The latest from VSL support, for the benefit of this thread:

"I understand your concern. It might help to think of your Vienna Instruments products just like a real instrument. You have to restring every guitar every once in a while, to keep it in good tune. Our ViennaKeys have a warranty of two years, so you might want to consider exchanging your key every two years, to prevent it from failing. If the key breaks by itself within these two years, you'll get a new key and new licenses for free!
Another option would be to insure you products at a local insurance company.

Regarding your request, I'm afraid that can't give you a positive answer to exactly your proposition, sorry to say. But here's what I can do:
I can offer you the replacement licenses for only $10 per license (+ $10 handling fee) instead of the earlier mentioned $30 per license, if you purchase new Single Instrument Downloads with the residue of $100 (about EUR 72) that you would save by the lower price on the replacement licenses. You can even combine this with our current lottery offer, so maybe you're lucky and get an additional Single Instrument Download for free!

So here's again how this would happen: you purchase additional Single Instrument Downloads worth at least EUR 72 in our web shop, and you can then purchase the replacement licenses for your broken key for $60 (incl. handling fee and shipping, if you haven't purchased a replacement key yet - a replacement key ($36) is not included here).

I hope that you find this offer interesting."

I do find it interesting, and I'll have to think it through. By the way, I reccomend once this thread runs it's course, we make another that details everything we've found about vienna key loss and failure.

Last year I moved and lost my eLicense dongle for the SE. I emailed VSL and they told me there was no way to reactivate my license with a new dongle, but they would sell me a new license for $500! There was no way I was going to pay an additional $500 for a thousand dollar library. I tore my entire house apart and luckily after a week managed to find my dongle. But this experience really caused me to hesitate buying any additional VSL products.

I was seriously considering buying the Waves Silver bundle because of their ‘phone home' licensing option. But I ended up buying the Vienna Suite once they offered the student discount. And I've gone on to purchase the SE+.

I'd really love to be able to take my laptop with my VSL libraries to school with me every day as my teachers are all really impressed with them and they are such a joy to work with, but my dongle is now worth more then my Mac Book Pro! So now I just make an mp3 of my pieces to give to my teachers and leave my notebook at home.

I really wish VSL would offer a ‘phone home' option to renew your licenses every 60 days or so. It's so easy to misplace or lose a tiny USB dongle especially if you are traveling from site to site or gigging with your notebook.

Michael

@mikezaz_27157 said:

I understand your concern. It might help to think of your Vienna Instruments products just like a real instrument. You have to restring every guitar every once in a while, to keep it in good tune. Our ViennaKeys have a warranty of two years, so you might want to consider exchanging your key every two years, to prevent it from failing

which brings us back to the fact that the license is clearly now a piece of hardware - Vienna even want you to think of it that way - so I'm entitled to sell it.

Mikezaz,

I was actually thinking of building a small users-website listing all the information about the Vienna key. I am currently in the process of buying the domain. Apart from the time required I wonder whether it would be useful. I would really have liked to be given this information when I was deciding on my purchase thus maybe other people could benefit from our experiences. But maybe it is just a waste of time, what do you think?

Cesare

@cesare.magri said:

But maybe it is just a waste of time, what do you think?

I think a site like that would be very useful, but would have some limitations. It could serve as a warning of the somewhat hidden issues involved in buying VSL, which I think is important.

I think a more urgent need, though, is a very clear statement of procedures for each case, with Vienna's justification of those procedures (for instance it hadn't occurred to me how much they might be paying Syncrosoft for the generation of licenses), and I'm not sure it's possible for a 3rd party to manage that. As someone said, earlier in the thread, there is a slight feel that Vienna make it up as they go along, so outlining the solution they offer in one case isn't necessarily a guarantee that that's how they will treat the next.

That is right. The site could only point out the fact that the licenses and the key are essentially the same thing (although it is unclear whether Vienna considers the key like a license or like a separate hardware or like a musical instrument). Thus the site should warn about the problems arising from stolen/loss/braking/defects/warranty and the fact that no backup is possible. It is indeed impossible to describe the exact consequences of these problems in details (e.g. paying 50% or buying something else or whatever) since everything is so "blurred". Maybe a Wikipedia page on "Vienna Key" could also do the job similar to what they did for the iLok. The advantage of this is that there Vienna could also add its point of view which would be fair.

Cesare

 Just out of interest, has anyone tried moving the Cubase license between dongles? I'm now thinking of taking Herb's recommendation, and replacing my elicensers periodically, but I'm not clear whether the Cubase license can be moved around in the same way as the Vienna ones.

I asked Herb for a statistic -- and it would be helpful to know this...

In the history of the syncrosoft dongle technology used by VSL, HOW MANY actual dongle failures NOT attributed to physical abuse (they simply stopped working without any external influences) has VSL encountered? Not asking about lost/stolen or "my dog ate it" cases -- simply, "it stopped working for no apparent reason" cases ???

Is this a concern for the average user, who simply plugs it in once, never moves it, never risks physical damage. HAS a Vienna Key/Steinberg Key EVER simply failed for no physical reason that's known to VSL? How many since the beginning of time?

If the answer is 0 out of 10,000 over 5 years, this discussion is wasting time, yes?

Thx

J

@mikezaz_27157 said:

I understand your concern. It might help to think of your Vienna Instruments products just like a real instrument. You have to restring every guitar every once in a while, to keep it in good tune. Our ViennaKeys have a warranty of two years, so you might want to consider exchanging your key every two years, to prevent it from failing

which brings us back to the fact that the license is clearly now a piece of hardware - Vienna even want you to think of it that way - so I'm entitled to sell it.

Bingo.

Slippery slope of law here...

@cesare.magri said:

Martin,

The dongle insurance price in England seems indeed good: does it also cover loss? Is it international (i.e. can you bring the key in a foreign country)? I wonder whether there is anything like this in Germany. However, still, the idea of having to get an insurance for a software sounds really a bit excessive to me, independently of the price.

Cesare

The insurance can be adjusted to cover the UK, EU or worldwide. As I require insurance for my studio regardless, it really isn't a big deal for me to pay a bit extra to cover software licenses.

M

I found out about the ECC (European Consumers Centres' Network), a costumer right association from the european community. On the website of your country you can find a form (the cross border compliant form) like this

http://www.eccireland.ie/downloads/ares_PROD_eccnet_normal_complaint_35.pdf

where it is possible to point out non-transparent commercial practices. I'll try to send it since I believe that the users were not provided the essential information about the Vienna key. This was also confirmed by the sale manager at when I pointed it out:

"As a reaction to the points you made regarding the replacement license, we will include this information in our Terms of License. You can find our Terms of License here (the link is placed on the bottom of every single webpage on our website): http://vsl.co.at/en/65/75/443/522/340.vsl I want to emphasize that we didn't want to hold back this information from you and our other users, it indeed seems that it has been overlooked that this information should be included in the Terms of License (even if it is not required)."

After this email they've added the following line in Terms of licence page:

"Lost or stolen Licenses cannot be replaced free of charge by Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH" but this sounds far from clear. Apart from the fact that

Apart from the fact that many of use were not even given this information at the time of their purchase I still think that this sentence is not clear enough, user should be given a clear description of what losses/stolen/damages might cost and what is the procedure. Things need to be more transparent.

Cheers,

Cesare

 As it happens my home insurance is up for renewal, and I've decided to change provider. In the process I asked the new provider if they would cover the software licenses on my dongles, and was quite surprised to find that they will. Don't know how much it's going to shove up my premiums yet. I may never be able to tell, since I have quite few other high risk items, such as my CD collection. But if I can determine how much of the premium my VSL stuff accounts for I'll let you know.

VSL had a problem. They solved the problem by making it your problem. We could make it their problem again by not buying their products until a reasonable solution is proposed. Unfortunately we didn't do that and we bought their software "as is". Now they have no motivation to do the right thing. Too bad, an optional timed out license is the obvious solution and is a win for all. 

Right, but how could we know? Conditions are not clearly written anywhere, not even in the "License Warranty and License Agreement" you get with the key or the boxed products. Only now they have added a blurry short sentence in the Terms of license.

There should be an easily accessible page explaining things clearly:

- that the license and the key are the SAME thing.

- what are the consequences of stolen, lost keys?

- what happens with broken dongles? what is the exact procedure?

- that you should periodically replace your dongle to keep it in the warranty range?

- how much are you expected to pay in each case?

This "contact us and we will see" is an extremely non-clear and unfair procedure. Why should each costumer get a different treatment. Why should costumers not be informed?

Why were we not clearly informed when we bought our products? I simply would not have purchased it but probably others would have anyways, so why not inform?

Best,

Cesare

 Well I finally changed my home insurance to a new provider. I explained very carefully how the dongle works, and the fact that I wanted to insure the licenses on it, not the value of the USB stick. They were fine with it, and it didn't add anything at all to my premiums. Don't take that as any kind of guarantee - the real test will be if ever I have to try and make a claim; no doubt there will then be additional conditions that enable them to squirm out of it - but, at the moment, so long as you warn your insurer, and keep your receipts, it seems that covering your licenses is do-able.

@cesare.magri said:

• the Syncrosoft system makes code much slower: essentially encrypted code is converted into machine code using thousands and thousands of CPU computations for the decoding. It has been speculated that some of speed bumps reported by programs using the Syncrosoft system (like Cubase, Nuendo or Vienna itself) were often just consequences of Syncrosoft improving a poorly written copy-protection code.

Is this true? I know when the system first starts up an internet connection that is live will cause a check of the license but I was not aware that say Cubase 5  is running its processing through the key as sequencing, composing, playback, editing are done. Once the verification process is out of the way -30 sec on my kind of middle of the road PC-then the key retires into the background-no processes are run thorugh it as far as I can tell. I have used the Vienna Instruments off line as well-this is a feature that I have verified several times.

You are right, this point I'm not 100% sure of and it needs to be checked more carefully. I really doubt that it is a "one time verification" thing: those were the old dongles which were to easy to emulate. Also, notice how often the light in the key lights up whenever you use the VSL software (essentially any time you use the Instruments). But if it is wrong I'll delete it from the list.

I do have issues about having to re-purchase licenses if a dongle is lost, at a very base level it doesn't seem right. I've spent five thousand on my collection of VSL products, I have no intention of breaching the terms of the license and I respect that quality costs. The big issue is that in paying for and signing the agreements I have the licenses for my products. Whether the key is lost or not doesn't change the fact that I have licenses as after all this is not a physical thing its an IP issue.  I think VSL seriously need to review their stance on the loss of a key and at least allow a one off replacement of licenses if a key is lost.  - Check up with the owner of the lost key and have a real one to one conversation to verify what happened etc .  A little trust in the honest users and supporters of your fine products would go a long way to getting you even more sales !

The thing that drives me mad is the huge value of the licenses on these keys but the relatively shoddy build quality of the syncrosoft key itself ! ! -- Why hasn't anyone developed at steel carry case that can slip onto a key ring and totally protect the key ?  !   - I have one of the 'Survivor' flash USB keys that is contained in a screw tight canister which is both water proof, smash proof, electrically inert and light weight .  Some one could make a mint out of designing one for the Syncro key !

Lester.

All dongle has a serial no

So it should be possible to disable a false lost dongle

VSL could do like Apple does with a rubbered Iphone !!!!

Best

Cyril