Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

180,755 users have contributed to 42,140 threads and 254,362 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 3 new thread(s), 15 new post(s) and 49 new user(s).

  • Insurance?

    Hi,

    My dongles for Cubase and VSL libraries always have been safe in the back of my PC, but in the near future I need to travel more and will be using my MBP instead. The dongle is not exactly "rugged" and I can be a little rough with my stuff, so I'm definately starting the "buy a new dongle every 2 year" thing.

    But that doesn't solve my problem when it is stolen. I know VSL will try and solve that by offering a 50% discount on a new set of licences in case you're not insured.

    So any tips on how or what to insure? Do you insure the dongle, or the software? And what would - for instance - insuring the full SE typically cost?

    I'm from The Netherlands, any dutchies here who can recommend an insurance company?


  • Ha, ha, ...

    In a way ist is a little funny to read that everybody sees that huge issue regarding the Vienna Key after buying a few Products.

    Take a Look at my Message "Future Wishes" and you see what I mean. But where did you read or hear the thng with 50% and "every 2 years".

    That is new for me [^o)]

    Greetings Lars


  • :) Nice wishlist. I actually wished for dimension woods a couple of months ago, although the existing woodwinds could almost be set up like a dimension woodwinds, the only thing that's missing is a second Clarinet in B. There are 2 flutes, a couple of oboes, 2 bassoons...

    Anyway, I read that somewhere. DG mentioned it a couple of times I believe.


  • I could not believe that developer of amazing libraries like VSL offers would have that kind of arrogant attitude towards their own paying customers and therefore I wrote email to support. To my disappointment they confirmed everything. I will not copy this email as all the stuff written there have been stated lately in different posts. In reality software licence should not be taken as something material as it is not. It is just a small piece of information that tells if key/person has paid for the product. And most important - this information costs absolutely nothing! If someone has an accident and his key gets lost/stolen/burnt/eaten by earth or whatever, there should be no problem to restore his licences. Of course small fee for work time is absolutely fine. But anything more is not. Making money from another persons misery is nothing more than pure greed and it is a big sin. I dont want to preach or anything but it just how it is. If whole city of Vienna would be destroyed in some sort of disaster and all citizenz would lose their homes with Vienna keys in them, VSL as company would be very pleased with it as they would get lot of revenue coming in? Imagine if You bought a house with a key to it and dealer would say: "Here is your new house and here is the Key. Be carefyul not to lose this key because if you do you'll lose your house too! We have spare keys, ok, but those cost half of a price of your house. Take it or leave it". Who would buy that house? Or if you had lost your Bank plastic card, went to band office and heard that they know that you have an account with them, they know that you have all this money on your account, but now it is all theirs... Why arent bank accounts set up this way? I never thought that any company with even little care for their customers would act this way. As far as I know all other major software and library developers treat licences correctly and have no problem restoring them when the owner has lost the key. In VSL-s case all the registered products are shown on users account. So there should be no problem to restore them to new key. If licencing system does not support closing licences on lost keys then it is probably time to change system. Saying that system just works that way - take it or leave it, is just arrogant and absolute opposite to caring for your paying customers. Sorry, but this attitude is very far from customer friendly. I have only 3 VSL licences but this information is a big fat red light for me. And it should absolutely be stated somewhere, at least in FAQ. I really love VSL products but never thought that producer of so amazing libraries could be so greedy and make money from their own customers misery.

  • I realized I should edit this to make it more serious - 

    The VSL license is industry standard.  It is difficult to deal with pirating of samples, and the system they have adopted is similar to any other sample library.  They also have very good customer service so there is no need to write posts such as the one above.


  • Hello William,

    but I hope you agree that there is a differnce if you spent thousands of Euros or just own 2 or 3 Singleinstruments. I discussed this with Logicusers in Germany  and everybody says that they HAVE to make a difference on "Powerusers" if the Vienna Key is stolen or lost. A defekt Key can be sent to Austria of course. There is no discussion that they have to change this.

    I read that they compare the vienna key with a Diamond. But a Diamond does not break in 2 parts and a diamond can't be defekt, cause there is no electronic chip in it. The only way to compare is stealing or losing.

    BR Lars


  • last edited
    last edited

    @Kaspar Palm said:

    I could not believe that developer of amazing libraries like VSL offers would have that kind of arrogant attitude towards their own paying customers and therefore I wrote email to support. To my disappointment they confirmed everything. I will not copy this email as all the stuff written there have been stated lately in different posts. In reality software licence should not be taken as something material as it is not. It is just a small piece of information that tells if key/person has paid for the product. And most important - this information costs absolutely nothing! If someone has an accident and his key gets lost/stolen/burnt/eaten by earth or whatever, there should be no problem to restore his licences. Of course small fee for work time is absolutely fine. But anything more is not. Making money from another persons misery is nothing more than pure greed and it is a big sin. I dont want to preach or anything but it just how it is. If whole city of Vienna would be destroyed in some sort of disaster and all citizenz would lose their homes with Vienna keys in them, VSL as company would be very pleased with it as they would get lot of revenue coming in? Imagine if You bought a house with a key to it and dealer would say: "Here is your new house and here is the Key. Be carefyul not to lose this key because if you do you'll lose your house too! We have spare keys, ok, but those cost half of a price of your house. Take it or leave it". Who would buy that house? Or if you had lost your Bank plastic card, went to band office and heard that they know that you have an account with them, they know that you have all this money on your account, but now it is all theirs... Why arent bank accounts set up this way? I never thought that any company with even little care for their customers would act this way. As far as I know all other major software and library developers treat licences correctly and have no problem restoring them when the owner has lost the key. In VSL-s case all the registered products are shown on users account. So there should be no problem to restore them to new key. If licencing system does not support closing licences on lost keys then it is probably time to change system. Saying that system just works that way - take it or leave it, is just arrogant and absolute opposite to caring for your paying customers. Sorry, but this attitude is very far from customer friendly. I have only 3 VSL licences but this information is a big fat red light for me. And it should absolutely be stated somewhere, at least in FAQ. I really love VSL products but never thought that producer of so amazing libraries could be so greedy and make money from their own customers misery.
     

    Moral of the story is...  Take care of your key[:|]

    This has nothing to do with greed.  It has everything to do with the fact that software pirates are scum but they are the most tech savvy scum out there.  VSL, like others, have to protect their software against the scum.  If it were about greed, why not make the license purchase for a "limited time only" say, three years.  After that your license expires and you have to buy them all over again.  If you travel frequently, you need to consider insurance options or handcuff the key to your wrist. 

    Mr. Palm, If I were to hack into your email account and/or your VSL user account, which isn't too hard to do, I could write VSL and say, "hey! I lost my key could you guys shoot me another one free of charge of course.  Here's my new address." 

    VSL:  "Oh! Sorry to hear about that.  Will drop one in the mail for you tomorrow." 

    Now, I can use the Cube that I bought off of some pirate that you are licensed to use and I have your licenses.  Do you see how this game is played? 


  • last edited
    last edited

    @LAJ said:

    I read that they compare the vienna key with a Diamond. But a Diamond does not break in 2 parts and a diamond can't be defekt, cause there is no electronic chip in it. The only way to compare is stealing or losing.

    BR Lars

     

    If it breaks within the two year warranty period, it's covered.  The pain in the A$$ is, you have to buy a new key every two years[8o|]


  • Licence is a right, privilege to do/have something. It is not reasonable to take it away if someone has an accident or gets robbed.
    It is just my opinion that money lost to pirates cant be taken from honest customers who have had some bad luck. I am just saying that there has to be another way, if not right now, then developer who cares about their honest customers, has to figure something out. There are many possibilities.

    If a person has bought licences for lets say 10K euros and his apartment gets robbed, what do you think he will feel if developer asked him 5K more? I bet he feels like another burglar is is trying to get to him...

    If someone hackes my account and gets my licences - this too can be solved. You just have to have a possibility to close old (lost, stolen) licences, nothing else. If old one can be closed, new one can be opened.

    And this approach is not industry standard at all. For example EWQL has no problem recovering licences when something has happened.

    It is about caring about your customers. Nothing more.

  • Two things to add here:

    1. New licences are not free to VSL, as they don't own the protection software. So if they offered it to you for nothing they would actually be paying for your inadequate protection of your key.
    2. EW doesn't allow you to sell their procucts if you don't need them any more. Therefore one could argue that they are actually worthless.

    DG


  • last edited
    last edited

    @Kaspar Palm said:

    If someone hackes my account and gets my licences - this too can be solved. You just have to have a possibility to close old (lost, stolen) licences, nothing else. If old one can be closed, new one can be opened.

     

    Not if you don't know that your account has been hacked.  It most cases you won't know.


  • last edited
    last edited

    @Kaspar Palm said:

     I am just saying that there has to be another way, if not right now, then developer who cares about their honest customers, has to figure something out. There are many possibilities.

    Well, one possible solution is to remove the dongle entirely and go to a Vienna Cloud system where the customer just logs into Vienna and streams his/her sample libraries off the Internet.  Of course, this would have it's limitations too and streaming technology currently would be unable to handle the load from thousands of users trying to stream huge orchestral templates.  But the technology is getting better.  

    In the meantime, the only solution is insurance.  Here in the states, if my house is broken into and my VSL stuff is stolen, my home owners insurance will cover it as long as it is in my house when it grows legs and walks away.  If I'm out of town... I'm screwed.  So I don't travel with it. 


  • A cloud system means, YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO be online! I guess that is not the right solution finaly for many users. And you will not OWN the products anymore. This was discussed in many Forums with the creation of the Adobe Creative Cloud. Companies like it, cause from their point of view it is cheap, they have all products available and Access is easy. But Private Users do not like it because from their point of view it is expensive and they pay for many products they never use.

    The Vienna Key Concept is fine. But Key should be of higher quality AND the users have to be save in case of problems.


  • last edited
    last edited

    @Another User said:

    The Vienna Key Concept is fine. But Key should be of higher quality AND the users have to be save in case of problems.

    If there are "problems" during the two year warranty period, you are covered (unless the key is stolen or there is a case of extreme negligence on the part of the user).  A higher quality key means a more expensive key and if you are having to buy a new key every two years this could be annoying after a while. 


  • Hello

    I realy don't understand why there's no "refresh" system on the vienna key ?

    I had almost all the vienna product on one key ; and, for my work, I must to travel a lot with it, and sometime, i realy don't feel in security ! If one day my key is stollen, with a "refresh" system online with password - for exemple every 30 day - it must be possible to get back my licences on an another key, no ? (the licences on the stollen key became obsolete)

    Perhaps I'm a naive person, but iI think it will be the right way to protect my (and your) work. I realy enjoy VSL, I work professionaly with it since many years, I'm sad to say it, but your protection system is not good ! (And i think you know it...)

    Realy sorry for the attack [:)]


  • Hi Macgort,

    first of all: This is no attack. It is just clear true thinking and the search for a solution. And yes I'm sure they know it as well.

    Your Idea with the Password was also my thought. That could be the solution.

    BR Lars


  • Yes LAJ, you're right, it's not an attack. But my respect for VSL just make me talk like that...

    I hope for a "fair" solution one day, because I realy don't feel responsible for the piratery problem, and we have not to be victims of this practice. Realy hope for a "refresh" solution one day...


  • Stuff the Cloud idea. Stuff it with a vengeance for many reasons. Even if in theory I don't own the products, in practice that is what I have paid huge money to have done. I want them right here, available without an Internet connection, without any unexpected remote server malfunction, available without depending on anybody! Don't lose your keys! 


  • These "refresh" system can be optional. ILok propose it since few month...

    "Don't lose your key !" is an evidence, and I'm a very orderly person. But with the theft, I became paranoiac : when I leave my studio (without my key) I put it in a secret compartment. But I work everywhere in France with theater in residence creation, and sometime; it's a problem : keep the key always on me, or let it in the new studio ? Hide it somewhere ? And I don't speak about transport... Never quiet...

    Perhaps the refresh system is not fit for you Errikos, but for me, sincerely, it is ! [:)]


  • Errikos,

    i agree in dropping the cloud-idea (Even when I think that this will come for sure one day). But i disagree in your last sentence, behause there are so many things beside losing which could happen.

    And i agree with with the optional refreshing system. I bought Storm Drum 3 and saw the iLok Offer when I registered SD 3. Really Cool!

    We Need the best of both worlds.