Of course, the suggested solution with reactivation every 90 days would not suit everybody. I would never argue that it should be mandatory. But it sure would be nice if VSL would provide such an option, as a means for their customers to protect their investment.

Regarding corrupted projects, for some reason unknown to me, my eLicensers (got two of them) will occasionally fail to be recognized by my system. Usually one of them only, and it has never happened with my ilok or WIBU-key. Anyway, due to this source of irritation, I've loaded Cubase projects only to find that Vienna Instrument or Vienna Ensemble cannot be loaded. The only thing I need to do to get up and running again is to close Cubase (without saving the project), reconnect the eLicenser, find the VSTblacklist.xml file and remove the nodes referencing VI/VE. Never had any problems beyond this. I imagine saving the project might cause problems though.

Obviously the 90 days solution wouldn't suit everyone, essentially professionals with big studio equipment seem to be less interested in it. It would rather suit the hobbiest, essentially the SE user who are more prone to take their dongle and software around since...well since they have no studio :-)

But I think it would be easy to satisfy both world simply by providing the 90 days method as an option. Originally VSL was probably more "pro-oriented" but, with the introduction of SE which opens to the non-professionals, new solutions need to be found.

I don't honestly believe that insurances are a good solutions: I might be wrong but I believe it wouldn't be that easy to get your money back once your key gets stolen or lost or brakes. It would probably take loads of paper work and time or it would have to be an awfully expensive insurance which would turn out to be totally unconvenient. It's unthinkable for a non-professional to consider this solution which porbably works only if you insure a whole studio. I think this is rather a trick of the sotware company to try to put the blame on the user "well you should have thought about that, you should have insured your software" and try to soften their responsibilitie, but from the practical point of view I don't see this solution working for non-pro costumers...

@passenger57 said:

Hi I'm new to this thread. I was getting ready to spend several thousand on Vienna Products, but am very honestly nervous about the vienna key failing or being stolen. Has there been any more progress on this subject since this thread was first posted? I need peace of mind with this kind of investment and I'd be happy to pay extra for it in the form of some sort of protection like ilock has.

iLok does NOT have any protection from theft or loss, unless you are speaking of Waves TLC.

iLok "ZDT" (zero down time) is no protection, really -- read the fine print. If you have a ZDT iLok and your iLok is damaged, ZDT will restore a bunch of temp auths that will work while your iLok is being repaired. HOWEVER -- if you lose or your iLok goes missing, ZDT will get you some temp auths. It is then up to you to figure out how to replace the auths -- and just like VSL, you best have insurance for many (most). Unless you have Waves TLC, which is the time-bombed/phone home solution...

If you are paying $29/year per iLok for ZDT, and you THINK you are protected from loss or theft, you are mistaken. You are better off investing in better insurance, or a theft deterrence system.

PS -- read this... and then ask iLok what happens when the 14-day temp auths expire.

http://www.ilok.com/ilok-zero-downtime.html

Hi! No news at the moment. Same problem here: I was interested in the new Instruments software and in the choir package but after my sad experience with the key loss I prefer to wait and see whther they introduce something new in the authorization system or if something nice comes out elsewhere. Let's see...

Best,

Cesare

@jeremyroberts said:

It is then up to you to figure out how to replace the auths

There is technology and knowledge on earth that can solve the problem.

There is money to solve the problem or more money made when problem is solved (at least I'm not buying anything more untill it's solved).

There is just lack of ambition, which I hope will change thanks to this thread.

If the dongle fails, you can send it back and the licence would be transferred to a new dongle. Always worth having a spare, empty dongle for safety.

For power outages, you really need to get some anti-spike protection. if you don't, you are risking more than just the dongle.

As far as insurance, you will need to shop around, because many insurers won't cover software. However, it is possible to get cover.

DG

Hallo!

How does the watermark system work? Thanks for pointing out this new set of strings, didn't know about their existance.

Did anyone get a chance to try Waves TLC? That really sounds like a great solution. I wonder what those who tried it think of it, wheteher there where issues etc.

Concerning the damaged dongles: each company is free to deal independently with the damaged or malfunctioning keys. As far as I've heard, Vienna is willing to transfer the licenses (i.e. to make them activable again) once you send the bad dongle back and buy a new one.

Cheers,
Cesare 

Watermarking adds a unhearable signal to each sample e.g.: Add in frequency ranges which can not be heard some data.

If this data is different for any sold copy it is quite easy to find the person who put the samples to some file share systems and eact accordingly.

Also if someone publishes music with these stolen samples you can still figure it out and (assuming you get the identity) can sue these people.

Similar technologies are also used for movies to figure out in which cinema the movie has been stolen

In any case you need some pretty strong watermark which can not be deleted or gets removed after some format changing, so just the frequency thing is way to weak.

Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking

At the end it is kind of philosophy, if you invest time in protecting your things, or invest time in sueing guys who distribute the samples and and guys who use it. But it might also be impact on location (Most probably US courts bring more money then Austrian courts)

Re: Watermarking

VSL has evaluated advanced watermarking technologies several times. For our needs in the context of high-quality orchestral samples and related software products, the technology has a few problems:

- A sample may undergo ten or more audio processing steps, before being mixed with dozens of other audio signals. As soon as the strength of the watermark is anywhere near the robustness which is necessary to "survive" in a scenario like this, it is already degrading the fidelity of the actual sample. That's not what VSL is after. ;-)

- Tracking down watermarks makes sense for broadcasting (especially web-radio) where it is useful for royalty and billing purposes. There are no comparable business models for our needs.

- Even if we assume the theoretical chance that watermarked samples would be traceable, it is more or less impossible and (most of all) completely uneconomic to take legal action in each case where misuse is suspected. ("... invest time in sueing guys who distribute the samples and and guys who use it", as Gabriel put it in the previous message.)

- Good (and especially individualized) watermarking technology is much more costly than common dongle-based copy protection.

- Copy protection not only protects our products actively against piracy, but also the investments of our customers. Watermarking alone can't do that, especially as it can't protect software, just "content".

In other words - no watermarking in VSL samples.

Kind regards,

@passenger57 said:

Is it the policy of VSL to replace a damaged or failing Vienna key if that key is returned? If thats the case I'd feel much better about making a big purchase.

I can't speak for VSL, but if your out of warranty dongle was damaged, and returned to them, and they did not restore your licenses to a new dongle that you provided, I think they would be out of business if this became public. I know of NO developer that will not replace authorizations on legitimately damaged dongles.

Loss or theft is something different.

But if the dongle simply fails, the developers have tools to verify the dongle is yours, and I can't imagine that any developer would not solve the failed dongle issue quickly.

As far as I've read around in the community I think there should be no problem with Vienna regarding the broken dongle: I think that once you send it back and get a new key they allow to transfer the licenses to the new key. Not all companies allow this but as far as I know Vienna does.

The problem is rather with the stolen/lost keys and whether there would be a method do give some peace of mind to the paying costumer.

Cheers,

Cesare

Dear Dietz,

It sounds like you can speak in name of Vienna. I do see your point about watermarking being very little resistant to further audio processing. Could you also tell us about Vienna point of view on the Wave TLC solution? or if they are thinking about other solutions?

One more thing. After my experience with the key system, I think that the argument that the key is there "to protect my interest as a costumer" feels quite weird. I really haven't gained anything from the key, it just costed me a lot of money. So I would kindly ask Vienna to stop using it as an argument since it almost feels offensive. If it is made in my interests let me chose whether and how to use it. Please, understand my point of view.

Best,

Cesare

@cesare.magri said:

Dear Dietz,

It sounds like you can speak in name of Vienna. I do see your point about watermarking being very little resistant to further audio processing. Could you also tell us about Vienna point of view on the Wave TLC solution? or if they are thinking about other solutions?

Cesare,

I can only speak for Vienna as long as questions about audio-engineering and -development arise. As pointed out, watermarking affects audio-quality (amongst other issues), that's why I felt in charge to reply.

That said, I positively know that VSL support is _very_ obliging when it comes to dongle-related problems. Most of the time a mail is sufficient. Trust for trust.

Excuse me, but this is an extremely shortsighted POV.

In a time while everybody and his aunt has access to myriads of cracked (read: stolen) software products, I see it as a BIG benefit for all paying customers (and especially professionals) that the tools they paid for are NOT available for free to John Doe next door. The day WILL come where this guy will get a certain job just because he can do it cheaper. This is where intact copy protection helps to protect _your_ investment. I can't see anything "weird" in it. Being an audio engineer for almost a quarter of a century now, I've seen non only one, but dozens of colleagues and partners stranding during the last decade or so, just because scumbags with "studios" full of cracked software were able to underbid their fees.

And no, I won't stop telling people the in's and out's of copy protection, thank you very much. If you feel offended, then there's not much I can do about it.

Ciao,