Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

180,750 users have contributed to 42,140 threads and 254,362 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 3 new thread(s), 17 new post(s) and 48 new user(s).

  • VI Licenses

     Just checking something.

    If I ever loose my Dongle holding all my VI Licenses or if the dongle ever breaks - There is no way to get my Licenses back? And even though I have all the DVD's - I will have to buy the software again?

    Is there a way of backing up the Licenses? After all its a small piece of plastic.

    Thanks.

    Best,

    Tanuj. 


  • I just recently purchased my first library, the Special Edition.  Are you saying that if something ever happened to my Dongle I would be SoL?  Couldn't I just unregister the old vienna key and move the licenses to the new one?


  • last edited
    last edited

    @cgernaey said:

    I just recently purchased my first library, the Special Edition.  Are you saying that if something ever happened to my Dongle I would be SoL?  Couldn't I just unregister the old vienna key and move the licenses to the new one?

    If you still have the old dongle, then I would imagine that if you sent it back to VSL they would supply new licences. However, if you lost the dongle, then they would have no way of knowing if you were telling the truth or not, so you would have to rely on their good will.

    DG

  • breaking of the dongle is not a problem - loosing it would be ....

    as long as you can send us any broken key and we can verfy its identity licenses can be replaced for a small handling fee

    christian


    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • ..and what if the dongle is lost in e.g. a break-in? Would you then have to buy it all over again?


  • counterquestion: what if your 48 channel digital mixer is lost in a break.in - would you then have to buy it again?


    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • So the answer is: yes, you would have to buy it all over again?

    You don't think there is a difference between hardware and immaterial rights? We buy the right to use the samples, not the samples. As you have many times pointed out before. The dongle itself is not very expensive...


  • The answer has also to be "Yes", because there is no way for us to check if you've really lost your key or you have sold it.

    best

    Herb


  • chris, any such incident can only be handled case-by-case ... basically for VSL the license is sold and in use ... if the licenses are insured (as well as the mixer) replacement shouldn't be a problem for you.

    clearly you can't write to VSL and tell: hey, my licenses have been stolen - send me new ones ...

    for any more specific question please contact sales [AT] vsl [dot] co [dot] at


    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • I realize that they have to protect themselves from pirating etc but there is something extremely unsettling about this subject.  For people who are trying to purposely pirate this stuff I can see why this would be a convenient way to smuggle more instruments.  However for someone like myself, I use a MacBookPro and I am CONSTANTLY (every day) taking my laptop on the road to do work.  I mix, arrange and compose every day on the road.  When I go to friends houses or to visit my parents, this comes with me so I can work on it in downtime, or to endulge my anxious mother who awaits my vocal accompaniments so that I may sing them for her (opera arias).

    Do you have any idea how afraid of this little blue dongle I am?  I look at it every time I pull it out gently praying I don't break it, or drop it out of my pocket while grabbing my credit card out of my pocket.  I am afriad of putting it in my laptop bag that if I drop the bag I will break it.  There is so much stupid unnecessary focus on this dongle for someone like myself who moves around with it daily that it's ridiculous.  This only further enhances that annoyance and fear of losing it.  I am now 10 times more afraid of this dongle learning what I have learned here.  Just the idea that if anything happened to this other then breaking it (dropping it out of my pocket, someone stealing it thinking its a 2gigabyte memory stick and it looks pretty blue, I stick it somewhere I think its "secure" and secure it so much that even I don't remember where it is, etc.).

    I have so many thousands of dollars in gigastudio samples (over 1 terabyte).  I was slowly deciding that I would lean this way because of the amazing stories I hear of these Vienna libraries.  However, if I ever ran into a situation with this dongle and couldn't get restitution by purchasing another dongle etc that would be the end of the line for me on this product.  There is no way I am going to travel all over the country, and Mexico etc with this thing doing live performances and composing being terrified I will lose this thing and have to re-purchase my products.  All it takes is one time giong through foreign customs and someone snatching it up and I am done for.

    Sorry for the rant but this is a bit of a shock for me at the idea that I may be presented with a problem at the VSL door should something of this sort happen.  It may never happen, but now the fear has been implanted and which for me removes some of my excitement for the whole process.  Knowing that my hard earned money spent on the product isn't my life line, but in fact a 50 cent piece of fragile hardware most probably made in the cheapest 3rd world country known to man.  The whole idea of this makes me begin to consider rolling back to my gigastudio solutions and dongleless solutions.

    Cheers


  • i can follow ... though: what if you lost your logic XSkey and wrote to apple ... would they have sent you a new license? what with steinberg, plugins, ect ....


    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • cm, it's not a problem for me, and will perhaps never be. I'm one of those unfortunate souls that within a week will be cut of of the VIP program, and is now doing a final evaluation if I will upgrade now or never.

    Since loosing a dongle is easily done, e.g. if you move around as cgerney does, I would suppose a special insurance would be needed, not only for break-ins and theft, but also in cases of your own fault, e.g. if you forget the dongle or drops it somewhere. Normally you don't carry values of 10000s of dollars worth in you wallet... could be an expensive insurence for sure. Maybe someone have insured expensive software and could enlighten the community of the cost?

    Thanks for the info! My push-button-to-upgrade-finger just doubled its distance to the button! [^o)]

    Cheers


  • CM,

    I have no dongles etc from my days of logic.  I am running logic studio and since I came from Logic 7 (as an upgrade) all I need is the license key from my Logic 7 install CD.  I have no dongles in my gigastudio setup or any software sample libraries of which I own.  This dongle idea is all new to me and seems VERY fragile and risky.  I have all this information saved on discs, uploaded in Apples registration process etc.  So I hardly doubt I would get much slack from them especially since the software only works on my Mac.  Of which they can easily look up and see the hardware address and serial number of the machine that I am trying to re-register the software on.  Which instantly proves the validity of my needing to re-install as was the case recently due to a bad logic update ruining my machine.  It caused me so much havoc and problems that Apple sent me to their closest MAC store for a free Leopard OS X upgrade for the inconvenience.  That is what I call service.  They realize pirating is out there, however chose to go with the honor system for honest people like myself and made my life VERY easy.  Thank you APPLE.

    Again, I understand why VSL would try to protect themselves, however for the honest paying customer like myself, there needs to be some honor system for this as well.  Yes, you may get burned sometimes but this is the price of business.  When you have such strict rules and laws in place it is always the good guy who gets screwed, always.  The bad guy could care less if you go along with their scheme because they have nothing to lose, only everything to gain.  Maybe it's just me but if an honest paying person was buying my product and had a problem I would feel obligated to help them out when in fact the cause of their problem was something I created to protect myself from the thieves of the digital world.  Being in business is about accepting the fact you will have losses as well as gains in financial terms.  If the same repeating customer keeps coming back over and over for dongles etc then something is certainly raised to be fishy.

    I remember when I had to reload my whole computer just recently due to the failed Logic update.  When I went to re-install Sibelius which I use for scoring it accessed the internet for registration and brought up a window that said "Sibelius was registered on this computer already" and it instantly activated my product.  I was so impressed with that.  Talk about no hassle at all and it remember my MAC Address or something solid enough to verify it was me and instantly let me get back to work.  Thank you SIBELIUS.  Something to this degree or as in depth as the grueling registration process of AutoCAD would be sufficient in proving that it is in fact the same machine that I registered the software to run on.  Let it even access the internet once every so often to verify that this is still the machine you claim to be running the software on (to prevent you from being able to multiple machine load the software and pass the license around and around your network).  I don't know, it's isn't my decision on how it gets done at VSL but I hope they are at least considering the idea of how many legitimate people could get upset, screwed over or just turn their backs on the products at all (it don't matter how good the product is, if it's a high risk product then people will run away from it).  Just the idea itself raises so much stress in me that it makes me feel like I am the one doing something illegal.  Becuase I now know if i lose it etc, that I am going to really have my work cutout trying to gain access to MY libraries again.  Of which I am at the mercy of someone saying, "sorry thanks for playing, but I can't help you.  Please re-purchase all your samples.  Have a nice day".  That don't fly with me very well.

    Do what you have to do though.  I am sure you have thought about all of these things and in the end made your decision of how you would handle it and the dongle decision was implemented.  I speak only for myself but this may be where I draw the line and use what I have, and go back to using my old gigastudio solutions.  Yet making rational decisions while feeling irrational in mind may not be such a good idea.

    Regards


  • Last month I was involved in a large event where I took a music production system on site for final mixing. Although the area my equipment was situated in was a secure area I was still very concerned over the dongle. Each night I removed the dongle and took it with me. There were a number of times where I had to leave the song I was working on loaded and make visits to front of house for reviews. Each time I was concerned about the dongle. The replacement cost of the VSL licences on my dongle is about $20,000. This exceeds my insurance single item limit and a specific insurance could be as much as $1000 -$2000 / year. So I to would welcome some respite from the worry of dongle loss! Julian

  • last edited
    last edited

    @vibrato said:

    I understand the Law behind this. Yes, it makes sense - what if Mixer is stolen - But it makes sense only technically on paper.

    There is a huge difference between a dongle and a mixer in size - and a mixer is not easily stolen - A dongle can either easily be stolen or destroyed.

    My only take on this is - If there are alternate means of addressing this problem - I would love for VSL to think about them (I am sure they are).

    I seriously need to take extreme care of my dongles now! 

    Hopefully something can solve this problem. 

    Best,

    Tanuj. 

    The only thing to do is insure your software licences. Where VSL, and all the other Syncrosoft protected developers can help is by sourcing insurers, as many, even specialist studio insurance companies, won't touch this sort of thing.

    DG


  • last edited
    last edited

    i just remembered this post from nick batzdorf ... $ 350 for $ 30.000 worth

    hth, christian


    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • This still seems extreme to me.  This whole process needs to be re-evaluated.  Even to have insurance on such a thing means the agonizing pain of going to them and having to spend months (yes, it would take months to prove out a case of this kind of significance in cost) of paper work and processing time and praying that they even find validity in paying you for your loss (minus depreciation which they will find a way to depreciate what they are going to pay you).  What are you going to do during that time?  Your productions will halt, your musical process will be completely crippled until it is all resolved.  For an honest person like myself, that is to much work for something I rightfully paid the rights to use.  The truth is perhaps VSL would never give me any hardship should it get lost etc but the idea in itself is terrifying to know that they can just say, I am sorry for your loss, please re-purchase everything all over again.  It is cheaper, less risky and more secure for me to just stick to my original slave gigastudio setup (as it is much harder to lose an entire computer or someone to just pick it up without me noticing them walking out with a huge computer then it is a 1oz dongle that can fit in any orphasis of the body without detection).

    Knowing all of what I know now about this syncrosoft and usb key protection, I would have been in triple bypass open heart surgery had I know the treatment this dongle was receiving over the past from my friends and fiance.  There have been times that I was on the road and forgot the dongle (because I secured it and then forgot it all together) and was on the customer site, or demo site and sat there looking like an unprepared bafoon waiting for my fiance to bring it to me.  She told me many times she would just toss it in her pocket, or toss it in a cup or purse bottom and be on her way.  The times of them being funny and pulling it out and hiding it on me or tossing it around in humor.  Sure things can be said about "well what kind of friends do you have etc" but people have real lives.  Children, teenagers etc.  Some people even actually have a sense of humor left these days and like to laugh and have fun and would consider distracting you or hiding this little thing funny.  I myself being victim to this kind of stuff always thought it funny and quite relieving to have some stress relieved by such behavior.  Yet as you can see, no such care was taken to it because the definitive value of that thing was never and is never mentioned in hard writing.  No one points this out during your purchase or pre-purchase.  The amount of ways this thing could be stolen or lost is countless.

    Just the other day, I was at a demo and had 3 people standing around me and was on the phone with a conference call of 2 individuals.  In all the excitement the customer spun his chair around to show me something and SNAP, completely busted my 2GB USB memory stick (not my vienna key thank you god) in half.  All we could do was say DOH and keep on moving.  I have a replacement on the way but this very thing could have happened to my vienna key and the demo would have been done right then.

    I don't know.  Please don't let what I say here be your decision in what you do with your own decisions but for me, I have no desire to purchase anything else knowing this.  The stress this creates alone eats away creativity and that for me is unacceptable.


  • last edited
    last edited

    @julian said:

    Each night I removed the dongle and took it with me. So I to would welcome some respite from the worry of dongle loss! Julian


    Yes indeed Julian. I feel the same way about my dongle - especially at night.

  • last edited
    last edited

    @PaulR said:

    [quote=julian] Each night I removed the dongle and took it with me. So I to would welcome some respite from the worry of dongle loss! Julian

    You're a funny guy Paul. 

    Gotta love that British humor


  • Don't you mean ...ding a ling? Julian