@Cyril said:
My sugestion is that VSL revew it's protection policy. They have to speak to Steinberg so a license can be canceled on a dongle at the demand of it's owner and re-issue at no cost on a new dongle.
It is not to us, it's clients, that has to pay for the protection.
(Added) This turned out to be longer than I expected and went a bit off topic to cover the broader aspect of DRM but Im going to leave it all because there is some negativity regarding Vienna's choice to use an elicenser and how the elicenser terms and conditions and the way it works that I was sensing as I read through the thread. Having been an enthusiast crypto nerd, I follow this stuff pretty closely, admittedly, I havent had time to look at the elicenser technology.
(Original Post) Such is the nature of DRM. With such stringent copy protection and the product being managed and controlled by Steinberg (I assume Vienna merely licenses the technology), compounded by Vienna's complicated bundling of their products, Im surprised the entire thing works.
Unfortunately, DRM is a necessity these days with sound fonts, or at least, companies seem to think so. One merely has to search Vienna soundfonts on any torrent tracker to obtain old Kontakt versions of their soundfonts and the same is the case for many other high end soundfonts and sound production software. I downloaded a few this way just to see how the technology worked before legally purchasing soundfonts (I no longer have any soundfonts installed I did not purchase and I plan to keep it that way) and a few DAWS.
There is a push and pull from users versus companies that want to protect their investments.
What you'll find however that is rather interesting is, if you search around, you will not find any current version Vienna products on any torrent site since converting to the elicenser tech. You will not find any working version of Cubase higher than version 5.1 (2008) since Steinberg moved to the elivenser tech at Cubase 5 (as it turns out, the original first version of the elicenser had a flaw that allowed Cubase 5 to be cracked, I cant remember if it was a simple case of the encryption keys escaping or a bug, I have the white paper on it somewhere).
Other companies have chosen a different DRM path, Audible (Amazon) and Microsoft have decided to use your device as the hardware key - ie. when installed, the software looks at all of your hardware and creates a unique id number for that machine and the software is tied to that id. Audible (Amazon) allows a person to call and deactivate a device (which is a must because Audible can be used on both desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones, the latter changed yearly in most places around the world). Microsoft allows a small portion of your hardware to change before they consider it a 'new device' to require reactivation.
In VSL's case, a few possible ramifications have to be considered if one is going to allow licenses to just be moved at will by a customer without having the functioning elicenser. How do you prevent abuse? What possibilities exist for people to possibly abuse any system Vienna puts into place?
I am not intimately familar with how the elicenser works, I imagine some sort of standard public / private key infrastructure with online checking and ids tied to the elicenser hardware, but I dont know, havent researched it, I just know I have it, its plugged in to the 10 port USB hub I have and it takes several minutes for the software to detect it and do whatever it does to it every time I launch the software because it (the software and the entire process) is clunky and convoluted, as DRM usually is.
I am not a fan of DRM, but I understand why it is used, in some cases, why it is almost necessary. In the case of the elicenser, it has proven successful in the sense that if you want any current software/soundfonts from Steinberg or Vienna, you have to purchase them legitimately. On the opposite side however, you can see that copy protection on Bluray and DVD was and continues to be a waiste of time and money. Both were cracked within several hours of the technology being put out in the publics hands (primarily because the encryption keys must be stored on the players, that makes the encryption key easy to obtain - with the elicenser technology, that is where the online component comes in, encrypt the traffic so it cannot be read and transfer the keys over the internet - the user never has access to, nor can the user ever see the encryption keys).
The question is, has Vienna seen an increase in sales enough to justify the cost of licensing of the elicenser technology? Thats a question only they can answer. I wonder how many people never bought a Vienna product because they realized they had to buy a licenser?
We already know that DRM in no case that I can think of, benefits its users. It consumes CPU cycles, increases startup times, can cost more money for hardware (as in the elicenser), and is hugely inconvenient (moving licenses around, using software on another machine when youve mistakenly left it running on a machine at another location, etc.). At no time can I recall the price of a product being cheaper to make up for these inconveniences.
Its a push and pull between users and coorporations. I dont know which is right, but as a consumer, Ill tell you which Id prefer. But if I were a coorporation, I might be looking at the other side. The question is, does anyone really win? Do companies see improved bottom lines if they use DRM? Do users see any benefits?
My suspicion is 'no' to all three of those questions, but one of those questions, I cant actually answer definitively. Vienna and Steinberg can and they must think its worth doing or they wouldnt be continuing to use it. I can say this much, the technology has been effective at preventing use of their products without purchasing them first, and that is a pretty big success given the number of uber nerds there are today who are willing to crack a product because they can.
