:Dongles can crash too. They're essentially specially formatted USB flash drives, and those are known to be unreliable and not to be used for backing up important data.

There's no technical reason why I would need to plug something into a USB port to use a piece of software. It just makes it harder for me, a legit, paying customer to use the software. If a company makes it too hard to be a legit, paying customer, I take that as a sign that they don't want paying, legit customers, and simply don't buy their products. It just makes life a lot easier.

elicenser has the master record of all license transfer activity for all dongle serial numbers. When a dongle dies they can restore everything from their records.

JimmiG wrote:There's no technical reason why I would need to plug something into a USB port to use a piece of software. It just makes it harder for me, a legit, paying customer to use the software. If a company makes it too hard to be a legit, paying customer, I take that as a sign that they don't want paying, legit customers, and simply don't buy their products. It just makes life a lot easier.

I am now growing to hate C/R more than dongles. I appreciate the customer friendly copy protection methods of the following developers
U-he, Sonic Projects, Big Tick, Stillwell, Musiclab, Audio Damage, d16, TAL, Artsacoustic, Gforce, Elevayta and Voxengo.

I also think its terrible that other small developers have gone down and vanished due to software piracy.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:40 pm

What devloper(s) have gone out of business due to piracy and how has that cause been confirmed?

electro · Post by **electro** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:43 pm

Jace-BeOS wrote:What devloper(s) have gone out of business due to piracy and how has that cause been confirmed?

Good question. I think alot have just given up, same with Musicians. Vintaudio and Speedsoft come to mind.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:55 pm

spikey wrote:
If you bought a book, and leave it forgotten somewhere when you returning home, would you go to the bookshop claiming for a new one?
If that book was a virtual one, and I paid for it and registered it on their website, then yes i would ask for another copy. If they sent it I would also praise them for doing so, and order more books from them in the future.

fmr, I understand about the dongle and putting codes on it. I really do. You see I "thought" I had the authorizations on another dongle, but they were not there when I tried to re install and authorize. BTW I know they are there on the new elicenser dongle now. In fact I check every day and make sure.

But, can these dongles not malfunction as well?

Believe it or not, I am sympathetic with your problems, and I am not enthusiastic about dongles. But I wouldn't give up of Cubase, for example, beccause of the dongle. I use it, and I have to use the dongle to use it. Therefore, I am used to dongles since about two decades now. I have to say that, during this considerablçe amoutn of time, only one did I have problem with the dongle, during the download of a license. I shiped the dongle to (then) Syncrosoft, and they replaced it with ALL the licenses. I didn't even have to contact ANY other vendor.
If the dongle is malfunctioning, you can have a replacement within days - it's guaranteed. And dongles are not pen drives - you cannot write on them, because they are built in a manner that the system can only write on them through special instructions from the eLicenser Control Center. So, it's not easy to break it. Only risk is dongle being lost or stolen.
Regarding knowing if the licenses are in the dongle or not, just launch the mentioned Control Center. But you don't need to worry. Once here, they will remain there forever, unless you transfer them to another key. I never had a problem with licenses disappearing.
Again, dongles are not good or ideal, but what in this crazy world is?

Arturia Support on re-Authorizations STINK