@Paul said:

Hello everybody!

We're very happy to finally announce our solution to lost/stolen/broken ViennaKeys: 

•     Protect your valuable VSL licenses for 2 years
•     No downtime when reporting a ViennaKey as lost, stolen, or broken
•     Simple and straightforward

For a fee of €70 per ViennaKey, the Vienna Protection Plan will cover your valuable VSL licenses for two years, no matter how many licenses are stored on each ViennaKey! No downtime for you, no more worries!

Here's a link to our FAQ's. 

Best, 
Paul

I much prefer the Waves and Adobe Creative Cloud model personally. USB/machine licence storage choice is so much better; or checking over the internet like Adobe Cloud. eLicenser is tech from the stone age nowadays....

Sorry, but I fail to see why this "service" should cost so much for users that have already spent maybe hundreds or thousands of Euros on VSL products.

These are software licences that cost nothing to register or store, unlike physical objects. VSL should provide a free service to customers and not charge this fee every 2 years.

Maybe someone from VSL can explain the reasoning behind this, apart from being a money-making subscription scheme.

Oh sorry, I just realized my two questions already had answers on the other thread.

Best,

David

@derek_gibbons_10742 said:

eLicenser is tech from the stone age nowadays....

That may be true but, from a developers point of veiw, eLicenser encryption has never been cracked and that's all that matters.

I agree with musos and others - this is a complete rip-off.

Typical home contents cover is about £1 per £250 of cover.  If I have around £2000 of licences on my Vienna Key then on that basis the cover should be around £8 (say €10) per year - not €35.

But it should actually be much less because the cost of home contents insurance is based on replacing everything with brand new equivalents, whereas all VSL need to do is push a button on a computer to create the necessary licences.

At last !!!

After 10 years of work with VSL to create mucic everywhere in France in theaters, new circus... 10 years of moving with my keys in train, metro, residence of work, etc... 10 years of paranoia ! I realy feel better... Thank's. 

So basically, VSL has gone into the sample library insurance business per se.

For my situation this solution seems reasonable and I hope this solution clears up most of the hate and discontent that this issue conjures up on the forum.

😊👍😊👍

... Then again, maybe I spoke too soon😔

Oh well, can't make everybody happy I guess.

@MikeHC said:

But it should actually be much less because the cost of home contents insurance is based on replacing everything with brand new equivalents, whereas all VSL need to do is push a button on a computer to create the necessary licences.

Yeah, but then VSL has to pay eLicenser for those licenses that you lost.  It's not as easy as "pushing a button on a computer."

Hey, remember two days ago, when this plan didn't exist and if you lost your key you had to pay 50% of the original cost to replace it?

I think we're all in a much better position today :)

@patmaddox said:

Hey, remember two days ago, when this plan didn't exist and if you lost your key you had to pay 50% of the original cost to replace it?

I think we're all in a much better position today 😊

"Better" is the enemy of "best".

The sad truth is that this whole system of licences stored on keys is not great. I have been buying new keys every 2-3 years in case they failed and I lost all my licences. I now have a drawer full of empty redundant keys.

Maybe VSL needs to invent their own secure protection system instead of using eLicenser?

What if I had 3 slaves with vsl instruments - should I pay 210.- Euro every 2 years? This is not acceptable! VSL does not provide a secure system to store the licences - and these are rather expensive ones - that is the point. The price of vsl libraries should include a secure system so that nobody is forced to pay extra. Maybe another step could be (Dear Steinberg!!) to produce better quality dongles. Just compare with the competitor iLok - better quality keys, much better handling for organizing the licences, half the price for a secure system. I feel really bad about this step because everybody was waiting for years for a good solution - sorry, this is a bad one.

Why would you need to buy it for every eLicenser? I would only buy it for the eLicenser that you take with you if you work outside the office.

i just bought it, i'm happy with this new solution. 

@Ludwig N. said:

What if I had 3 slaves with vsl instruments - should I pay 210.- Euro every 2 years?

Note to perspective VSL customers:

If at all possible, try to keep everything on one machine.  I do and it works fine.

In Ludwig's situation, I guess it would depend on how much VSL you own.  If I had everything they ever released which would easily be around 20 grand worth of stuff, 210 Euro every two years seems pretty reasonable for a studio setup that you would otherwise have to insure anyway but, like I said, it would depend on how much VSL you own. 

@daviddln said:

Oh, I have another question : can we transfer the new Protection Plan on another ViennaKey as we can do vith other licenses ? Thanks. Best, David

Hi,

I have just added those 2 questions to our VPP FAQs, the answer is the same for both:

K) Can I move the Vienna Protection Plan license to another key?

– Yes. All VSL licenses on a key which contains a Vienna Protection Plan license are protected.

L) Can I also use an old key?

– Yes. All VSL licenses on a key which contains a Vienna Protection Plan license are protected.

Best,

Paul

Hi,

thank You Paul for clarifying these questions.

I have almost all the VSL orchestral libraries (this is a lot!) on one Master and two Slaves. As soon as possible I´ll buy another one. I also have a Studio in Cyprus, where I work during summer - so I cannot leave my keys "at home".

If I am right I should put all my libraries to one key where the protection licence is stored, take all three keys to Cyprus and there I should put the licences back to the "unprotected" keys. If I do it that way my licences are secure for the flight. 

I still have to say that the price is too high compared to Zero Downtime. And managing the licences with the eLicencer Software is a nightmare. Think about how much time it takes to put all the licences from two or three keys to one key and the same procedure three times! 

It would be so much better if it was possible to "store" all my licences in a VSL-Cloud/Steinberg Cloud so I could travel with empty keys - no insurance would be neccessary...This is the way I do it with my Waves licences.

Hi Ludwig N., 

I understand your situation. 

This solution is the best option we could find within the possibilities of the eLicenser system, and we are indeed very happy that we can now offer this additional protection. 

I know it takes a while to transfer all licenses to one key with the system you describe, but I believe it's worth it (always depending on your hourly rate, of course).

Transfering one license takes around 5-7 seconds here. 

Best, 
Paul 

While I am very happy that a new solution to protect the Vienna Key exists and the situation has undoubtedly improved dramatically for users with many licenses (especially given the new availability of Vienna Emergency Licenses) I still hope you will continue to monitor and tweak the pricing scheme.

Let's not forget that all forms of copy protection - while undoubtedly necessary - are usually an inconvience to the paying customer. Until now, the main argument for not replacing lost/stolen licenses was that it was technically impossible to invalidate licenses on stolen/lost keys. If I understand your post correctly, fortunately that seems to have changed.

However, the following things are a little hard to understand:

1) Why did you decide to introduce the new Vienna Protection Plan as a subscription based service instead of just charging users with a one time fee for the needed services when the key is actually lost/stolen?

2) If this is supposed to be something close to an insurance, why is the Vienna Plan used up in case of key failure? It sounds like the worst of two worlds: Users have to pay a recurring fee to be protected for a limited amount of time like in an insurance, but the plan is used up after you have to use it once - like in a fee based model.
On top of that it sounds like the plan only protects the licenses itself, not the physical key, so the user will have to buy a replacement key even if protected by the new plan.


Now, I understand that these technical solutions involve some work and people need to get paid. However, your customers are now in a situation, where they basically have to pay an additional recurring fee to protect themselves against the risk of loss of their licenses - a risk, which only exists in the first place because of the copy protection.
Sure, I will agree that this is much better than having no protection against loss/theft at all. But I must admit it leaves an uneasy feeling that being a VSL user basically comes with a new mandatory annual fee to limit the potential risks caused by the USB key copy protection.