@Acclarion said:

Is it corporate greed, arrogance, indifference, or some other reason that compels a company to essentially "stick it" to their customers?

Have they broken their contract with you? The contract you agreed to at the time of purchase? If you've changed your mind since then, aren't you free to sell your license to someone else? Greed would be if VSL forced you to buy their products against your will; so this doesn't look like greed to me. Please learn not to sign contracts you dislike; this should solve your feeling that companies are "sticking it to you". When you buy a product, you don't get a slave you can order around; you only get what was in the agreement.

VSL could add value to their products by adding insurance against lost/stolen keys.

@Acclarion said:

Is it corporate greed, arrogance, indifference, or some other reason that compels a company to essentially "stick it" to their customers?

Have they broken their contract with you? The contract you agreed to at the time of purchase? If you've changed your mind since then, aren't you free to sell your license to someone else? Greed would be if VSL forced you to buy their products against your will; so this doesn't look like greed to me. Please learn not to sign contracts you dislike; this should solve your feeling that companies are "sticking it to you". When you buy a product, you don't get a slave you can order around; you only get what was in the agreement.

VSL could add value to their products by adding insurance against lost/stolen keys.

VSL could offer insurance as an option. The cost of the insurance could be passed on to customers: Customers who want the insurance pay for the insurance; customers who don't want to pay for the insurance don't get the insurance.

@MMKA said:

I asked my assurance company in the Netherlands. When I use the e-licensers just in home, they are covered by the home insurance, because software is covered by that insurance.

Double check this and have it in writing ! words are flying 😉

Can you give us the Name of the company because so far I have contact many companies, and no one will insure the contents of the dongle, they will insure only cost of the replacement of the dongle !!!! 25 € 

I was reading the Dorico Licensing, there are very good new, Steinberg is improving the Licensing,

Will we profit of this with VSL protection ? this is anoter question 

Thank you to everybody who has given us feedback about Dorico's licensing scheme.

We want to give our customers the most flexible licensing solution possible based on the current capabilities of our eLicenser technology, which is used by all Steinberg products. As such, the scheme used by Dorico 1.0 will be as follows:

When you buy the boxed version of Dorico, you will receive in your package an Activation Code that allows you to activate Dorico using the Soft-eLicenser. Using this Activation Code will lock Dorico to a single computer. You will also receive a hardware USB-eLicenser key in your package, to which you can optionally move your Dorico license.

When you buy the download version of Dorico, you will receive an Activation Code that allows you to activate Dorico using the Soft-eLicenser. If you would like to transfer your copy of Dorico to a USB-eLicenser and you do not already have one, you will be able to buy one from the Steinberg online shop or your reseller, and then transfer your license to your USB-eLicenser. We plan to set the price of the download version of Dorico lower than the boxed version, so that if you choose to buy the download version but later decide to move your license to a USB-eLicenser, the intention is that, barring significant pricing differences in different territories, you should not pay more overall than if you had initially bought the boxed version.

Once you have moved your Dorico license from the Soft-eLicenser to the USB-eLicenser, Dorico will only run if the USB-eLicenser is plugged into a USB port on that computer.

If you choose to transfer your Dorico license from the Soft-eLicenser to the USB-eLicenser, at present you cannot subsequently transfer your license back to the Soft-eLicenser. However, our eLicenser team is investigating the feasibility of allowing a license to be moved from the USB-eLicenser back to a Soft-eLicenser, which would make it possible to move your Dorico license from one computer to another, and then run it on that computer without requiring the USB-eLicenser any longer. This capability may not be ready by the time of Dorico's initial public release, so we will provide further information about this at a later date.

Steinberg is always reviewing its licensing technologies in the light of changing customer and business needs, and looking to the future we plan to introduce new capabilities to our eLicenser system that will address the needs of customers to run the software on their computers without the use of the USB-eLicenser while still protecting both their and Steinberg's investment in our software.

This whole issue with licensing really needs attention and improvement.

When I first realised that the keys "expire" after 2 years, I started buying 2 new keys every 2 years, just in case. (My licenses span 2 keys)

I now have a drawer full of perfectly functioning keys that will probably never be used again. 

Despite this 2-yearly purchase of new keys, I will still have to pay more money to get my licences back if a key fails. If a key gets lost, I will have to re-purchase the libraries at huge expense.

What I don't understand is this:
eLicenser controls the licensing procedure and they appear to have a record of all licence details. (Correct me if I'm wrong please). If they have a secure database, why is it not possible to report a key stolen or lost or broken? Then the reported key could be listed as non-functional which would allow the legal user to simply retrieve his/her licences.

Of course, there would have to be a method to prevent the stolen or lost key from being used somewhere else. A suggestion would be for a regular check of each key by the eLicenser software. If the check showed that the key was reported stolen or lost, the licences on the key would be disabled or deleted. If the check was not performed regularly, then the key would stop working. Of course this would be a minor irritation for legal users, but nothing compared to the nightmare of having to buy 1000's of Euros worth of software again.

These are just random thoughts on the matter - hopefully our friends at VSL will consider these suggestions and either take it up with Steinberg or perhaps even create their own hardware protection system.

The fact that we all have to register at VSL even to purchase means that there is a way to recover lost licenses, or simply do away with the dongles through UUID -machine IDs we all use to download, install, and update our software and libraries. An internet connection is need to do all o this networking any, so it doesn't make sense in late 2016 to rely on dongles when you can have monthly (or semi-monthly) internet pings to make sure we're all behaving. And I'm looking at you as well, Avid and Waves. And I am a respoonsible adult who does not pirate software.

Even having licenses sit on a locked SD card is better than these black-boxes by Steinberg and iLok. The only reason iLok has ZDT is because:

1. It's something else to sell.

2. They know their product doesn't last more than a few years.

You see, this is all money that I could be saving to buy more VSL products. But certain policies and the unwillingness of others, to step into the 21st Century give me pause. I certainly don't want to single-out VSL, because their products are so well engineered, that I've never really needed any real customer support.

FCPX, Compressor, Motion, Logic X, and Photoshop CS6 do not require dongle- licensers.

Avid, Slate Digital, VI Labs, and many others do, which is probably only necessary because of they way the code is written. I don't know. Perhaps others will join-in and shed some light on this.

Hi Cyril.

Thanks for your advice. I called the insurance company and got the confirmation (I wrote in my last message that I have a home assurance, my assurance is a contents insurance). The bad thing is, that this company has just a contents insurance for the Netherlands and no other countries. For me no problem of course, but I should wish that I could help fellow composers in other countries.

It is a ridiculous analogy vsl makes to "jewelry", as jewelry is a physical, tangible product whereas a license is just virtual bits and bytes, should be easily replaced. Why can't vsl simply ask Steinberg to cancel activation codes and issue new ones. This is horrible customer service and perhaps a deal breaker from ever spending a cent with Vienna Symphonic Library again. Looking at the forums I see I am not the only one who has lost an eLicenser as there are hundreds of posts from previously loyal but newly disgruntled users who have received the same lack of empathy from vsl. What a back asswards policy! I

@ActionManRich said:

Why can't vsl simply ask Steinberg to cancel activation codes and issue new ones.

Well they can, and I assume that's what they do, but then VSL has to pay Steinberg for those new licenses.  So why should VSL pay for licenses that you lost? 

At this point, the best thing to do is to purchase the Vienna Protection Plan then you don't have to worry about it.

@ActionManRich said:

Why can't vsl simply ask Steinberg to cancel activation codes and issue new ones.

@Casiquire said:

VSL could simply reissue a new license to people, of course for a fair price to cover their own costs, and monitor trends or suspicious activity or patterns.

I think they charge you half the cost of the original license?.  Now I don't know if that price is "fair" and covers their own costs.  Maybe therein lies the issue?

Yeah the protection plan is just a one shot fix and after you use it you'd have to get another plan along with another Vienna key no doubt.

@Casiquire said:

VSL could simply reissue a new license to people, of course for a fair price to cover their own costs, and monitor trends or suspicious activity or patterns.