@Dietz said:
The ladies and gents of VSL support are known for their friendly and helpful attitude. Seemingly disastrous occurrences can be solved by a simple mail most of the time - with significantly less bureaucratic hassles than you would have to go through when dealing with insurances (!) or elaborate download/time limited/challenge-response/hardware-based/otherwise nifty "self repairing" license schemes.
No offense Dietz, but that's a slightly silly response. This thread happened because the only 'helpful' response Cesare got to his email was that he had lost his licenses and could replace them at half price, following which the responses stopped. I'm sure that's 'solved' from the Vienna point of view, and they probably feel they have made a large concession, but I'm betting it's not solved from his point of view (unless I'm missing something that went on in the background). So telling him that a simple email would have been the solution might seem a little insensitive.
The bottom line here is that Vienna seem to want all the benefits of the elicenser, but expect their honest customers to carry all the downsides. As I said above, a license is not a physical thing that can be stolen; what I've paid for is Vienna's permission to use their samples, which is not something that can be taken away. It is Vienna who have chosen to make the licenses a physical thing, that can be stolen, so it should be their responsibility to sort out cases where they are.
Let's face it, Vienna keeps a record of all purchases and licenses, and restoring them would be a simple matter. I can only think of two reasons why they wouldn't.
- Firstly, they may be concerned that there is now a thief out there who is able to run Vienna instruments, and replacing my stolen licenses would essentially mean that an extra copy is now being used without Vienna having received any money. This is true, but it's a downside of having chosen elicenser, which, so long as I have done all I could to prevent theft, should be born by Vienna for having made that choice. And, in any case, I don't believe for a second that the average house thief would have a clue what he's stolen.
- Secondly, perhaps Vienna simply don't believe me when I say that the dongle was stolen, and feel that I am trying to get additional licenses. In which case, why the half price concession. If they don't believe me they should just say so. Offering half price licenses sends out the message, 'We believe you, but we're going to take the opportunity to charge you some more money.'
Sorry Dietz, I respect how polite you manage to remain, but the fact is that there is a serious concern here, and simply telling someone that he's needlessly worried won't make it go away. So long as Vienna's response continues to be that given to Cesare (and, again, I don't know if a better solution has been offered in the background), and so long as there are potential solutions that they won't explore, then there are going to be a lot of customers wondering why not.