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