Originally Posted by: jasensmith

Why the other players in this game like Eastwest have more generous terms with these licensing companies I don't know that either. 

East West uses iLok, which has another system. However, you also can't sell EW products, so they are not as generous as VSL on that one. The other mentioned products use Kontakt, which doesn't use a dongle, but again you can't sell them.

DG

Originally Posted by: fahl5

Thinking what we have invested it seems to me pretty inapropriate, that VSL has not covered at all  the Question, how Licenses could be saved, when  dongles break or ar lost.

I don't think the problem is saving the licenses. The way I understand it is if you loose your dongle then whole new licenses have to be issued which is why it costs VSL money.  Maybe I'm wrong?

What's to stop me from telling Vienna that I lost my dongle, when I really didn't, and I need a new one with my licenses restored then turning around and selling that new one to somebody else and letting them download the software from my user area? 

Well, paying 50% of the cost of the licenses is a pretty big deterrent.

As for a dongle breaking, again, if it malfunctions due to no fault of your own and you're within that two year period then that's on Vienna for selling you a faulty dongle right?

How many of VSL's customer base are really that shady? I doubt most serious composers would want some random (or friend) to have access to their user area (passwords etc) and use their licences so that seems utterly ridiculous.

The worst part is, the more products you buy from VSL; the more loyal a customer you are, the more you have to lose if something goes wrong. How sad is that?

"How many of VSL's customer base are really that shady? I doubt most serious composers would want some random (or friend) to have access to their user area (passwords etc) and use their licences so that seems utterly ridiculous." - simon hanna

Do you have any concept of how much thievery goes on with music and the internet - let alone samples?  It has destroyed the recorded music industry.  There is no industry now.  Anything on the internet is ripped off on a regular basis. 

I would like the hostile, adversarial posters of this, and many other similar threads, to do one thing - tell how they would deal with stolen/lost licenses.  In detail.  To rule out theft on a regular basis.  The fact is, there is no way to distinguish between someone who has lost - or had stolen - a dongle, and someone who just wants another license for free.  If your dongle is stolen - you are screwed.   It is the same thing as if you bought some stuff at a store, and somebody stole it - would you then go to the store and demand your money back?  Then be outraged when you didn't get 100% back?  They would laugh you out of the store.  But that is EXACTLY what you are doing right here.  

The people who write these threads need to come to a basic realization: many people are thieves, and they cause the problems.  Not the people who have goods that are stolen - which these posters are blaming.

deleted

Here is a solution that would completely protect both the legitimate business interests of VSL and the equally legitimate security concerns of their customers:

Simply offer a copy protection scheme where the licenses that are loaded onto a dongle can be temporary and in this case the user has to update/validate them at regular intervals. We know that this works from the countless demo licenses VSL offers its users. Since VSL has to pay fees for these licenses to Steinberg they can surely bill these fees to the customer. This would exactly be the “insurance feature” many customers would like. VSL could offer different schemes where the licenses would e.g. be monthly, yearly or unlimited, depending on how much security the customer wants and that correspondingly come with normal, smaller, respectively without any premiums. 

Should a customer loose or damage a key with licenses that last only another few more weeks anyway it should not be any problem for VSL to replace them immediately at no or a minimal fee, whereas if the licenses last e.g. for another half a year the fee could at least be much more reasonable than what we see now). Since Steinberg will earn considerably more money within such a scheme, VSL could negotiate a deal that keeps the premiums for such a service at a very reasonable level for the customer - after all everything will be automated anyway. Moreover VSL could issue bundle licenses for e.g. the entire Symphonic Cube to reduce the cost. 

The advantage of such a scheme compared to cloud-based solutions is that the customer does not need to have a fast and fully reliable internet connection at all times in order to work, but only a minimal one, occasionally: if you forget to update/validate your licenses, you can do this even while traveling at some cafe around the corner.

Originally Posted by: William

I deleted the previous posts because I should not have responded to begin with.  

This entire thread is wrong, because once the dongle system is used for copy protection, there is no way to distinguish between theft and loss.  So VSL is not in the wrong.   To compare other companies is a false comparison because they don't use the same system.  

Also the statement that comparing physical products is wrong is completely wrong itself - it is exactly analogous, because the posters of this thread want a replacement for something stolen,  for free. That doesn't happen in the real world.  

I have no interest in debating this however - it is utterly fruitless since the people on this thread are hostile and their minds are made up.  T

Other companies, such as Spectrasonics, Native Instruments and a lot more manage to do this, without penalising anyone.  To compare VSL with other companies is precisely the point - they DONT use the same system VSL should and can change there's. It's simply good business sense to support your customers well.  Your emotional response is OTT.

Originally Posted by: William

"They hate VSL and want to tear it down.  It is as simple as that.  My question - if you love the other companies so much - why don't you use them instead?"

Dear , dear, I would guess you dont know anyone in this thread personally, some people might actually be trying to improve VSL customer support 

Z

OK I try to sum up as far as I understood the vivid discussion.

• Everybody here does apreciate VSL and the extreme high quality of their products.
• Many of us here are ready do pay high prices to work with the powerfull Products offeredn by VSL
• The more we have paid for, the more seriously afraid we are to simply loose all by chance or badluck
• The way how the loss of a Dongle is handled right now is currently obviously not able to calm down fears like that.
• VSL is not the only company in the world who sales expensive highquality software which defenitly has to be licensed for more than good reasons.
• Many here do know many companies, who established much smarter ways to handle the problem of lost or broken dongles (even Steinberg with their System to register the dongles with the licenses on them seems to organize this problem much smarter, even with using exactly the same Dangle which are in use here.)
• (As far as I can see seems no one to know any company with such a risky and dangerous handling of such expensive Licesnses)

For me the conclusion is pretty clear:

VSL has to get in contact with other companies to learn how a save Licensesystem can be established and improve their currently unsatisfying solution. There are enough save and working examples out there, that we must not invent anything new here in this thread, or even are honestly in the situation to pretend that there would be no solution at all.

BTW. I am strongly convinced that those who criticise VSL in this point, does it because of their high esteem of VSL, their outstanding Products and just want to help to improve the savetyness and usability of VSL-Products with their criticism.

....just to come finally to an conlusion here

THE SOLUTION