Magnum, you summed it up very well. Exactly the problem we encountered.

Actually, I've just read the Licence Agreement (which is, for once, not too long and understandable!), and here's what I found:

2. License
Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH grants to You, the Licensee, a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use the Software for your own personal use and not for sublicense, subject to the terms and conditions stated in this License Agreement. You may: (a) install the Software on one or more computers, (b) transfer the Software from one computer to another provided that it is used only by the licensee ...;

3. Restrictions
Unless expressly permitted by this License or otherwise applicable law, You may not, or allow any third party to, ... (b) install or electronically transfer Sounds of the Software on a network for use by multiple users, unless each user has purchased a license; ... .

So, let's say you split your Woodwinds I and II between two computers, to have Flutes and Oboes on Slave 1, and Clarinets and Bassoons on Slave 2.

It is authorized by the Licence Agreement to "install the software on one or more computers", "providing that it is used by the licencee" and "not by multiple users".

So, you put the software on two computers - but you still use the two licences - and you only have one user.

The only thing is that you can only have one ViennaKey to do this - since some of the WWI and WWII are both on each slaves - but you do have the two licences on the key.

So, in that specific case, you could plug the key on one slave, boot it up, remove the key, plug it on the other slave, and boot it up too.

This would only works because these are slaves - you never access the GUI, so VI won't be looking for the key once it's loaded. You would still need the key when the computer crashes, when you restart on purpose, when you do updates, or when you need to access the GUI. So, you couldn't "launch the whole thing" and then get rid of the key - you do need it (no fear of keys being given away to someone else.)

As such, this wouldn't work in a situation where you access the GUI on a daily basis. Which is fine, because, in that case, you don't need to have more than one ViennaKey anyway, since you're not spreading your samples over various computers. This would only be valid for a slave/farm situation.

Anyway, it seems to me that this is allowed by the Licence Agreeement. Did I miss something or am I right on this one?

Jerome

Magnumpraw,

You've really hit the nail on the head for me, as well.

cheers,

J.

@thomas wolter said:

same problems here ...

4 pc´s and a MAC and no way to "share" samples. the pc´s (incl. 3 gb switch) are often not big enough to host all samples i need ... no way to transfer a part of it to another computer ...

just a thought:

if it isn´t possible to split the libraries and to give away a second licence (i understand this!), maybe a solution could be to have a MASTER KEY for the whole library and personalized slave keys, which only can run in the entirely network, where the master key is shown ...

thomas

I was going to suggest the same thing, a master lic or slave lic that only activate when networked with their master

The post by magnumpraw is right on.
The limitations created by the license layout is killing what should be an all up virtual orchestra. Most of us have invested into multi computers loaded with ram in order to be able to have an all up orchestra at our finger tips. There has to be a better way to make VI lib more flexible when it comes to how we can share it accross our systems.

If anyone at VSL is interested - this issue is the last one that keeps from updating my pro edition to the Cube.
The list of bugs that gave me pause has improved (DP bug, OSX slave, load times etc).
It all looks pretty good at this point. All except the limitations on licenses.

The posters here have all made excellent points. This issue should be re-thought.

@Another User said:

The posters here have all made excellent points

this makes me assume you also mean the one i made. subsequently there is nothing left to re-think. except you come up with a totally new idea how else it could work.
sorry, christian

Beside my question, which was merely asking if my understanding of the current VI licence was right, and which has not yet been answered, Thomas made an interesting proposition, I think:

@Another User said:

Maybe a solution could be to have a MASTER KEY for the whole library and personalized slave keys, which only can run in the entirely network, where the master key is shown ...

Getting your input on this would probably be valuable for all of us here...

Jerome

jerome, either i do not understand or it has already been answered.
master key for the whole library - you mean any VSL vienna instrument? this would make any licensing obsolete.
personalized slave key - how shall this be done if a) the license control is not worling over network at all and b) an entire network would be the whole internet.
??? christian

Has anyone mentioned for example WW's 1a and WW's 1b type of license splitting? So you would maybe have 1a be Flute/Oboe and 1b be Clarinet/Bassoon? You could even have 1c be the a3 Winds.

Does this pose any risk to VSL?

CM - what if, for the PC world, the slave keys were active only for a restricted set of machine IDs? You pick the number of those you would allow, say 2 to 4. That would give your customers the flexibility to split libraries across their slave machines, and would give you the copy protection you want. Synthogy is doing this successfully. In fact, when I explained to them the difficulty I was having running your product in my environment, they gladly gave me three more authorization codes for my network.

@cm said:

jerome, either i do not understand or it has already been answered.
master key for the whole library - you mean any VSL vienna instrument? this would make any licensing obsolete.
personalized slave key - how shall this be done if a) the license control is not worling over network at all and b) an entire network would be the whole internet.
??? christian

My question was basically about what the licence currently allows. According to my understanding, the licence allows to split the samples on two different computers, albeit using only one licence for each. Since you don't need the key after launching VI, it is technically possible to start one slave, and then a second one, with the same key. This seems to be allowed by the licence. I just wanted to know if my interpretation was correct or not.

The idea for a "Master Key" would come with a set of "Slave Keys". You could basically buy as many slave keys as you want to run your library on as many slaves you want. But these keys wouldn't work without the Master key attached to the network. So VSL is sure that the slave keys are all being used by the same user.

I don't think your objection re. Local Network being the Internet is valid - Apple iTunes' sharing feature used to be over the internet, but (because of copyright issue) they removed the feature; now you can only access shared libraries in your acutal subnet. It thus seems doable to have a key that only work inside one said subnet.

The fact that your current licence protection doesn't work over the network is obviously an issue. But I think we're just brainstorming here, to see if there are any alternatives to the current licence scheme, which - you'll have to admit - doesn't please everyone. I believe we're trying to suggest solutions that would both protect VSL's product, and honest users' freedom (and right!) to use the product at its full potential.

Of course, these alternatives might not work technically in the near future, but for the following products, it might be good that VSL take into consideration these complains and suggestions, don't you think?

Jerome

peregrine, if i understand synthogy's authorization system correctly it works very similar to the performance tool activation (using computerIDs) and is also not *networking*
dpcon, collections (specifically standard libraries) cannot be *split* into parts.
the good thing with the ViennaKey is that you can take it with you and work on another machine (like the XSkey allows with logic) because you can run the software wherever you want, but only one time per license.
the bad thing is that opposed to the pro edition or horizon series products you cannot run a collection on more than one machine with a single license.

for those among you who need to split a collection across more than one machine for several reasons there will be *linked licenses* for a certain number of starts which allow to run a collection simultaneously on a second machine (so far existing only for solo strings).

of course this cannot mean you will be able to *duplicate* your licenses *just in case you might need them* what should be more than understandable. details regarding requesting and issuing have to be worked out and we have considered such an option especially for setups where a single machine is not capable to run an entire collection.

please note this is not something you will be entitled to recieve based on the license, it is more to be understood as an intermediate solution to ovecome hard- and software limitations for the moment and allow you a certain workflow/setup until such restrictions will become history.
christian

ps: please keep in mind VSL has always made any effort to _allow_ you to work as efficiently as possible, this has not at least been the reason why the ViennaInstruments actually have been developed. and i think it doesn't work too bad for a version 1.1 of an entirely new approach ...

cm - I appreciate your efforts, as well as VSL's, to help some of your users with these issues.

If MacPros were cheaper and smaller, we'd get five of them and we would run the entire Symphonic Cube on these. There wouldn't be any licence issues, since we would put each orchestra section on each computer.

I agree that the current issue hopefully will probably not exist anymore in the near future. Once we go 64-bit, or once we can get 4 GB in one 3Ghz Mac Mini, everything will be fine. [:)]

Thanks for your support and patience!

Jerome

jerome, i could now start a long and winding reflection what has been removed and what is possible, but this would go much too far into networking. so just please believe me - everything which is networked is cracked, this is by design (headword: tunneling). to think something can be limited to a certain sector is as much a roumor as anonymity on the internet.
that you don't need the VK after launching is not true, it works just in certain situations. and please remember that licensing as such does not only protect our investment but also, if not more, yours.
VSL grants you the right to use the sounds without any further fees, so allow VSL to protect their copyright according to the license agreement.
christian

@cm said:

jerome, i could now start a long and winding reflection what has been removed and what is possible, but this would go much too far into networking. so just please believe me - everything which is networked is cracked, this is by design (headword: tunneling). to think something can be limited to a certain sector is as much a roumor as anonymity on the internet.
that you don't need the VK after launching is not true, it works just in certain situations. and please remember that licensing as such does not only protect our investment but also, if not more, yours.
VSL grants you the right to use the sounds without any further fees, so allow VSL to protect their copyright according to the license agreement.
christian

As I said many times, I fully agree with VSL's right to protect their investment. The point I was trying to make was that there should always be a balance between copyright protection and ease-of-use, and that software makers should keep that in mind.

Consumers have had many bad examples of protections which made their life unnecessarily complicated, like the Audio CD protection that made your CD unplayable in your car stereo system, for example.

Now, in all fairness, I'd rather have a dongle than registration numbers, which I've always hated anyway. I think it's a drag to de-authorized a computer to re-authorize another one when you upgrade. So, I love the dongle concept.

As I said in a previous post, and that's my experience, you don't need the VK if, once all the samples are loaded, you never, ever, access the GUI. As soon as you touch the GUI, if the key isn't there, it's going to crash. So this only works in *one* situation : as a slave which you never access (and of course you need the key when you update, when you restart the computer, or when you access the GUI).

Jerome

I like dongles too (as long as it's not the travesty that ended up as KORE [:)]. Much better than serials/authorizing. It's easier and more convenient for the user and better protection for the developer.

This will probably hint at my technical unawareness but my question for CM is, would there be any way to patch the existing licensing system to allow transfer of "instruments" within a "collection" to a separate Syncrosoft Key? So instead of say issuing two licenses for Solo Strings, you could just allow the user to move the cellos and Basses to another key and keep the Violins and Violas on one? This would allow the user to distribute the Orchestra as their needs dictated.

Like I said, I don't understand the technology, and maybe once you've (VSL) decided to group certain instruments into a "collection" there's no way unlink them, but it sure would make a lot of sense if you could.

p.s. Jerome, we're both in Woodland Hills. Let's go feed our faces and swap some setup ideas sometime. I think I sent you an e-mail.