# The risk of using Spitfire plugin on a commercial project



## Sugar Free (Aug 3, 2020)

What happens when you are on a deadline and your Spitfire library stops working?

I am experiencing this problem right now with BBCSO.

The library stopped loading yesterday. Likely because I performed system recovery on my Mac. (Eventhough, the samples were located on a dedicated SSD, excluded from system recovery.) The Spitfire App showed red exclamation marks, so I started the locating/repairing procedure. After "successfully" locating the library folder, I got an error message:
*"Repair Failed. You don't have any resets remaining for this library - please contact Spitfire customer support for further resets."*

What? Why? Did I mention that yesterday was Sunday? Do you see where this is going?

I opened a support ticket, posted private messages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and.... nothing. It's already Monday afternoon on the Pacific Coast, evening in London and I'm stuck. Can't finish my cue. I even tried to purchase another license of BBCSO, hoping I would get a refund later. Well, it turns out you are not allowed to do that, the web store won't let you.

So what good is the Spitfire plugin for a working composer if the authorization system depends on availability of support representatives?
I've never had problems like this with any Kontakt-based or dongle-protected libraries. How good is a library if it can make you miss your deadline?


FOLLOW-UP:
Spitfire customer service got back to me and reset the download limit for my BBCSO.
The response took two days...

I was able to reset and re-download the library, after which I got the red warning mark in the SF player. I had to perform "repair"... several times. Eventually, I deleted the Patches and Presets folders, after which the "repair" finally worked.
The whole process felt incredibly random. Even after the final, successful attempt, the SF app would show red exclamation marks, when in fact it just needed to be restarted one more time.
I am not sure, how much all of this used up my recharged "reset" limit. Am I maxed out again?

Some of you wondered, how I used my previous "resets" in the first place. Looking back, it was only on two occasions. Once, I wanted to move the library to another hard drive. The second time was simply updating my BBCSO to the latest version, which completely messed up the whole library and again required multiple repairs/resets.

Even if you follow the rule of not changing anything in the system on a project, there are times you may have to, either because of a technical issue or due to a creative need. I said, I noticed the problem after recovering my system to an earlier point via TimeMachine, but I don't actually "know" that this was the case. For me, TimeMachine has always been the safest tool to roll back, if I thought I'd done something I shouldn't have. Could it have interfered with Spitfire copy protection? Maybe..., but should it be able to?


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## SimonViklund (Aug 3, 2020)

Dang, I feel bad for you. I've been very sceptic of non-Kontakt virtual instrument host plugins - I don't own a single SINE player/Best Service Engine/Spitfire plugin libraries - and your testimony only makes me even more sure of my conviction.


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## I like music (Aug 3, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> What happens when you are on a deadline and your Spitfire library stops working?
> 
> I am experiencing this problem right now with BBCSO.
> 
> ...



Shit. I have nothing to offer except to say that I hope all ends up OK with your cue and your client, and that they are in a position where they can deal with the delay.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 3, 2020)

Could this situation have been avoided if you’d had a clone-file of your harddrive as backup?


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## Sugar Free (Aug 3, 2020)

It's hard to tell without knowing what the copy protection system is attached to. I have a backup of all of my samples, but the sample drive is not missing any data.


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## lp59burst (Aug 3, 2020)

Spitfire iirc has support out of the NYC area too, so they may still be around...

@SpitfireSupport @Spitfire Team


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 3, 2020)

I meant a clone of the OS drive. Then if you the OS drive gets corrupt, remove harddrive, put in a new one and install your clone-file on it. Then in theory you should be back at where you were when the clone-file was made.

Never tried it myself though, and of course it’s no solution to your current situation. Hope the guys at Spitfire get back to you ASAP.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 3, 2020)

lp59burst said:


> Spitfire iirc has support out of the NYC area too, so they may still be around...
> 
> @SpitfireSupport @Spitfire Team


thanks, I've sent them a PM.


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## lp59burst (Aug 3, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> thanks, I've sent them a PM.


They'll also get a notification when they're "@" mentioned in a thread


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## Sugar Free (Aug 3, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> I meant a clone of the OS drive. Then if you the OS drive gets corrupt, remove harddrive, put in a new one and install your clone-file on it. Then in theory you should be back at where you were when the clone-file was made.
> 
> Never tried it myself though, and of course it’s no solution to your current situation. Hope the guys at Spitfire get back to you ASAP.



I hear what you're saying, but my system drive is not corrupt, and technically reverting to an earlier version via Time Machine should be the same as recovering a cloned copy.

I also performed a SMC Reset (Shift+Control+Option+Power Button), which is a low level hardware reset.


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## CGR (Aug 3, 2020)

How incredibly annoying. Almost without exception every time I call up a Spitfire Player instrument I see an error message saying it needs to be repaired (I'm running Mac OSX 10.11) Often the "repair" process does nothing, so lately I've given up and just choose a reliable and stable Kontakt or UVI based instrument, and avoid the frustration.


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## jononotbono (Aug 3, 2020)

There’s a reset button in the menu. You can reset latest update or whole library. Is that not working?

I don’t have BBCSO but I do have HZ Strings and Symphonic Motions which uses the SA Player and I’ve never had a problem just resetting the library when something isn’t working.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 3, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> I hear what you're saying, but my system drive is not corrupt, and technically reverting to an earlier version via Time Machine should be the same as recovering a cloned copy.
> 
> I also performed a SMC Reset (Shift+Control+Option+Power Button), which is a low level hardware reset.


Argh, that sucks. I hope Luke’s suggestion above will work.


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## Bman70 (Aug 3, 2020)

In preemptive protest I didn't buy anything in their summer sale. I wonder if it's possible to just delete the app and reinstall from the .dmg? As if you never had it? After the Mac restore that's the first thing I'd try. Last resort, do you have enough MIDI to translate it to another library? Good luck.


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## merty (Aug 3, 2020)

Does it happen with discover? you could continue work with that and switch when spitfire responds.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 3, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> There’s a reset button in the menu. You can reset latest update or whole library. Is that not working?
> 
> I don’t have BBCSO but I do have HZ Strings and Symphonic Motions which uses the SA Player and I’ve never had a problem just resetting the library when something isn’t working.



This is exactly what I've been trying to do. Were you aware that there's a limit on how many times you are allowed to reset your library and next time something isn't working you might be out of luck?


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## KEM (Aug 3, 2020)

I’ve been having an issue very frequently where using the LABS Choir will completely crash my daw every time I try to open a project with it, it sucks, Spitfire’s player really sucks


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## mcalis (Aug 3, 2020)

That's a nasty situation to be in. I know that some folks have all their DAW stuff on a separate, always-offline machine which is of course not a cheap solution and not something that will help you now, but it might be a worthwhile future insurance for you.

Another part of that is to not change anything on your work system while you're in a project. No system update, no software updates, no new libraries or plugins. You only ever make changes during your downtime.

I hope you'll be able to find a solution fast. For what it is worth, maybe this will help bring it to SA's attention
@SpitfireSupport


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## SupremeFist (Aug 3, 2020)

This is completely unacceptable and may even be illegal in some territories (dev bricking a product you have a license for). SA needs to rethink this whole system.


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## d.healey (Aug 4, 2020)

Don't buy products with DRM, it will bite you eventually.


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## Zee (Aug 4, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Don't buy products with DRM, it will bite you eventually.


I can't wait for them to take the next step and start encrypting sample files and decrypt in real time, we're probably heading there once they get more popular and more people want their newer products which will in turn make more crackers interested in breaking it


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## babylonwaves (Aug 4, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> The library stopped loading yesterday. Likely because I performed system recovery on my Mac.



why did you perform a system recovery on your mac when you're on a deadline? sounds like, you've practically reinstalled the OS? is it that what you mean? the error messages you've posted states that you ran out of resets. did you reset the SF player/library in the past?

i'm using a fair amount of their SF plug-in based libraries and I never ever had to do a reset. not even after updating macOS.


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## Uiroo (Aug 4, 2020)

After getting some issues with EWC and the Labs stuff I decided not to give in to their new plugin any time soon, I'll probably wait a few years. The spitfire player isn't that new anymore and these stories keep coming up. 

I feel different about SINE, partly because it is to be seen how well it ages and because it actually offers some new features.


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## Zee (Aug 4, 2020)

babylonwaves said:


> why did you perform a system recovery on your mac when you're on a deadline? sounds like, you've practically reinstalled the OS? is it that what you mean? the error messages you've posted states that you ran out of resets. did you reset the SF player/library in the past?


What is the point of this post? Guilting OP for a system recovery? could be any other software that forced the decision


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## Ruffian Price (Aug 4, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> There’s a reset button in the menu. You can reset latest update or whole library. Is that not working?
> 
> I don’t have BBCSO but I do have HZ Strings and Symphonic Motions which uses the SA Player and I’ve never had a problem just resetting the library when something isn’t working.


As far as I can tell you get a different amount of resets depending on the library (I repair some all the time, but with two I got OP's error on first attempt), probably to save on CDN use. I thought it was size-related, but HZS is huge as well, so now I'm not sure (actually wanted to check right now, but the SA app won't launch, I have to reinstall. How relevant)



Zee said:


> I can't wait for them to take the next step and start encrypting sample files and decrypt in real time


That's what they're doing already (Play was the first) but I don't consider it anti-consumer in itself as long as the plugins are usable. Seems it did successfully stop pirates.


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## gst98 (Aug 4, 2020)

I've tried dozens of times to use LABS, but I can never get it to work. It just asks to repair over and over again. The steps support gave me didn't work either but I stopped caring because its free. Can't image what it would be like if you had spent a thousand pounds on something. Even the worst errors in the Sine player don't come close to this. What's even more shocking is Sine ironed out most of the bumps within a month or so of launch, this player has been out for years.


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## jcrosby (Aug 4, 2020)

gst98 said:


> I've tried dozens of times to use LABS, but I can never get it to work. It just asks to repair over and over again. The steps support gave me didn't work either but I stopped caring because its free. Can't image what it would be like if you had spent a thousand pounds on something. Even the worst errors in the Sine player don't come close to this. What's even more shocking is Sine ironed out most of the bumps within a month or so of launch, this player has been out for years.


Same experience here... Labs has been a never ending mess for me. On the same machine. With no changes ever made by me. If the wind blows, Labs breaks.

As fas as the OP goes there's a _*Default Content Path*_ field in the settings menu. Try to relocate using that. If it doesn't work try repairing one of your libraries, (probably a good idea to choose the smallest one). If not you have nothing to lose by trying a reset on that same library since it's not currently working anyway... I say the smallest as it will typically involve re-downloading...


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## babylonwaves (Aug 4, 2020)

Zee said:


> What is the point of this post? Guilting OP for a system recovery? could be any other software that forced the decision


not sure what you mean with "Guilting". i'm not pointing fingers here, if it's that what you mean. I just wouldn't assume that after a system recovery every copy protection just keeps working.


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## barteredbride (Aug 4, 2020)

The thing is, we never hear of the thousands of users who post threads saying: just to let everyone know, everything is working normal with the spitfire player and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.

I hope the OP gets his problem sorted. Maybe contact another composer friend in NYC and use their computer / Logic just to finish the que??


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## d.healey (Aug 4, 2020)

barteredbride said:


> The thing is, we never hear of the thousands of users who post threads saying: just to let everyone know, everything is working normal with the spitfire player and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.


And papers don't report people who aren't murdered, what's your point?


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## chocobitz825 (Aug 4, 2020)

Did the OP try a clean reinstall?


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## styledelk (Aug 4, 2020)

There's really two problems here:
1. It broke after the restore-ish operation.
2. The OP has already reinstalled this library too many times (either to multiple computers, etc.) and Spitfire limits the number of times you can do this.

Unfortunately the only way around #2 is to contact them. I've usually gotten responses within a few hours for this (I've moved between like four computers in the last year; some libraries end up 'spent'.)


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## drews (Aug 4, 2020)

barteredbride said:


> The thing is, we never hear of the thousands of users who post threads saying: just to let everyone know, everything is working normal with the spitfire player and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.
> 
> I hope the OP gets his problem sorted. Maybe contact another composer friend in NYC and use their computer / Logic just to finish the que??


The problem is that the company has two flawed systems that aren’t acceptable for the amount of money you pay for their products. If you have to contact them directly once you hit your install limit than that’s just lazy and unacceptable, every other DRM I’ve ever used has the ability to deactivate previous devices or installs after the fact without having to contact the company.

Also they’re selling professional products at professional prices so they should have enough staff to be able to respond in minutes instead of hours.

Just read up on their support site a bit and it says “Each library has a limited number of resets, if you exceed this limit you will need to reset the library manually for you” so that’s even worse than what I said above. They don’t even go by hardware ID, they just go by straight number of resets. Which tbh as someone who just got their first spitfire product in the most recent sale, I’ve already used two resets. I installed it on an external and was having issues, so I reset it and installed it on a SSD. Still had some issues with BBC core hogging ram so I reset it again and installed on my NVME to get it to work right so that’s two resets just in the initial install.

Also “these libraries do not use serial numbers, and instead you get a limited number of resets/downloads in the spitfire app”. Why is that even close to acceptable?Why not just use serial numbers considering every other company ever uses them? And why have it tied to your account if the current machine logged in doesn’t always have authorization no matter what regardless of install amounts. Again, everyone else that has a system like that also gives you an ability to see which devices you’ve previously installed the products on, and allows you to deactivate old activations. Has this not been brought up to the company directly before on here? Because that’s not acceptable in the slightest, not for a $50 dollar product and especially not for people paying $1000 per library.


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## nolotrippen (Aug 4, 2020)

babylonwaves said:


> why did you perform a system recovery on your mac when you're on a deadline?



You might have a point, but how is that helping?


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 4, 2020)

drews said:


> Also they’re selling professional products at professional prices so they should have enough staff to be able to respond in minutes instead of hours.


They are probably busy as bees doing all their marketing...


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## nolotrippen (Aug 4, 2020)

Kind of off topic, but I've never really liked their libraries. This only cements it.


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## Uiroo (Aug 4, 2020)

barteredbride said:


> The thing is, we never hear of the thousands of users who post threads saying: just to let everyone know, everything is working normal with the spitfire player and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.
> 
> I hope the OP gets his problem sorted. Maybe contact another composer friend in NYC and use their computer / Logic just to finish the que??


Well, at the same time you can say we never hear of the thousands of users who go straight to customer support without visiting forums. 

Of course the number of people complaining doesn't give us an accurate representation of how many people are experiencing issues and how many aren't. 
But it gives a good hint at which products are prone to problems. 
Having people chime in to say how well everything is going isn't necessary at all to get the picture.

Whenever I read product reviews I concentrate on the bad reviews. And then I check if the problems mentioned are relevant for me, or if the person complaining may be an idiot. 
If I can't find any well articulated negative reviews, that's a very good sign. 
If you decide whether to buy something, you're looking for an absent of negative reviews. 
Libraries like CSB come very close to that, the spitfire stuff using their own player really doesn't.


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## prodigalson (Aug 4, 2020)

Dont get me started on the authorization mechanism for these libraries. I've contacted them several times via email with issues specifically with Orbis and BBCSO and literally BEG them to abandon it and come up with a more user friendly system. They're always polite and helpful but nothing changes. They're digging in on it and, for me, it has meant I virtually never use their non-kontakt plugins in commercial projects.


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## babylonwaves (Aug 4, 2020)

nolotrippen said:


> You might have a point, but how is that helping?



maybe there's a different way for the OP to get what he's trying to do without restoring. because restoring pretty certainly has a part in this all.



nolotrippen said:


> Kind of off topic, but I've never really liked their libraries. This only cements it.



how's THAT helping  ?


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## Dex (Aug 4, 2020)

Do they tell you how many resets you have left? I guess not.


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## AndyP (Aug 4, 2020)

I had once considered buying the HZS, but after the experience with BBCSO I don't buy any more libraries with the new player.


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## Dan Silva (Aug 4, 2020)

About this DRM nightmare, it makes me think there is a problem with this whole model where we spend a lot of money buying things we can’t really own.

If I spend $1000+ on a guitar or a hardware synth, it is mine, it will continue to be mine, and it will pass on to my children in the future. But with any software, I just pay $1000 for the right to use it as long as the company allows me to. If the company ceases to exist, I will never be able to install it again. And it will become obsolete and may not work anymore in a couple years, so it would be useless to my children anyway, even if I could leave it to them.

Now think this is the case with not just one, but with dozens of virtual instruments and libraries a professional musician will buy along the years. Even if we are speaking not of $1000, but of $150-$500, it’s this value multiplied by dozens. It’s a lot of money.

Sure, physical musical instruments also can break and become obsolete, but they can also be fixed and, with proper care, turn into vintage gear and even increase their value.

I think of all the numbered activations, expiring download links, and even a company that charges you to access content you already paid for, and it seems to me that we are not buying anything, we are renting software we have very limited access to. This leaves us in a very vulnerable position.

Forgive me for the rant, but where others are seeing an issue with the Spitfire player (it seems to me there was in fact a technical issue, but it was solved quite easily), I see a situation that could happen with software of almost any company.


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## d.healey (Aug 4, 2020)

Dan Silva said:


> About this DRM nightmare, it makes me think there is a problem with this whole model where we spend a lot of money buying things we can’t really own.


Well duh! 

But seriously you've hit the nail on the head and pointed out something that should be (but seemingly isn't) totally obvious.

You might like this site - https://www.defectivebydesign.org/


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 4, 2020)

There is something to be said about iLok...easy to transfer the dongle to new computers or when you refresh your current one. It’s the one copy protection that has been super easy to port over when I buy a new machine.

Hope Spitfire gets back to you soon! I’ve never had an issue with their player (can’t say the same for Play or SINE), but they need to figure out a way to improve the authorization system it would seem.


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## Greg (Aug 4, 2020)

This is exactly why 3rd party sample hosts make me nervous as hell. EW Play taught me this lesson a long time ago. Sine player lasted 5 minutes in my rig before being deleted. I respect my clients too much to ever risk telling them that I can't recall a session or make stems because of some shit software.


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## jbuhler (Aug 4, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> There is something to be said about iLok...easy to transfer the dongle to new computers or when you refresh your current one. It’s the one copy protection that has been super easy to port over when I buy a new machine.
> 
> Hope Spitfire gets back to you soon! I’ve never had an issue with their player (can’t say the same for Play or SINE), but they need to figure out a way to improve the authorization system it would seem.


I’ve had plenty of issues with ilok over the years, indeed far more than with any other DRM. That said ilok has been very good over the past 4 or 5 years. But my issues with ilok are the basis for my prejudice against dongles.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 4, 2020)

Greg said:


> Sine player lasted 5 minutes in my rig before being deleted.



Same here. I also get really nervous with NI Access, like _really _nervous.


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## Bman70 (Aug 4, 2020)

Greg said:


> This is exactly why 3rd party sample hosts make me nervous as hell. EW Play taught me this lesson a long time ago. Sine player lasted 5 minutes in my rig before being deleted. I respect my clients too much to ever risk telling them that I can't recall a session or make stems because of some shit software.



What do you mean by 3rd party sample hosts? Sorry I'm fairly new to sample libraries and haven't heard the term, and also pre-coffee today. What's an example of a sample host that's 1st party?


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## Greg (Aug 4, 2020)

Bman70 said:


> What do you mean by 3rd party sample hosts? Sorry I'm fairly new to sample libraries and haven't heard the term, and also pre-coffee today. What's an example of a sample host that's 1st party?



Anything other than Kontakt. Spitfire player, Orchestral tools SINE, EW play


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## Amiga500JLK (Aug 4, 2020)

I had a similar problem the other week and of course over a weekend. I'd updated no system files or done any system updates at all apart from a few days previous I'd installed one of the latest labs instruments. 

One thing which I noticed was making the libraries not work was the labs being in the same parent folder with other Spitfire libraries I own. If I repaired the labs then all the other libraries using the player broke, I'd repair those and then the labs wouldn't work and so on until I'd ran out of repair slots on the Eric Whitacre choir which requires 2 repairs each time for the evo and main.

My advice therefore is keep both the labs and paid libraries apart and not in the same parent folder (I had both in a folder called Spitfire for good folder housekeeping).

I will add that support was on it with a quick library reset once they opened on the Monday.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 4, 2020)

Bman70 said:


> pre-coffee




Love that word!


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## Artemi (Aug 4, 2020)

Greg said:


> Sine player lasted 5 minutes in my rig before being deleted.



which library did you use?


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## Greg (Aug 4, 2020)

Artemi said:


> which library did you use?


JXL Brass


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 4, 2020)

I've actually had this with a couple of Kontakt libraries, though I was fortunately under no deadline at the time - I'd just bought a new laptop. (I got through a couple of laptops with some issues that were replaced), and then suddenly a couple of libraries wouldn't re-install.

One of them was Cinematic Strings 2 - Alex quickly sorted it out (fortunately it was what you might call a 'school day'). He sent me this message:

_'No problem at all. It looks like you had hit our install limit, which caused your serial to become locked (this happens automatically). I have just reset your authorisations and unlocked your serial - you should be able to re-authorise when you're ready.'_

Now what is weird that I had installed all my libraries the same number of times as I had replaced laptops. But some libraries needed to be reset by the developer, whilst other libraries from the same developer were fine. So to call out Spitfire on this alone is not entriely fair.

I got to say, though, (and I'm conscious of the fact it isn't entirely helpful here) that performing a system restore mid-project is what you might call a 'courageous' decision. If I'd been in that place, I'd have been sacrificing chickens and virgins to the gods - hoping nothing would break.

So don't go assuming that you won't have this problem with Kontakt libraries, or that it's a Spitfire only issue. It isn't.


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## Dan Silva (Aug 4, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Well duh!
> 
> But seriously you've hit the nail on the head and pointed out something that should be (but seemingly isn't) totally obvious.
> 
> You might like this site - https://www.defectivebydesign.org/



You’re right, this should be pretty obvious, but seeing that what so many people are making of this situation is “Spitfire player sucks”, and not “Spitfire DRM sucks” (even though their Kontakt libraries are managed by the same app, and may be subject to the same restrictions - and even though many other companies have similar policies) makes me think we need to talk a lot more about this. I mean, it seems that a company deliberately limiting your access to something you paid for is just a natural fact of life now. 

Thanks for the link, it’s a nice source on the topic. Very important discussion.


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## MauroPantin (Aug 4, 2020)

I have no problem with DRM as long as it works. I have a ton of Steam games in my gaming PC. Never a problem. And these are games, not a lot of people make a living from gaming and it could be argued that copy protection could be even more aggressive without really hurting anyone. Unlike sample libraries, which people can and usually do make a living with.

The issue is that some sample developers are so concerned with piracy that they start to hinder or damage their legitimate users. I am all for copyright enforcement, just like most of you I get a royalty check every few months, it would be hypocritical not to expect them to defend their IP. But at the same time, they have to recognize that it will happen to some extent and just deal with it without hurting their customers.

In my book the amount of users that it is acceptable to hurt with DRM implementation is zero. If I pay hundreds of dollars not even for a product, but a license to use one, I expect no trouble of this nature. What we are paying for is a sheet of paper away from being literal aether. 

In this particular case, limiting the amount of activations by assigning them to software instead of something like the computer's MAC address or something like that is not smart. If it was assigned to a hardware id OP would not have had this problem. On top of that, not allowing the user some form of control those activations is worse. Even iLok Cloud, which I am not a fan of, allows for that.

If this is not acceptable to the company, then given the nature of the business and the ridiculous time pressure and deadlines we deal with the other option is to have 24/7 support with a maximum of 12-hours resolution times for trouble of this nature.


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## gst98 (Aug 4, 2020)

Greg said:


> This is exactly why 3rd party sample hosts make me nervous as hell. EW Play taught me this lesson a long time ago. Sine player lasted 5 minutes in my rig before being deleted. I respect my clients too much to ever risk telling them that I can't recall a session or make stems because of some shit software.



Tbh I think that was premature. Sine very quickly got stable and is so much faster than Kontakt now. It also is so much more efficient in terms of Ram and file saving. (yes even thought they aren't really comparable products, but to me at the end of the day they just play back samples). It seems like OT spent a lot of time and effort on making SINE, where as it seems that Spitfire spent all the money on paying the designers for the plugin.

And as far as NI/Kontakt, their NI access plugin is written in the Kernel and has actually caused my latop to kernel panic and shut down several times. If you want to talk about "shit software" you should be looking at why NI are in your Kernel. SINE is written far better than anything NI have put out. I mean just look at how loads of NI plugins were crashing Logic in the last update. 

At least for me 9/10 when I have a crash it was an NI product.


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## Greg (Aug 4, 2020)

gst98 said:


> Tbh I think that was premature. Sine very quickly got stable and is so much faster than Kontakt now. It also is so much more efficient in terms of Ram and file saving. (yes even thought they aren't really comparable products, but to me at the end of the day they just play back samples). It seems like OT spent a lot of time and effort on making SINE, where as it seems that Spitfire spent all the money on paying the designers for the plugin.
> 
> And as far as NI/Kontakt, their NI access plugin is written in the Kernel and has actually caused my latop to kernel panic and shut down several times. If you want to talk about "shit software" you should be looking at why NI are in your Kernel. SINE is written far better than anything NI have put out. I mean just look at how loads of NI plugins were crashing Logic in the last update.
> 
> At least for me 9/10 when I have a crash it was an NI product.



Kontakt can be a real pain in the ass too, but I'd rather deal with one pain in the ass instead of 4 all with their own quirks. I hope they get Sine player reliable as it is better than Kontakt. So far I feel like a beta tester though.

I wish they would release the libraries as a Kontakt version along with their player version. Then we have a backup incase an os update or other issue pops up with their player. Sure your DRM stopped pirates, but it also can erode trust with your paying customers.


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## JPQ (Aug 4, 2020)

CGR said:


> How incredibly annoying. Almost without exception every time I call up a Spitfire Player instrument I see an error message saying it needs to be repaired (I'm running Mac OSX 10.11) Often the "repair" process does nothing, so lately I've given up and just choose a reliable and stable Kontakt or UVI based instrument, and avoid the frustration.


and i prrefer to add these VSL stuff. actually mostly VSL and UVI. becouse kontakt gui is so tiny i UVI is bit better.


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## Bluemount Score (Aug 4, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Same here. I also get really nervous with NI Access, like _really _nervous.


Please explain!


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 4, 2020)

Personally, the player I have had the least grief with is the VSL Synchron player, and when there has been the odd issue, the speed with which things are put right is astounding.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 4, 2020)

Bluemount Score said:


> Please explain!



Let's say you have to reinstall a library (or libraries) for some reason. If Native Access is down, you can't download your products (if needed) and even worse, you cannot authorize them. And although it's only happened to me a few times, for some reason certain libraries require reauthorization or go into demo mode. In either case, I needed to submit a support ticket and wait a few days.


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## lpuser (Aug 4, 2020)

Had this drama with Spitfire a few weeks ago as well. Libraries were suddenly no longer showing up, the app reported I should "repair", but it never worked. Investing a lot of unnecessary time to get such issues fixed as a paying customer is nothing short of annoying!


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## Bluemount Score (Aug 4, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Let's say you have to reinstall a library (or libraries) for some reason. If Native Access is down, you can't download your products (if needed) and even worse, you cannot authorize them. And although it's only happened to me a few times, for some reason certain libraries require reauthorization or go into demo mode. In either case, I needed to submit a support ticket and wait a few days.


Makes sense, thank you. This of course doesn't apply to NI Access only.


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## JohnG (Aug 4, 2020)

I use Spitfire products constantly and have deadlines. I have had hiccoughs with practically all the software I use, even the normally infallible VE Pro (once only!).

The title of this thread is wildly overblown.


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## drews (Aug 4, 2020)

JohnG said:


> I use Spitfire products constantly and have deadlines. I have had hiccoughs with practically all the software I use, even the normally infallible VE Pro (once only!).
> 
> The title of this thread is wildly overblown.



How is the title wildly overblown. "The risk of using Spitfire plugin on a commercial project" is pretty accurate when the OP clearly states a risk using spitfire on a commercial project with a deadline. If the title was "You should never use spitfire on a commercial project" than sure thats overblown, but OP never exaggerated anything.


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## Uiroo (Aug 4, 2020)

JohnG said:


> I use Spitfire products constantly and have deadlines. I have had hiccoughs with practically all the software I use, even the normally infallible VE Pro (once only!).
> 
> The title of this thread is wildly overblown.


I don't think it is overblown. Your experience might differ from Sugar Free, but he explains a situation that he finds is exceptional.

I have many, many kontakt libraries and ONE with the spitfire app, EWC (and the labs stuff if that counts). The player has driven me mad, EWC stopped working two times. And I didn't even use it that much. Meanwhile I had zero issues with any kontakt library since I've bought my first libary.
Using it commercially sounds risky to me.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 4, 2020)

Well, at least Spitfire works on ProTools. Sine doesn't yet and I only realized after getting Tableau Strings. 

I get making their own players. But I also know it took EW 5 versions to get a decently working one. And I hear few complaints about 6. From what I understand, one of the reasons, other than DRM, that companies make their own player is that Kontakt is limited in things like number of mics that can be used? I know Embertone ran into this with the Walker. Also, it is easier to sell parts of a library. If you do it through Kontakt, you either can't be a player library or the company has to buy SN's for each instrument, which can be very pricey.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 4, 2020)

Some developer, can’t remember which one, stated a while back that NI has not been particularly responsive to developer requests for Kontakt features, and that this played a role in the developer’s decision to make their own player.


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## easyrider (Aug 4, 2020)

NI can’t even be arsed to update Kontakt with a resizable GUI In 2020.

When 4k screens are the norm. I’m sure Sine and SF will tweak and make their own players more robust.

NI really need to invest some money into making Kontakt visually more easily readable....especially when developers are releasimg cool GUIs in their VIs


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## gst98 (Aug 4, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> Well, at least Spitfire works on ProTools. Sine doesn't yet and I only realized after getting Tableau Strings.
> 
> I get making their own players. But I also know it took EW 5 versions to get a decently working one. And I hear few complaints about 6. From what I understand, one of the reasons, other than DRM, that companies make their own player is that Kontakt is limited in things like number of mics that can be used? I know Embertone ran into this with the Walker. Also, it is easier to sell parts of a library. If you do it through Kontakt, you either can't be a player library or the company has to buy SN's for each instrument, which can be very pricey.




I think there are two reasons. 

1 is piracy. Native instruments piracy protection is so bad (desite the fact that devs have to pay NI a license and one of the reasons is they claim they offer anti piracy) that Damage 2 got leaked to torrent sites before they had announced the teaser trailer, so people who don't even pay a license have access to it before any press emails were sent out. Heavyocity pay the price of having their launched spoiled because NI don't know how to run their platform securely.

2 is the limitations of kontakt. East West have said that they made Play because NI wouldn't add features that they needed to make their products at the time. I'm certain SINE is the same. I was fed up that CAPSULE was making my template save files so big, and did some tests. It appears that whatver OT are doing under the hood to add the functionality of CAPSULE is very resource heavy, and Kontakt cannot handle it very well. As a result my save files were getting enormous. But if you compare it with SINE where OT spent a long time coding very efficently for the features they want, they have made an incredibly fast, efficient and light player. 1000 tracks of CAPSULE purged save file was 8gb in kontakt where as 1000 tracks of SINE was ~90mb. Thats a facotry of 90 better than Kontakt. Not to mention the speed and ease of use of SINE, as well as mic merging features.

The spitfire player on the other hand seems to be a way of preventing piracy I think. I don't have Spitfire Player product, but I get the impression that the Player doesn't have any features that Kontakt doesn't already have? correct me if I'm wrong here. But what confuses me is that if it was anti-piracy, why would they release newer products like NEO back with Kontakt. So I'm not eniterly sure of the point of it after all. Other than maybe the microphones thing.


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2020)

gst98 said:


> NEO back with Kontakt. So I'm not eniterly sure of the point of it after all.



Just a guess but the development of Neo was probably years and they likely started it in Kontakt before their Spitfire player was ready, so they carried on working on it in Kontakt. The amount of work to start again would have been very costly.

I think everything will be changed over eventually.


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## gst98 (Aug 4, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Just a guess but the development of Neo was probably years and they likely started it in Kontakt before their Spitfire player was ready, so they carried on working on it in Kontakt. The amount of work to start again would have been very costly.
> 
> I think everything will be changed over eventually.



yeah that would make a lot of sense.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 4, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Just a guess but the development of Neo was probably years and they likely started it in Kontakt before their Spitfire player was ready, so they carried on working on it in Kontakt. The amount of work to start again would have been very costly.
> 
> I think everything will be changed over eventually.


I also wonder if they wanted consistency within the Albion range.


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> I also wonder if they wanted consistency within the Albion range.



Ah I'm not sure. Otherwise Symphonic Motions would be in Kontakt as it's an "add on" to the Symphonic series. Which is all in Kontakt. I think Motions took a lot less time to make than, for example, Neo (not that it makes either difference to the quality) as they are such different libraries and they want as many people to use the Spitfire player as possible so it's always a good idea to release new products (I hate that word but I had to use it) on it. I can't imagine the Symphonic Orchestra not being ported over to the Spitfire player but I imagine that's a huge job so it's taking a while. Look at OT with Sine. Ark 1 just got moved over to it. The rest will follow.

But yeah, what do I know. Just a guess.


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## Kony (Aug 4, 2020)

I thought Neo was on Kontakt because it was a Loegria rebranding.


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2020)

Kony said:


> I thought Neo was on Kontakt because it was a Loegria rebranding.



Probably!


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## jbuhler (Aug 4, 2020)

EDNA engine is my guess for why Neo is in Kontakt. Has SF ported any of the libraries that use it yet?


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## JohnG (Aug 4, 2020)

drews said:


> How is the title wildly overblown.



It is wildly overblown because:

*1. The OP had a computer problem* -- Computer problems cause -- problems. It could have been another library so why pick on any one developer? It wasn't _caused_ by Spitfire or anything to do with the library, it was the OP's own issue with (presumably) his boot drive or the drive where the library was stored.

*2. Limited Downtime* -- Compared with, say, a destroyed iLok or a failed disk drive that involves a long re-download, even a three-day process to restore a missing library is no worse than you might find with any library; and

*3. Professional composers always will find a workaround.* If they don't (and they should) have a mirrored drive ready to go to restore anything lost, they will have an alternative library that will get the job done, or use a different sound.

It is overblown to imply that this would have been a catastrophe for anyone with that kind of time pressure. People with that kind of gig have backups, more backups, and extra backups so they can always keep going.


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## kimgaboury (Aug 4, 2020)

Basically, you CAN’T move the location of the samples without being dependant on them to do a reset, just to be able to use the libraries using their plugin. I had to do a lot of changes with my SSDs and workflow over the last year, and having to write to them every time, and wait a few days for a reply, is extremely annoying and even arrogant on their part. I hate the way they have implemented this.


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## colony nofi (Aug 4, 2020)

Kony said:


> I thought Neo was on Kontakt because it was a Loegria rebranding.


Neo isn't Loegria rebranded - what ever gave you that idea?
Its a completely different library, and many of us use both all the time...


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> Neo isn't Loegria rebranded - what ever gave you that idea?



Because in one of Christian Henson's recent YouTube videos he said Neo is Albion 2's replacement.


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## Kony (Aug 4, 2020)

Also because Loegria was removed from sale shortly before Neo was launched.


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## jononotbono (Aug 4, 2020)

Kony said:


> Also because Loegria was removed from sale shortly before Neo was launched.



Sorry, it looks like I was answering for you. I was actually quoted and now the post has been edited.
Anyway, whatever. I need to stop talking about Spitfire. I'll end up buying something.


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## Kony (Aug 4, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Sorry, it looks like I was answering for you. I was actually quoted and now the post has been edited.
> Anyway, whatever. I need to stop talking about Spitfire. I'll end up buying something.


No prob Jono!


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## drews (Aug 4, 2020)

JohnG said:


> It is wildly overblown because:
> 
> *1. The OP had a computer problem* -- Computer problems cause -- problems. It could have been another library so why pick on any one developer? It wasn't _caused_ by Spitfire or anything to do with the library, it was the OP's own issue with (presumably) his boot drive or the drive where the library was stored.
> 
> ...


Not trying to argue a ton here because obviously your mind is made up. But the title of the post was " The risk of using Spitfire plugin on a commercial project " and you said the title was wildly overblown and have now listed everything thats not to do with the title. The title didnt say that using spitfire would be catastrophic, merely that there is a risk involved in using a library by a developer that has a bad DRM system. Also i just want to point out that one, SSD's in any kind of raid can be problematic when we are using libraries. 

Also it's kind of funny that you keep mentioning having backups, more backups, and extra backups. You do realize that by having multiple backups that you'll have used up all your resets and unless you have SSD backups which im sure nobody here uses SSD's as backup drives. That moving the library from your backup back to your SSD would most likely incur a Reset, and if you have used all your resets on backups then you have to go through support anyway because you're now back to square one with the issue. I just don't see why you feel the need to defend a company's bad DRM practices, and at the same time victim blame a fellow user on this forum.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 4, 2020)

drews said:


> Not trying to argue a ton here because obviously your mind is made up. But the title of the post was " The risk of using Spitfire plugin on a commercial project "



Fair enough, but why pick on SF? One could post a thread titled "the risk of using a computer to meet a looming deadline". I don't know what's worse....using up the rests (which I have never done once over the years), or having to do a system recovery right in the middle of a project.


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## drews (Aug 4, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Fair enough, but why pick on SF? One could post a thread titled "the risk of using a computer to meet a looming deadline". I don't know what's worse....using up the rests (which I have never done once over the years), or having to do a system recovery right in the middle of a project.



Because SF is the only one that i know of, actually in pretty much all of software that uses a DRM system that isn't attached to any hardware or account ID, and also requires you to contact the company to essentially deactivate old activations. Like ilok isnt amazing, but theres multiple ways to have access to your license. NI isnt amazing with the Native Access, but their DRM doesn't actually have teeth with the license limits, so in the end it doesn't hurt the consumer. 

It wouldn't be any issue at all if SF had a setting like 95% of all other software to be able to deactivate all prior devices without going through support. Think about how windows handles DRM, it's tied to hardware ID and when you enter an already used serial, you have the option to deactivate the previous one. Also the fact that a redownload, repair, or moving a library counts towards your limit is absolutely anti consumer and insane


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## JohnG (Aug 4, 2020)

drews said:


> But the title of the post was " The risk of using Spitfire plugin on a commercial project "



I work full time at this and am on a series -- a "commercial project" -- using tons of Spitfire day in, day out. I flatly disagree with the OP about the 'risk' being any worse with Spitfire. In fact, it's far less than would be the case if you accidentally smash an iLok because the delay with Spitfire would be considerably less.



drews said:


> I just don't see why you feel the need to defend a company's bad DRM practices, and at the same time victim blame a fellow user on this forum.



He's a victim of a computer failure, not Spitfire. Computers are fallible. Professionals with deadlines (to which he alludes) are not going to be stuck, unable to work, because one library is inaccessible for a few days. You just use something else and keep going.

Moreover, I don't agree that the DRM policies at Spitfire are "bad." I have had 10x the troubles with Native Access that I've had with Spitfire. 

Nobody likes DRM. It can take hours to navigate through Microsoft, plus emails, receipts etc. if your boot drive blows up or you have to replace a motherboard. 

If DRM is effective (iLok, East West), there is always inconvenience or extra demand on the CPU, but the companies with DRM that works stay in business. It's like complaining about the weather.


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## drews (Aug 4, 2020)

This isn't a black and white issue. You can be a victim of a computer failure AND bad DRM system. Lets use an example where his library got corrupted using ilok. All he has to do is redownload the library and it works. Lets use an example of Davinci resolve where they give you 2 licenses. If both computers fail and you have to get a new one, it gives you a message that says something like "You've reached the maximum activation limit, would you like to deactivate a device?" The problem with spitfire is that last option is you have to email support, which is inherently problematic. Why can't they make it an automatic system when almost every other company has no issues doing it?









Installing Heavyocity Damage on Multiple Computers?


I have Cubase 5 and the free Kontact Player installed on both my PC desktop and my MacBook Pro. I've bought Heavyocity Damage and installed it onto the...




www.native-instruments.com





Check out that thread on how NI and heavyocity handle it. They dont require you to uninstall the previous, its merely a legal thing.


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## Quasar (Aug 4, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> So what good is... if the authorization system depends on availability of support representatives?



This. No authorization system should ever be dependent on remote availability.


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## drews (Aug 4, 2020)

Quasar said:


> This. No authorization system should ever be dependent on remote availability.


i dont understand why its so hard to get this point


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## Sugar Free (Aug 4, 2020)

FYI, Spitfire customer service got back to me and reset the download limit for my BBCSO.
The response took two days...

I was able to reset and re-download the library, after which I got the red warning mark in the SF player. I had to perform "repair"... several times. Eventually, I deleted the Patches and Presets folders, after which the "repair" finally worked.
The whole process felt incredibly random. Even after the final, successful attempt, the SF app would show red exclamation marks, when in fact it just needed to be restarted one more time.
I am not sure, how much all of this used up my recharged "reset" limit. Am I maxed out again?

Some of you wondered, how I used my previous "resets" in the first place. Looking back, it was only on two occasions. Once, I wanted to move the library to another hard drive. The second time was simply updating my BBCSO to the latest version, which completely messed up the whole library and again required multiple repairs/resets.

Even if you follow the rule of not changing anything in the system on a project, there are times you may have to, either because of a technical issue or due to a creative need. I said, I noticed the problem after recovering my system to an earlier point via TimeMachine, but I don't actually "know" that this was the case. For me, TimeMachine has always been the safest tool to roll back, if I thought I'd done something I shouldn't have. Could it have interfered with Spitfire copy protection? Maybe..., but should it be able to?


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## Uiroo (Aug 5, 2020)

JohnG said:


> In fact, it's far less than would be the case if you accidentally smash an iLok because the delay with Spitfire would be considerably less.


About that, is that something that regularly happens to people?
My iLok is plugged into my USB Hub, and gets unplugged once a year when I change my setup.
Not that worried to smash it.
Or do you mean software issues?

The 'risk' using the spitifre player is that, if you have to move a library mid project, you might end up resetting and repairing it until you need to contact support.
I had the exact same issue with EWC, moved it to another hard drive, stopped working, contacted support. Simply shouldn't be the case, and it isn't with any other library I know of.


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## aspenleaf (Aug 5, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> FYI, Spitfire customer service got back to me and reset the download limit for my BBCSO.
> The response took two days...
> 
> I was able to reset and re-download the library, after which I got the red warning mark in the SF player. I had to perform "repair"... several times. Eventually, I deleted the Patches and Presets folders, after which the "repair" finally worked.
> ...


This happened to me also, and under the same circumstances except that I was on a Windows 10 computer. It took them 5 days to get back to me and give me more resets. When I asked how many resets I had they ignored that question. I asked if I would have to go through this again if I installed a new drive and they said it shouldn't be a problem. I don't have much confidence in that statement.


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## synthesizerwriter (Aug 5, 2020)

Not having a 24/365 support presence seems like a major failure to me. I hope Christian Henson is reading this thread...


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Aug 5, 2020)

kimgaboury said:


> Basically, you CAN’T move the location of the samples without being dependant on them to do a reset, just to be able to use the libraries using their plugin. I had to do a lot of changes with my SSD’s and workflow over the last year, and having to write them everytime, and wait a few days for a reply, is extremely annoying and even arrogant on their part. I hate the way they have implemented this.


Kim!!!! Allô!!!


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## styledelk (Aug 5, 2020)

All DRM is dependent on remote availability, internet or human, aside from the USB keys (and even those require it initially). If they allowed you to deauthorize a prior computer, and you had that computer off the internet, that computer would never know it was deauthorized. Now you could sell it someone else, duplicate the drives, forge the machine ids.


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## babylonwaves (Aug 5, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> I said, I noticed the problem after recovering my system to an earlier point via TimeMachine, but I don't actually "know" that this was the case. For me, TimeMachine has always been the safest tool to roll back, if I thought I'd done something I shouldn't have.


@Sugar Free: just out of curiosity - why did you have to do this?


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## Levon (Aug 5, 2020)

My iLok for Cubase gave me all sorts of bother. Final straw was when it took Cubase Support around 4 weeks to respond to my support ticket to then have them assume that because it had taken them 4 weeks to respond that my issue would surely be resolved by now (without their support) and that they where closing the ticket and if it was still a problem I was to then raise another ticket! Needless to say the issue was still unresolved when they closed the ticket. I switched to Logic after that experience.


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## Zee (Aug 5, 2020)

Fair warning, this is another generic disgruntled comment about SA that you should probably skip

As a consumer solely the main benefits of 3rd party Player would be a demo, a la carte purchase and maybe a subscription model and so far Spitfire doesn't seem interested in the last two, correct me if i'm wrong but this is what i got from their communications maybe i've missed some posts
So what do i get as a selfish self centered consumer? the demo version of the library (let's for the sake of this argument assume that the 200mb version of the library that is at least 23GB is enough to make a purchase decision) isn't that the same as the free version or freebies that other developers release some times ? 
So far i'm only seeing drawbacks to this engine other than the technical limitations but for me personally I'd rather get something that i can work around rather than a brick wall that locks me out solely to discourage some A-hole who got it illegally from using it to make a loop or use it on a track that 4 of his freinds would listen to and say "nice"


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## ism (Aug 5, 2020)

Sounds like a legitimate pain alright, hopefully SF can do some streamlining or some such.

But in perspective

- I've had trouble with Kontakt / Native access also. Except that NI suppport take 2-3 weeks to reply.

- I'd had even worst issues with the copy protection going wrong on Adobe software - doing real damage, taking months to completely resolve.

- my VSL issues are spectacular and catastrophic compared this. (To the point that I will never buy VSL again)


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 5, 2020)

Isn't it possible to watermark software and then simply give the buyer a serial number once and for all? Then if the software gets spread illegally, the developer checks the watermark to see who spread it.

(But I guess if it was that easy, then that's what the developers would do instead of the current anti-pirate stuff)


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## Zee (Aug 5, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> Isn't it possible to watermark software and then simply give the buyer a serial number once and for all? Then if the software gets spread illegally, the developer checks the watermark to see who spread it.


That's already what happens, the problem comes in the next steps, pursuing legal actions didn't do much and most of the time the purchase is made with a stolen card number


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

Zee said:


> Fair warning, this is another generic disgruntled comment about SA that you should probably skip
> 
> As a consumer solely the main benefits of 3rd party Player would be a demo, a la carte purchase and maybe a subscription model and so far Spitfire doesn't seem interested in the last two, correct me if i'm wrong but this is what i got from their communications maybe i've missed some posts
> So what do i get as a selfish self centered consumer? the demo version of the library (let's for the sake of this argument assume that the 200mb version of the library that is at least 23GB is enough to make a purchase decision) isn't that the same as the free version or freebies that other developers release some times ?
> So far i'm only seeing drawbacks to this engine other than the technical limitations but for me personally I'd rather get something that i can work around rather than a brick wall that locks me out solely to discourage some A-hole who got it illegally from using it to make a loop or use it on a track that 4 of his freinds would listen to and say "nice"


The Lab model requires their own player as do the inexpensive line of $29 libraries not requiring the full version of Kontakt. “Required” is perhaps too strong but they would be difficult to do without one’s own player.

I’ve come to prefer the SF player to Kontakt for most things, just because the larger size of the GUI makes everything more legible. Same is true for the Sine player.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 5, 2020)

Zee said:


> That's already what happens, the problem comes in the next steps, pursuing legal actions didn't do much and most of the time the purchase is made with a stolen card number


Ah, didn't think of that.


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## ism (Aug 5, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> Isn't it possible to watermark software and then simply give the buyer a serial number once and for all? Then if the software gets spread illegally, the developer checks the watermark to see who spread it.
> 
> (But I guess if it was that easy, then that's what the developers would do instead of the current anti-pirate stuff)



Copy protection is a pain no matter what choices you make. 

8dio does something like what you're talking about, and I'm sure they have their technical and buisness reasons.

It's certain worth complaining when something goes wrong. And voting with one's feet when something goes very wrong. I respect that VSL approach works for some people, but it's proven extremely harmful to me as a customer, so I vote with my feet. Conversely, Spitfire's no resale policy doesn't bother me too much, but for others it's a dealbreaker and they'd much prefer dongle. But then, widely pirated ip damages legitimate customers in a number of ways also.

But the discussions around technical feasibility and business model implications are going to be complex and individual to every ip developer. And proprietary. 

We're not going to understand the intricacies, but these are market decisions, so I try not to angst too much about it - at least , now that I've got the experience to know what I can live with.


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## Zee (Aug 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> I’ve come to prefer the SF player to Kontakt for most things, just because the larger size of the GUI makes everything more legible. Same is true for the Sine player.


Ok i'll give you this one, the GUI size is a big plus but realistically speaking if you're using a vienna setup most of the time you interact with it using midi at least that's how it is after saving your own patches


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## dzilizzi (Aug 5, 2020)

Zee said:


> That's already what happens, the problem comes in the next steps, pursuing legal actions didn't do much and most of the time the purchase is made with a stolen card number


8Dio does that. But I don't think they are as popular as Spitfire. Though they get the same positive/negative feedback. And? you can only use full Kontakt for their products.

Edit: ISM got here first.


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## ism (Aug 5, 2020)

I think there was a small developer on a thread here a while ago talk about how a single fraudulent credit card is used to buy a copy of a lib, put it up on a torrent, and that once this happens sales plummet almost immediately.

So watermarking is a nice idea, but as imperfect as any other solution.

And I have sever issues with (and love for, especially since Insolidus) 8dio also.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 5, 2020)

I like Toontrack's DRM. Only I am limited to two computers. Usually not a problem. You can go online or through their app to remove the authorization from a computer and add another one. Has worked well through many computer switches.


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

Zee said:


> Ok i'll give you this one, the GUI size is a big plus but realistically speaking if you're using a vienna setup most of the time you interact with it using midi at least that's how it is after saving your own patches


Not everyone does. I’d be willing to wager that most don’t. I don’t. Even those who do seem to interact with the GUI frequently. At least when I watch folks with VEP doing composing livestreams there is always an amount of interacting with the library’s GUI.


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> I like Toontrack's DRM. Only I am limited to two computers. Usually not a problem. You can go online or through their app to remove the authorization from a computer and add another one. Has worked well through many computer switches.


what’s the policy if the computer dies before you can remove the authorizations?


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## Zee (Aug 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> what’s the policy if the computer dies before you can remove the authorizations?


could be a different solution but here's how it'd work if i was making the API
The key doesn't live on your computer but on their server, you get the second pair on your system when you login the app checks the API if they two pairs match and then authorizes your setup, you use your web account to request a new key pair which automatically invalidates the old one


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## styledelk (Aug 5, 2020)

Zee said:


> could be a different solution but here's how it'd work if i was making the API
> The key doesn't live on your computer but on their server, you get the second pair on your system when you login the app checks the API if they two pairs match and then authorizes your setup, you use your web account to request a new key pair which automatically invalidates the old one



What happens if that other computer instead didn't break, but just hasn't been on the internet in a year?

Edit: with typical authentication schemes on the web and in other software, you'd set a timed-life token that will die eventually, regardless of whether it's on the internet. And then periodically it would re-up its lifetime from the server. But that conflicts with the very-strange and backwards way modern composers seem to want to keep their computers off the internet.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> what’s the policy if the computer dies before you can remove the authorizations?


Go online. You don't have to have access to the computer to remove the authorization. And? I don't know how often it phones home or if it ever does.


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## Zee (Aug 5, 2020)

styledelk said:


> What happens if that other computer instead didn't break, but just hasn't been on the internet in a year?


One of two things either after a while it'l ask for a connection for the periodic update or it'll allow you to continue, depends on the business owner decision


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## dzilizzi (Aug 5, 2020)

styledelk said:


> What happens if that other computer instead didn't break, but just hasn't been on the internet in a year?
> 
> Edit: with typical authentication schemes on the web and in other software, you'd set a timed-life token that will die eventually, regardless of whether it's on the internet. And then periodically it would re-up its lifetime from the server. But that conflicts with the very-strange and backwards way modern composers seem to want to keep their computers off the internet.


I could probably check. I have an old computer with Toontrack on it. Just not sure what I did with it.....


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> Go online. You don't have to have access to the computer to remove the authorization. And? I don't know how often it phones home or if it ever does.


Glad to hear Toontrack has this capability. I think it’s the ilok computer authorizations that are not straightforward to move off a computer that dies since the ordinary way to access authorizations for that computer is from that computer. There may well be a workaround but the ilok authorization program does not tell you how to do it. I’ve not yet had to recover one of these authorizations because I only had given computer authorizations for plugins that allowed multiple authorizations but it has made me leery of using computer authorizations for ilok.


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## daviddln (Aug 5, 2020)

This is why I love VSL so much. Yes, you need a dongle, but you can download your libraries as many times as you want and you don't need their permission to move the libraries to another ssd.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 5, 2020)

daviddln said:


> This is why I love VSL so much. Yes, you need a dongle, but you can download your libraries as many times as you want and you don't need their permission to move the libraries to another ssd.


Same with iLok. And actually, I use a USB drive for my Waves authorizations also. I have a 4 port USB hub that has my iLok, eLicenser, Waves USB drive, and codemeter on it. It takes one slot and can easily move from computer to computer. 

The Waves drive died at one point. I emailed customer service and explained the problem. Since I'd had Waves for 10 years at that point and never asked for a reset, even though I didn't have a current WUP, they did it. They said normally, if you have a current WUP and you lose authorization, they will fix it. 

I haven't had a problem with any of the other licensers, but I usually change them out every few years.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 5, 2020)

daviddln said:


> This is why I love VSL so much. Yes, you need a dongle, but you can download your libraries as many times as you want and you don't need their permission to move the libraries to another ssd.



which is great until you lose/break the dongle. If you don’t buy their insurance, you need to purchase a new license.


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> which is great until you lose/break the dongle. If you don’t buy their insurance, you need to purchase a new license.



VSL's page on why one should pay them for "protection" every two years on top of paying them for a dongle and for their libraries is easily the most obnoxious thing that I've read from any company in this business


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 5, 2020)

Do people lose or break their dongles often? I guess if you have a mobile setup, the risk is potentially higher, but for those of us with fixed studios (especially right now), I don't see it as a problem. I have been using eLicenser and iLok dongles for 15 years and not once have I ever had an issue with either of them. YMMV of course.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 5, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Do people lose or break their dongles often? I guess if you have a mobile setup, the risk is potentially higher, but for those of us with fixed studios (especially right now), I don't see it as a problem. I have been using eLicenser and iLok dongles for 15 years and not once have I ever had an issue with either of them. YMMV of course.


Sure, but hardware will always fail, it's just a question of when. And when your VSL dongle fails, they'll charge you 50% of the cost of all your libraries to get them back, unless you paid them the "insurance" or, more accurately, protection money.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 5, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Do people lose or break their dongles often? I guess if you have a mobile setup, the risk is potentially higher, but for those of us with fixed studios (especially right now), I don't see it as a problem. I have been using eLicenser and iLok dongles for 15 years and not once have I ever had an issue with either of them. YMMV of course.



same here....but I know that one day it’s going to happen. It’s actually crazy that we’re relying on a $.35 chip to carry us through to deadlines.


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## daviddln (Aug 5, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> which is great until you lose/break the dongle. If you don’t buy their insurance, you need to purchase a new license.



Well, I have their Protection Plan so I don't really care about that. And if 35 Euros a year is the price for freedom, I'm okay with that.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 5, 2020)

SupremeFist said:


> Sure, but hardware will always fail, it's just a question of when. And when your VSL dongle fails, they'll charge you 50% of the cost of all your libraries to get them back, unless you paid them the "insurance" or, more accurately, protection money.



Well 15 years is pretty good so far - and you can always transfer your licenses to a new dongle ($30) every let's say 5 years if you're worried about a hardware failure. If your computer fails and you have licenses tied to that, that can also be an issue for some developers. Of course, a cloud based solution where you can authorize or unauthorize devices from a self-serve interface is also great - Apple and iTunes has been doing that for years.


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

I wonder why Spitfire doesn't offer a level of support that would put a professional in @Sugar Free's position at the front of the line and include weekend access. The way to do this, without having to vet who is and isn't a pro, is to charge a reasonable annual fee. I have to believe that Spitfire has considered this. Maybe they think that there isn't enough of a market for it, or perhaps they think that offering a preferential level of support could become a flash point for their customer base as a whole.

Are any of the main sample companies doing this?


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## Mike Fox (Aug 5, 2020)

I personally don't like Spitfire's approach to this. Even if you make backups of backups, it sounds like you're still at the mercy of a live representative to authorize these resets, correct?

There's a reason why automation exists.

And even if there are "workarounds", it doesn't justify the amount of time wasted trying to figure out those workarounds, especially when you're on a strict deadline.

There really should be a more effecient system in place to prevent or better assist these types of situations.


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## Manuel Stumpf (Aug 5, 2020)

@Jeremy Spencer and @SupremeFist 
The situation is not as worse as you both point out.
A broken dongle nowadays is handled completely different than a lost one.
See here: https://www.vsl.co.at/en/MyVSL/MyProtection_Plans

Without insurance:
When your dongle breaks (and you can send it back) you get a replacement license for 20€ per license.
When your dongle breaks within its 2 years guarantee, you get the licenses back for free.

Only a lost key is a real problem (you are going to be charged 50% of the licenses).

With insurance:
Basically everything is covered. And you get your licenses back quicker.

It is like owning a car.
Something breaks, it is going to be fixed for free during guarantee, repair costs when out of guarantee.
If it is stolen? You'd better have a good insurance on that car!


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## d.healey (Aug 5, 2020)

daviddln said:


> And if 35 Euros a year is the price for freedom, I'm okay with that.


First time I've heard DRM referred to as freedom...


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> I personally don't like Spitfire's approach to this. Even if you make backups of backups, it sounds like you're still at the mercy of a live representative to authorize these resets, correct?
> 
> There's a reason why automation exists.



No, you can do a reset unilaterally unless you're about to exceed the number of unilateral resets allowed for the library in question.


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Manuel Stumpf said:


> It is like owning a car.



No it isn't. I get transportation from a car. I get nothing from a dongle. Its sole purpose is to protect VSL's rights. VSL not only requires me to pay to protect its rights by buying a dongle, but also urges me to pay it "protection" money (its word) every two years.


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## Manuel Stumpf (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> No it isn't. I get transportation from a car. I get nothing from a dongle. Its sole purpose is to protect VSL's rights, and VSL not only wants me to pay to protect its rights, but also urges me to pay "protection" money (its word) every two years.


I am not defending dongle policy here. But the fact you have to pay 50% license cost for a broken dongle is just plain wrong.
Best DRM is still like FabFilter. Simply a license file I put on any machine I use.
Not tied to hardware, not tied to any online server of the manufacturer (which you rely on in most of the non-dongle libraries, in the hope the service never becomes unavailable).


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## jononotbono (Aug 5, 2020)

Manuel Stumpf said:


> Best DRM is still like FabFilter. Simply a license file I put on any machine I use.
> Not tied to hardware, not tied to any online server of the manufacturer (which you rely on in most of the non-dongle libraries, in the hope the service never becomes unavailable).



Has Fab Filter been cracked? I don’t hangout in Hacker circles so I don’t have a clue but if so then it’s the worst DRM about. 😂


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## styledelk (Aug 5, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Has Fab Filter been cracked? I don’t hangout in Hacker circles so I don’t have a clue but if so then it’s the worst DRM about. 😂



Yes. But the plugins phone home on the internet, and they have a blacklist of sorts for the license files that are known to have gotten out. They kindly add whitenoise to your mixes when you're using them, periodically. It's a nice middle finger for doing wrong.


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## Manuel Stumpf (Aug 5, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Has Fab Filter been cracked? I don’t hangout in Hacker circles so I don’t have a clue but if so then it’s the worst DRM about. 😂


Your license is provided as a file containing the encrypted license key.
And obviously that company is still alive and kicking. No matter if some people try to hack it or not.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> unless you're about to exceed the number of unilateral resets allowed for the library in question.



So how many of these "unilateral" resets are you granted?


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> So how many of these "unilateral" resets are you granted?



I'd be interested to know myself. Perhaps this info is in the Spitfire FAQ.

I did a reset yesterday.

I upgraded from BBC Core to BBC Pro and put Pro in a new directory. In retrospect, I should have downloaded it to the Core directory. In any event, I had two choices: move the Core files to the Pro directory or re-download Core to the Pro directory. I chose to re-download, which is what a reset is, because Core isn't a lot of data and I didn't want to deal with any directory structure/content issues on a move. A re-download/reset was just more idiot proof


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> VSL's page on why one should pay them for "protection" every two years on top of paying them for a dongle and for their libraries is easily the most obnoxious thing that I've read from any company in this business



What's particularly obnoxious about it? I just looked at it and came back disappointed.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> I'd be interested to know myself. Perhaps this info is in the Spitfire FAQ.
> 
> I did one yesterday.
> 
> I upgraded from BBC Core to BBC Pro, but put Pro in a new directory. In retrospect, I should have downloaded it to the Core directory. In any event, I had two choices: move the Core files to the Pro directory or re-download Core to the Pro directory. I chose to re-download, which is what a reset is, because Core isn't a lot of data and I didn't want to deal with any directory structure/content issues on a move.


Hm....

Ok, so the number of self allotted resets isn't obvious, and there's no dialogue box that pops up to inform you of this info?


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> What's particularly obnoxious about it? I just looked at it and came back disappointed.



You are clearly the kind of client that VSL hopes for


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## styledelk (Aug 5, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> Hm....
> 
> Ok, so the number of self allotted resets isn't obvious, and there's no dialogue box that pops up to inform you of this info?



No.. but it's at least 2, since they let you install onto two computers. Likely not more than 3.


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> Hm....
> 
> Ok, so the number of self allotted resets isn't obvious, and there's no dialogue box that pops up to inform you of this info?



I caused the problem myself and I fixed the problem unilaterally. I'm not particularly surprised that there is a limit to the number of times one can unilaterally re-download a library. As a matter of curiosity, I'd be happy to know what the limit is, but I don't care enough to go through their FAQ or send them a note asking. If you care enough, go ahead and find out


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## Mike Fox (Aug 5, 2020)

styledelk said:


> No.. but it's at least 2, since they let you install onto two computers. Likely not more than 3.


In that case I think it's just common courtesey to somehow make it obvious to your customer that their resets are about to expire. Kinda like when you forget your password to your online banking account, and it tells you how many more attempts are left before you are locked out of your account.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> I caused the problem myself and I fixed the problem unilaterally. I'm not particularly surprised that there is a limit to the number of times one can unilaterally re-download a library. As a matter of curiosity, I'd be happy to know what the limit is, but I don't care enough to go through their FAQ or send them a note asking. If you care enough, go ahead


Nah, it's all good. I really don't have a dog in this fight since, since the only library i have that requires their player is Epic Strings.

I'm just not a fan of their "3 strikes you're out" approach (or is it 2 strikes?). It's a sample library, not a bank account, and It's completely inconvenient for the consumer, especially if you have to wait up to 5 days to even get a response from customer support.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 5, 2020)

Manuel Stumpf said:


> Without insurance:
> When your dongle breaks (and you can send it back) you get a replacement license for 20€ per license.



And then what.....wait several weeks after mailing it from Canada to Austria and back again? That’s $120 CDN (I have two VEPro licenses), plus shipping and a lot of waiting.


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

Mike Fox said:


> Hm....
> 
> Ok, so the number of self allotted resets isn't obvious, and there's no dialogue box that pops up to inform you of this info?


Yeah, it's not clear why SF can't offer temporary automated resets until support can get back to you.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> No it isn't. I get transportation from a car. I get nothing from a dongle. Its sole purpose is to protect VSL's rights. VSL not only requires me to pay to protect its rights by buying a dongle, but also urges me to pay it "protection" money (its word) every two years.



This. Plus, it’s like the car salesman saying “thanks for buying a brand new car. If you don’t buy our extended warranty, you’ll have to buy another one at half price if it breaks down”.


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## Mike Fox (Aug 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> Yeah, it's not clear why SF can't offer temporary automated resets until support can get back to you.


I think it's the least they could do if they're going to implement a system like this.


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## jononotbono (Aug 5, 2020)

Manuel Stumpf said:


> Your license is provided as a file containing the encrypted license key.
> And obviously that company is still alive and kicking. No matter if some people try to hack it or not.




Yes, I use and love Fab Filter plugins so I know how it works. I asked if they have been cracked and if they have then their DRM is shit and doesn’t work. I’m not interested in whether some DRM is more convenient for the user, I’m interested in it actually working to stop piracy. Otherwise there’s no point in this half arsed shit.

Regardless if the company is alive and kicking, I don’t praise anything to do with piracy and theft. People should get a fucking job and earn money if they want something in life. Why people think it’s ok to just take things for free is beyond the scope of my intellect unfortunately. 

Anyway, that’s a different topic altogether.

Spitfire...


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 5, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> This. Plus, it’s like the car salesman saying “thanks for buying a brand new car. If you don’t buy our extended warranty, you’ll have to buy another one at half price if it breaks down”.



You know what I get from the VSL dongle ?

- I get the right to return any library I don't like for whatever reason within 14 days for a full refund.

- I get the ability to move libraries to any computer I want by only having to pull the dongle from one computer and put it into another.

- I get the right the resell libraries when i don't want/need them any more.

- I get to run libraries in the Sycnhron player, which has been by far the best front end for a sample library I have ever used.

All this for 35 euros a year. When I look at the money I've wasted on libraries that never lived up their marketing that I'm lumbered with for life - unable to refund/resell, it makes that 35 euros look like pretty small beer....

But you get the right to spend the money where you like, and you can vote with your wallet.

Also I don't get why this is a 'Spitfire issue on resets'. As I stated before, I have had to ask for resets from other software vendors, once with NI themsleves ant they took three days to sort it.... Alex for Cinematic Strings was 2 days, but he is on the other side of the planet.....


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## d.healey (Aug 5, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> You know what I get from the VSL dongle ?
> 
> - I get the right to return any library I don't like for whatever reason within 14 days for a full refund.
> 
> ...


You could have all those things without a dongle too. DRM doesn't exist for your benefit so any benefit you find you can also have without the DRM.


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## styledelk (Aug 5, 2020)

d.healey said:


> You could have all those things without a dongle too. DRM doesn't exist for your benefit so any benefit you find you can also have without the DRM.



The makers also deserve the benefits it affords them.


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 5, 2020)

d.healey said:


> You could have all those things without a dongle too. DRM doesn't exist for your benefit so any benefit you find you can also have without the DRM.



I'm just wondering which other developer that offers that then ?

All products have their pros and cons, and for me, the cons of the VSL dongle are far outweighed by pros, which I listed above. Sure, I'd prefer not to have a dongle, and I think the insurance is less than ideal, but on balance I can live with it. If you can't, well thats up to you, but it's not all negative from VSL. There are benefits.

The biggie for me is refunds on products that have not lived up to expectations, as you never can be sure what you are getting until you have parted with your money. Both the Spitfire Player and OT's Sine player both could have given that option - but funnily enough, neither of them decided to go that route....

What I can't understand is why developers could not do something along the lines of the activation of Adobe Creative Suite. You get two activations, and it is easy to activate/deactivate online with no humnan intervention. Cannot understand why they didn't try to do something like that.....


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> Also I don't get why this is a 'Spitfire issue on resets'. As I stated before, I have had to ask for resets from other software vendors, once with NI themsleves ant they took three days to sort it.... Alex for Cinematic Strings was 2 days, but he is on the other side of the planet.....



That's interesting, so it isn't just Spitfire.


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## d.healey (Aug 5, 2020)

styledelk said:


> The makers also deserve the benefits it affords them.



I don't believe a developer that imposes restrictions on their users and disavows personal property deserves anything. And regardless of what I believe it is demonstrably possible to run a successful software business without DRM.



Michael Antrum said:


> I'm just wondering which other developer that offers that then ?


Well my libraries don't have DRM, but I'm a small fish. Plenty of Kontakt libraries are DRM free (Kontakt itself of course isn't). In the gaming realm GOG is mostly DRM free.



> as you never can be sure what you are getting until you have parted with your money.


This is a major problem. I think demo packs are a good idea, and remote testing (although not currently possible for most devs). A cooling off period is also reasonable.


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## David Kudell (Aug 5, 2020)

If you don’t have an up to date time machine backup at all times, I admire your bravery. There are a myriad of issues just waiting to ruin your day, specific plugin issues are just one of a hundred things. Plenty of AAA composers using Spitfire plugins.


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## styledelk (Aug 5, 2020)

d.healey said:


> I don't believe a developer that imposes restrictions on their users and disavows private property deserves anything. And regardless of what I believe it is demonstrably possible to run a successful software business without DRM.



I don't disagree that it's possible to run a business without. But as for private property, it's the developer's private property. We merely have a license to it. It is not our private property. That's the way the world works today. Even hardware is increasingly license-based, despite being provided to you in physical form.

It's a shaky foundation, for sure, but it's also one of the ingenious creations of humanity, to have but not own, to embrace its ability to build systems of authority through cooperation and the written word alone.

If it were to own? Surely we would be charged a whole lot more for it. Even so... it runs on a platform (let's say Kontakt) that is licensed and not owned, which itself runs on a platform (Windows, MacOS) that is licensed, and not owned, all of which is built on patents and source libraries that are often licensed and not owned. So it goes.


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## d.healey (Aug 5, 2020)

styledelk said:


> it's the developer's private property. We merely have a license to it. It is not our private property.


There is the problem. I like to own the things I pay for. This is why I don't buy anything with DRM and I run free software whenever possible.


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

I think the lesson from this thread is that people who are doing time-critical work should have two computers, each one loaded with the apps and libraries that are needed to complete the job.

This is just basic backup/redundancy advice and applies regardless of whose libraries one is using.

It's a matter of having backed up tools, starting with computers that can fail, and not just backed up data.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 5, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> All this for 35 euros a year.



It’s now 70 euros...






Virtual Instruments, Samples, Audio Software - Vienna Symphonic Library


Vienna Symphonic Library creates high-end orchestral sample libraries and software for professional music productions.




www.vsl.co.at





You make some great points, I just don’t feel it’s fair from the developer’s standpoint. And aside from VEPro (which I love), it’s the only VSL product I’ll own until (if) they change things.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> You are clearly the kind of client that VSL hopes for



Aah. As much substance as I expected.


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## method1 (Aug 5, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> It’s now 70 euros...



For two years.


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## jononotbono (Aug 5, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> I have yet to be in a pop/hiphop writing session where one of the laptops in the room DID NOT have cracked waves AND cracked Fabfilter.



Yeah it’s total dog shit.

One of the funniest things I find are bands promoting their unsigned stuff and asking people to buy their albums and singles. “Help Support local musicians”. Ok then. 😂


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 5, 2020)

styledelk said:


> It's a shaky foundation, for sure, but it's also one of the ingenious creations of humanity, to have but not own,....



But that’s a pretty good description of how musicians sell their music to their customers.....


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## Karl Feuerstake (Aug 5, 2020)

d.healey said:


> There is the problem. I like to own the things I pay for. This is why I don't buy anything with DRM and I run free software whenever possible.



Everything has a risk. Everybody has different views on which ones are worth it.


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## drews (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> I think the lesson from this thread is that people who are doing time-critical work should have two computers, each one loaded with the apps and libraries that are needed to complete the job.
> 
> This is just basic backup/redundancy advice and applies regardless of whose libraries one is using.
> 
> It's a matter of having backed up tools, starting with computers that can fail, and not just backed up data.



And this right here is where it comes full circle. Let's use the example of a corrupted library. I recently bought BBC core which is my first SF library, and i installed it to a slower TLC SSD that was having issues with the library. So in order to move it to my faster NVME SSD i had to use a reset. Now lets say the limit of resets is 2. So i download a backup library to an external which is going to be a slower platter drive. So i need to get that backup library back on my NVME SSD. Now in theory you "should" be able to transfer your library between drives without using up a reset but when i tried to move the library initially it failed and i had to use a reset. So at this point you've done everything right, you have a backup that is tested and in working order, but because of the two reset limit, you cant actually transfer that backup to your PC/Mac and you have to contact the company to clear your resets. 

That's where the issue in this is, i disagree with almost all DRM, but the way spitfire handles their DRM is literally one of the worst that exists. To be honest i don't want to be a "hater" or anything, but considering the issues that they've had with their player, i'd be willing to bet that they initially had an automated system in place but for whatever reason it broke something in the library and they just haven't polished it enough for release yet. I'd bet within 6-12 months they roll out a new DRM system just because their current one is so bad i cant imagine its anything but a placeholder.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 5, 2020)

So just to add two cents as a professional software developer.

DRM/Copy Protection has to be the in place to protect software from been hacked/pirated

The majority of vst I have allow you to license for 1 or 2 computers. Now some of these will allow you to deactivate other you have to email. In fact one vst allows up to 5 but once you have used them that’s it. Now all of these work simply on the pc name, so if you move locations etc it doesn’t matter.

Now I do have a few vst that use either iLok or Steinberg dongle. Both of these are in fact doing the same thing as using the pc name above but in a slightly more complex and robust way.

Earlier in this thread someone mentioned about if u spent $1000 on a guitar you have it forever etc an software you stuck with them not going bust. Well firstly software companies have to places copies of all versions along with license management software into an escrow service to protect against this. Secondly bring back hardware dongles, the dongle is no different from the guitar if you lose it or forget it tough luck in fact if Cubase said I could install and run on 2 machines but I have to buy a second dongle I would


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 5, 2020)

Also with regards the spitfire player I have had no issues with it running Bbcso, labs and originals. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you never see a new spitfire product on Kontakt and potentially their back catalog moving to the new player.

all the big companies are moving to their own players and I guess this down to a number of factors such as NI license costs, no control over Kontakt changing or breaking things, limitations in design etc


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

drews said:


> And this right here is where it comes full circle. Let's use the example of a corrupted library. I recently bought BBC core which is my first SF library, and i installed it to a slower TLC SSD that was having issues with the library. So in order to move it to my faster NVME SSD i had to use a reset. Now lets say the limit of resets is 2. So i download a backup library to an external which is going to be a slower platter drive. So i need to get that backup library back on my NVME SSD. Now in theory you "should" be able to transfer your library between drives without using up a reset but when i tried to move the library initially it failed and i had to use a reset. So at this point you've done everything right, you have a backup that is tested and in working order, but because of the two reset limit, you cant actually transfer that backup to your PC/Mac and you have to contact the company to clear your resets.
> 
> That's where the issue in this is, i disagree with almost all DRM, but the way spitfire handles their DRM is literally one of the worst that exists. To be honest i don't want to be a "hater" or anything, but considering the issues that they've had with their player, i'd be willing to bet that they initially had an automated system in place but for whatever reason it broke something in the library and they just haven't polished it enough for release yet. I'd bet within 6-12 months they roll out a new DRM system just because their current one is so bad i cant imagine its anything but a placeholder.



Sorry, I'm not buying. Having read your updated initial post, and the above post, I think that you should spend more time thinking about how you are operating as a commercial composer and less time blaming Spitfire. In my view, none of this should have happened in the first place.

Before you label me as a Spitfire fanboy, I started a thread here that was extremely critical of Spitfire's app, with detailed documentation, that resulted in Spitfire posting to the thread and acknowledging that there are improvements to make.

However, I have a lot of trouble lining up behind someone who says that he's a commercial composer, has failed to set up his system properly, runs into a problem on a job (in your case, having to do a system recovery, no less, on what is apparently your only computer) and then starts looking for someone to blame. Indeed, I think that your title for this thread demonstrates a lack of self-awareness.


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## Bman70 (Aug 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> ...There may well be a workaround but the ilok authorization program does not tell you how to do it. I’ve not yet had to recover one of these authorizations because I only had given computer authorizations for plugins that allowed multiple authorizations but it has made me leery of using computer authorizations for ilok.



I was just logged into iLok and it looks very easy, there's an option to retrieve an activated license from a non-connected machine, i.e. a dead one. You can only do it once a year though . You would just retrieve your activations and put them on the new computer. I just moved my licenses from my HDD to an external. I like the iLok software system, it's intuitive and simple fast.


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

Bman70 said:


> I was just logged into iLok and it looks very easy, there's an option to retrieve an activated license from a non-connected machine, i.e. a dead one. You can only do it once a year though . You would just retrieve your activations and put them on the new computer. I just moved my licenses from my HDD to an external. I like the iLok software system, it's intuitive and simple fast.


This is good to know and I think it’s somewhat new if that’s the case. (Or I was never able to find the option.) These authorizations have been sitting on that other machine for a long time... in any case it makes me feel a lot better about the authorizations I’ve been making to my current machine.


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## brek (Aug 5, 2020)

Bman70 said:


> I was just logged into iLok and it looks very easy, there's an option to retrieve an activated license from a non-connected machine, i.e. a dead one. You can only do it once a year though . You would just retrieve your activations and put them on the new computer. I just moved my licenses from my HDD to an external. I like the iLok software system, it's intuitive and simple fast.




Where do you see that?

This is all I see on the website:



https://ilok.com/#!faq



*I bought a new computer and some of my licenses are still on the old computer that I no longer have access to! How do I get them to my new computer?*
_Because the licenses are tied to the old computer, there is no way to deactivate the licenses without access to the computer. Since we do not have the authority to distribute additional licenses, you will need to contact the software publisher for help with this.
Understand that the software publishers are the only ones capable of licensing their products. PACE merely builds the infrastructure for the software publishers to distribute their products in the way that is consistent with their licensing terms._


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

brek said:


> Where do you see that?
> 
> This is all I see on the website:
> 
> ...


Yes, this is what I remember too.


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## Bman70 (Aug 5, 2020)

brek said:


> Where do you see that?
> 
> This is all I see on the website:
> 
> ...



Oh crap I might have been thinking the Waves License Manager!! Lol don't quote me on it yet.


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## Bman70 (Aug 5, 2020)

Alas I was talking about Waves. However, it's hard to believe that if you lose a computer you've lost your licenses. I just now did log into iLok, from my iMac, and selecting the "missing" computer, my Macbook, it seems that Deactivate is available in the menu on the missing computer's license. Wouldn't this make the licenses deactivated on the MacBook available again? I didn't actually go through with it, but maybe someone can confirm this.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> Sorry, I'm not buying. Having read your updated initial post, and the above post, I think that you should spend more time thinking about how you are operating as a commercial composer and less time blaming Spitfire. In my view, none of this should have happened in the first place.



You are assuming a lot of things. Using Time Machine on a clean, modern Mac system is not as problematic or invasive as you portray it to be. None of the other libraries I use have this kind of restrictions or have ever created problems of this kind. BBCSO was my first library based on SF player and frankly, had someone warned me about the risks related to its copy protection, I would have passed.

I may not be as tech-savvy as you are, so I have a question for you: has Spitfire published an explanation of what kind of hardware of software changes can affect their custom-player libraries? 
I would like to know. Can I move an SSD to a different PCIe slot? Can I use Time Machine? Can I update the OS? Is there a way to backup the library so that it can be restored from another drive, without contacting tech support? How can I check how many "resets" I have left?

If you could provide a link, I'd be grateful.


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## Rory (Aug 5, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> You are assuming a lot of things. Using Time Machine on a clean, modern Mac system is not as problematic or invasive as you portray it to be. None of the other libraries I use have this kind of restrictions or have ever created problems of this kind. BBCSO was my first library based on SF player and frankly, had someone warned me about the risks related to its copy protection, I would have passed.
> 
> I may not be as tech-savvy as you are, so I have a question for you: has Spitfire published an explanation of what kind of hardware of software changes can affect their custom-player libraries?
> I would like to know. Can I move an SSD to a different PCIe slot? Can I use Time Machine? Can I update the OS? Is there a way to backup the library so that it can be restored from another drive, without contacting tech support? How can I check how many "resets" I have left?
> ...




Look, I set out my view on this in post #162, repeated below. You obviously don't accept what the post says. That's cool, but don't expect me to change my view, which is in line with standard practice, including in my own business, and with common sense:

"I think the lesson from this thread is that people who are doing time-critical work should have two computers, each one loaded with the apps and libraries that are needed to complete the job.

"This is just basic backup/redundancy advice and applies regardless of whose libraries one is using.

"It's a matter of having backed up tools, starting with computers that can fail, and not just backed up data."


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## drews (Aug 5, 2020)

Bman70 said:


> Alas I was talking about Waves. However, it's hard to believe that if you lose a computer you've lost your licenses. I just now did log into iLok, from my iMac, and selecting the "missing" computer, my Macbook, it seems that Deactivate is available in the menu on the missing computer's license. Wouldn't this make the licenses deactivated on the MacBook available again? I didn't actually go through with it, but maybe someone can confirm this.


Yes, yes it would and this is literally the exact point ive been making that some few cant seem to accept. If that was spitfire you would have to wait for support to respond to manually do it. Meanwhile ilok and pretty much 99% of all other DRM has an option to deactivate old activations. As it turns out, its extremely common to have hardware failures that would require you to deactivate licenses from a device you dont have access to. And it turns out that developers know this and have figured out ways to allow users to do it themselves.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> Look, I set out my view on this in post #162, repeated below. You obviously don't accept what the post says. That's cool, but don't expect me to change my view, which is in line with standard practice, including in my own business, and with common sense:
> 
> "I think the lesson from this thread is that people who are doing time-critical work should have two computers, each one loaded with the apps and libraries that are needed to complete the job.
> 
> ...



Frankly, I don't know any composers who would maintain fully mirrored systems. Backup servers, multiple workstations, dedicated sample playback -- sure, but never fully duplicated systems. It's not practical unless what you do is very predictable and repetitive.


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## jbuhler (Aug 5, 2020)

Bman70 said:


> Alas I was talking about Waves. However, it's hard to believe that if you lose a computer you've lost your licenses. I just now did log into iLok, from my iMac, and selecting the "missing" computer, my Macbook, it seems that Deactivate is available in the menu on the missing computer's license. Wouldn't this make the licenses deactivated on the MacBook available again? I didn't actually go through with it, but maybe someone can confirm this.


If you try deactivating it here it tells you to contact the company that issued the license. So, no, that doesn't work.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 5, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> You are assuming a lot of things. Using Time Machine on a clean, modern Mac system is not as problematic or invasive as you portray it to be. None of the other libraries I use have this kind of restrictions or have ever created problems of this kind. BBCSO was my first library based on SF player and frankly, had someone warned me about the risks related to its copy protection, I would have passed.
> 
> I may not be as tech-savvy as you are, so I have a question for you: has Spitfire published an explanation of what kind of hardware of software changes can affect their custom-player libraries?
> I would like to know. Can I move an SSD to a different PCIe slot? Can I use Time Machine? Can I update the OS? Is there a way to backup the library so that it can be restored from another drive, without contacting tech support? How can I check how many "resets" I have left?
> ...


Just to be clear here everything you have had problems with and are complaining about is to do with DRM and license management. This has nothing at all to do with the Spitfire Player VST urself. I’m guessing this could be a reason to move from Kontakt because it either does not had DRM support or involves paying NI more


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## Sugar Free (Aug 5, 2020)

yes, correct. Because of license management, I'd rather pay more for a Kontakt-based version of a library.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 5, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> yes, correct. Because of license management, I'd rather pay more for a Kontakt-based version of a library.


DRM and License Management is i suspect one of the reason companies are moving away from Kontakt coupled with expenses NI will charge.


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## Bman70 (Aug 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> If you try deactivating it here it tells you to contact the company that issued the license. So, no, that doesn't work.



Correct, I went ahead and tried it. That makes sense, because iLok only manages licenses for publishers, but doesn't grant them. The publisher, in my case East West, would issue a machine activation reset. At least it's recoverable in some way, if not as convenient as Waves makes it.


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## babylonwaves (Aug 5, 2020)

and still @Sugar Free i'd be interested to learn why you reverted back with time machine in the first place. you obviously like to complain, by now i'm not so sure if you've posted all this for help or just to vent.


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## drews (Aug 6, 2020)

babylonwaves said:


> and still @Sugar Free i'd be interested to learn why you reverted back with time machine in the first place. you obviously like to complain, by now i'm not so sure if you've posted all this for help or just to vent.


If you're going to be a jerk and personally attack someone then fine but are you seriously asking why someone would revert back with time machine? 

"You can use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up all of your files, including apps, music, photos, email, documents, and system files. When you have a backup, you can restore files from your backup if the original files are ever deleted from your Mac, or the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac is erased or replaced."

Dont you think that he may have, i dont now, had an issue that required going to a previous backup? You know, like what the whole point of time machine is. 

Honestly i think you questioning why someone would use a built in backup feature is probably the most ridiculous thing said on this whole thread. That would be like asking a drummer why he needed to get a new drum head when his head cracked. Or asking a guitarist why he needed to restring his guitar when a string snapped. Heres a direct quote from the OP 

"I hear what you're saying, but my system drive is not corrupt, and technically reverting to an earlier version via Time Machine should be the same as recovering a cloned copy.

I also performed a SMC Reset (Shift+Control+Option+Power Button), which is a low level hardware reset."

So obviously if you were to look at any context, if OP knows how to do a SMC reset and has time machine setup in the first place, they're already leagues ahead of most people on the technology side of things. 

Obviously you dont care about any of that though and you were just commenting so it would give you an excuse to directly attack someone "you obviously like to complain" Just embarrassing, really shows your level of maturity to attack someone while simultaneously promoting your commercial product in your signature.


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## babylonwaves (Aug 6, 2020)

drews said:


> If you're going to be a jerk and personally attack someone then fine but are you seriously asking why someone would revert back with time machine?



why? because when I'm mid production, I don't do that. I might revert a file or a folder but not an entire system. As for the rest of your post, sorry, I got better things to do and I don't feel like finding a smart , diplomatic response to all that. I simply put you on the blocklist, new member. Good luck, I'm sure you'll make this forum a better place.


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## Loïc D (Aug 6, 2020)

So, however careful you can be, shit happens.

What Spitfire Audio should provide, since they put themselves as a top worldwide sample company is :
- a handy way to unregister/reregister your product when you move to another drive or computer (for their own engine-powered libraries)
- a 24/7 online support
Period.


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## MartinH. (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Secondly bring back hardware dongles, the dongle is no different from the guitar if you lose it or forget it tough luck in fact if Cubase said I could install and run on 2 machines but I have to buy a second dongle I would



Dongles break sooner than guitars. Broken guitars can be brought to a repair shop, dongles can not. Broken guitars can often be repaired yourself, dongles can not. A usb-stick sized dongle can easily be lost on accident, a guitar is a lot less likely to get misplaced or slip out of your pocket...


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

MartinH. said:


> Dongles break sooner than guitars. Broken guitars can be brought to a repair shop, dongles can not. Broken guitars can often be repaired yourself, dongles can not. A usb-stick sized dongle can easily be lost on accident, a guitar is a lot less likely to get misplaced or slip out of your pocket...


I know what your saying however plug dongle in and leave it alone simples, if i have to take it anywhere then i protect in exactly the same way i would protect a $1000 guitar. The only way dongles break is when you treat them like shit, hanging from keys banging about loose in pockets or rucksacks etc you wouldn't treat you prize instrument like that so why treat a dongle like it. Just cause its a tiny piece of plastic its infact probably worth more than a single instrument so treat it the same.


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## Kony (Aug 6, 2020)

I think this could be the reason why the back-up failed and the player broke.


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## MartinH. (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> The only way dongles break is when you treat them like shit, hanging from keys banging about loose in pockets or rucksacks etc you wouldn't treat you prize instrument like that so why treat a dongle like it.



I remember a post here in a dongle thread that showed photos of the plastic of the dongle literally disintegrating after a couple of years. And in general I wouldn't trust flash-memory technology with digital stuff worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, drm or otherwise. The only good way to keep data alive is redundancy and regular copying to fresh hardware, imho. There are enough non-dongle libraries for me to avoid iLok and friends.


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## styledelk (Aug 6, 2020)

Loïc D said:


> So, however careful you can be, shit happens.
> 
> What Spitfire Audio should provide, since they put themselves as a top worldwide sample company is :
> - a handy way to unregister/reregister your product when you move to another drive or computer (for their own engine-powered libraries)
> ...



Item 2 there would mean the libraries cost at least double what they do today.
Item 1 could be done, who knows, may be on the way, but will be done at the cost of leakier piracy, so most likely would also come with a price hike.


By now the OP has already had their problem solved.


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 6, 2020)

Of course, when we've made all the developers personally responsible for responding 24/7, or have shamed them into implementing expensive auto-reset systems, it won't result in composer heaven. You know what will happen then ?

Either you laptop will break of some twat will nick it.

It is the universal law of physics that toast always lands butter side down......


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## Zee (Aug 6, 2020)

babylonwaves said:


> As for the rest of your post, sorry, I got better things to do and I don't feel like finding a smart , diplomatic response to all that


Bruh, you're on an online forum discussing something clearly with no benefit to you what so ever not just the rest of this particular post if you had better things to do you wouldn't even be here


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## Rory (Aug 6, 2020)

Loïc D said:


> So, however careful you can be, shit happens.
> 
> What Spitfire Audio should provide, since they put themselves as a top worldwide sample company is :
> - a handy way to unregister/reregister your product when you move to another drive or computer (for their own engine-powered libraries)
> ...



It's because "shit happens" that people who use computers to earn a living have two computers containing the same apps, etc. That is the very reason why software licenses allow for activation on two machines (e.g. Adobe). In a business, backing up your system does not just mean backing up your data.

Nobody appears to offer 24/7 support, even at an additional cost. This suggests that there isn't a significant market for the service. Why? The most probable reason, as suggested above, is that people who make their living composing music have a redundant system.

Spitfire has said, including in a thread here about DRM, that it knows that improvements can be made and that it is working on changes.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 6, 2020)

Rory said:


> It's because "shit happens" that people who use computers to earn a living have two computers containing the same apps, etc. That is the very reason why software licenses allow for activation on two machines (e.g. Adobe). In a business, backing up your system does not just mean backing up your data.



It's clear you are not a working composer. Our setups are much more complex than just a computer with apps and libraries. Unless you are a Hans Zimmer and employ a full-time tech crew, there is always a risk of substantial downtime. The best we can do is reduce this risk by eliminating unreliable technology. I've experienced downtimes both at Abbey Road and Air Studios, because of a console malfunction. And your solution would be: oh, they should just have another Neve at hand?


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## Rory (Aug 6, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> I've experienced downtimes both at Abbey Road and Air Studios, because of a console malfunction. And your solution would be: oh, they should just have another Neve at hand?



I'm talking about computers, which is what this thread that you started is about, not consoles.

What's clear is that you were not following standard business practice of having a backed up system. That's your affair, but now you're not only lashing out at Spitfire, but at someone for noting really basic practice when using computers in a business.

The real lesson from your experience is that failing to have redundancy in one's business computer system is not a great idea.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 6, 2020)

It's nice to have redundant systems, but I think there is a real issue here in that Spitfire's approach is opaque in terms of what will force a reset and how many you have left, and that doing something perfectly normal, like rolling back to yesterday's Time Machine backup, apparently can require waiting for remote human intervention to make the library work again. That shouldn't be the case.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 6, 2020)

Rory said:


> I'm talking about computers, which is what this thread that you started is about, not consoles.
> 
> What's clear is that you were not following standard business practice of having a backed up system. That's your business, but now you're not only lashing out at Spitfire, but at someone for noting what is really basic practice when using computers in a business.



What I'm saying is you don't have the practical experience to make this statement. A fully mirrored system (not the same as redundancy or backup) may be a "basic" practice in your business, in film music it's not.


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## Rory (Aug 6, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> What I'm saying is you don't have the practical experience to make this statement. It may be a "basic" practice in your business, in film music it's not.



I can tell you for a fact that everywhere else in the film business system redundancy is a given. That includes everywhere else on the sound side of the film business. You've just found out why, not that it should require explanation. If you are telling me that it is abnormal for professional composers, working to deadlines, to have a redundant computer system, which requires nothing more than a spare desktop or a decent laptop, I am astounded.

What's the "plan" if your hard drive dies? Or gets infected with a virus? Etc, etc, etc.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 6, 2020)

not sure I follow, how a spare desktop or a decent laptop would substitute e.g. 2 DAW computers and 2 sample slaves?


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## Rory (Aug 6, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> not sure I follow, how a spare desktop or a decent laptop would substitute e.g. 2 DAW computers and 2 sample slaves?



Right, so now you say 206 posts into this thread that you in fact have two computers, but you didn't have them set up, while working to a deadline, so that you could move from one to the other by pressing a power button. Indeed, apparently you couldn't move from one to the other at all.

There's a lesson there, if you care to see it.

I work a fair bit with location sound recordists and sound editors. What you are describing is completely outside my experience, and your refusal to see the problem is astonishing.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 6, 2020)

As I said before, you make a lot of incorrect assumptions. 
I suggest that you try to cool down a bit and maybe rethink what you wrote.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 6, 2020)

I keep a lot of my "bread and butter" libraries on both my master (Mac) and slave (PC), an therefore need to activate two copies so that I can use the libraries simultaneously on both machines. In the event my Mac fails (Logic Pro), I can always jump over to using the PC which has Cubase installed...just in case (heaven forbid!). So if I was ever in a pinch, I could most likely keep working, albeit a different DAW. However, I don't know a single colleague who has a replicated system set up and ready to go. That would be a huge expense, and although I don't doubt that it's common in the industry for the average working composer, I have never seen it.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

Been a software professional what is been discussed is disaster recovery procedures. Regardless of why the process was initiated or the validity or actually doing it, it’s a disaster recovery procedure.

Now during this process there has been found to be a issue with said given library. However surely you were aware of this before the fact, as you had documented and tested the process before actually relying on it at a time critical moment. What’s that oh you never documented or tested the process well let’s hope you learn your lesson

professionally we build these processes and document them and then actually test them before we have to rely on them. So now you got your fingers burnt don’t complain about 3rd party’s when you shud have already been aware and tested this process


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## Uiroo (Aug 6, 2020)

Rory said:


> Right, so now you say 206 posts into this thread that you in fact have two computers, but you didn't have them set up, while working to a deadline, so that you could move from one to the other by pressing a power button. Indeed, apparently you couldn't move from one to the other at all.


I assume what he means is: he has one main PC backed with two slave computers for smaples, all going into a fourth PC with ProTools on it. Typical setup as far as I know.

In that case, a mirrored system would mean having 4 additional PC's. 
I don't think that's industry standard since most won't be able to afford that.


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## Rory (Aug 6, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> I assume what he means is: he has one main PC backed with two slave computers for smaples, all going into a fourth PC with ProTools on it. Typical setup as far as I know.
> 
> In that case, a mirrored system would mean having 4 additional PC's.
> I don't think that's industry standard since most won't be able to afford that.




His problem has been resolved. The issue is what message people should take from this. In my view, the crystal clear message is to set up one's computer system in a way that allows one to keep working if there's a problem with a computer or its components. This is not rocket science and it does not require a fully mirrored system. See @Jeremy Spencer's post just above (post #209).

If people want to disregard well-understood, basic guidelines on working with computers, go ahead. Lots of people do just that, and some of them eventually pay for it.


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## Sugar Free (Aug 6, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> I assume what he means is: he has one main PC backed with two slave computers for smaples, all going into a fourth PC with ProTools on it. Typical setup as far as I know.
> 
> In that case, a mirrored system would mean having 4 additional PC's.
> I don't think that's industry standard since most won't be able to afford that.



thank you


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

Disaster Recovery Process, document it, test it

failure to plan is planning to fail

you found an issue in your DR process because you never tested it, so don’t bitch about it, address the issue, adjust the process, test the process.........wait till next time


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## 667 (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Disaster Recovery Process, document it, test it
> 
> failure to plan is planning to fail
> 
> you found an issue in your DR process because you never tested it, so don’t bitch about it, address the issue, adjust the process, test the process.........wait till next time



Users who don't know a lot about computers, hobbyists, semi-pro, etc., they are all paying customers and deserve to have their stuff not break via simple and common operations like restore from backup. 

Spitfire needs to have a DRM scheme that is less brittle for paying customers.


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## Babaghanoush (Aug 6, 2020)

If everyone attacked this problem with the same voracity that they used attacking the person, the problem would have been solved almost immediately.

ATTACK THE PROBLEM. NOT THE PERSON!


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## ism (Aug 6, 2020)

The title and tone of this thread don't start by asking for solutions, the look to attack and vent frustration. The title does ask for help, it draws in people looking to absorb and amplify and share frustrations.

Venting is a totally legitimate thing to do. Indeed an emotionally important thing to do. Technology is endemically incredible frustrating. I complain about technology all the time.

But there's also an argument about separating troubleshooting thread looking for "musicians helping musicians" from the (also completely valid) genre of "musicians commiserating with musicians" venting threads. 

Not that you can't do both at once. But venting is terrible unproductive as troubleshooting and vice versa. So it's helpful to be clear which we're doing at any given moment.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

667 said:


> Users who don't know a lot about computers, hobbyists, semi-pro, etc., they are all paying customers and deserve to have their stuff not break via simple and common operations like restore from backup.
> 
> Spitfire needs to have a DRM scheme that is less brittle for paying customers.


As demonstrated backup n restores of operating systems are not simple things despite how much Apple or Microsoft try and make it. If you dont understand 100% what your doing then get a professional to do it

in this case DRM has kicked in and fir whatever reason said this is a different computer, that’s what it should do a simple email/phonecall resolves this in 24hrs mon-fri. So in you DR documentation this should be written down and flagged


----------



## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

Babaghanoush said:


> If everyone attacked this problem with the same voracity that they used attacking the person, the problem would have been solved almost immediately.
> 
> ATTACK THE PROBLEM. NOT THE PERSON!


The problem is the users inability to form a Disaster Recovery plan and secondly only having tacit computer knowledge while trying to perform skilled work


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## Hendrixon (Aug 6, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> It is the universal law of physics that toast always lands butter side down......



That law of physics is debunked if you always toast a sandwich.


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## d.healey (Aug 6, 2020)

Hendrixon said:


> That law of physics is debunked if you always toast a sandwich.


Attach toast (butter side up) to back of cat, cats always land on feet. Push cat off table, enjoy perpetual motion.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

ism said:


> The title and tone of this thread don't start by asking for solutions, the look to attack and vent frustration. The title does ask for help, it draws in people looking to absorb and amplify and share frustrations.
> 
> Venting is a totally legitimate thing to do. Indeed an emotionally important thing to do. Technology is endemically incredible frustrating. I complain about technology all the time.
> 
> ...


I agree and just went to reread the original post

1) I’m on a deadline and spitfire bbc is shit an stopped working and I tried all these things and it doesn’t work, they don’t respond etc

so initial statement is to vent frustration at spitfire and their support process etc also gather sympathy from other users

2) oh before these problems started I did a system restore, spitfire worked fine prior to this

so second statement becomes stuff was working fine I did a system restore but don’t really know what that does and it broke my spitfire stuff

Analgy
My ford car works fine on Friday and I need it for a meeting at 7am on monday. On Saturday I decide to change some engine stuff , I’m not 100% sure on what’s I’m doing but hey I got a manual and the internet. Sunday car very poorly and not working I undo everything I did on Saturday car still poorly. I drive to ford and tell them it’s poorly (let’s not mention Saturday) fords says sorry no garage on Sunday comeback Monday. So I bitch n Moan that ford is shit and nothing works an I need car on Monday.

lesson learnt don’t mess around unless your 100% certain you know what your doing especially not before a deadline. That’s why we have professional be that mechanics or computer people, we do know what we are doing cause we done it for a lifetime


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Attach toast (butter side up) to back of cat, cats always land on feet. Push cat off table, enjoy perpetual motion.


The imagine in my head, there must be a meme


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 6, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Attach toast (butter side up) to back of cat, cats always land on feet. Push cat off table, enjoy perpetual motion.



Was it Schroedingers cat ?

(asking for a friend)


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## d.healey (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> The imagine in my head, there must be a meme


----------



## drews (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I agree and just went to reread the original post
> 
> 1) I’m on a deadline and spitfire bbc is shit an stopped working and I tried all these things and it doesn’t work, they don’t respond etc
> 
> ...



Lets do another analogy. You're driving late at night on a roadtrip and almost out of gas, which is your fault for letting get too low of course. So you have 1 mile left of gas, and there are 30 gas stations within a mile all in different directions. You drive to a gas station but when you get there you are unable to use the pump because they require you to call in to an attendant to gain access to the pump, except its 9pm and the employees went home for the night. Is it not reasonable to expect every gas station in 2020 to allow you to pump your gas without human interaction? Now what if you paid $1000 up front for the privilege to pump your gas at that gas station while everyone else pays the same except they're able to pump between the hours of 8pm-7am without human interaction. 

Another analogy. You pay for a 24 hour gym, and theres a few different ones in town. Everyone except for one allows you to get inside by either a keyfob or using an access code. Now what if you pay a premium for the "spitfire" gym except for whatever reason they decided to not buy a keypad and only have an RFID antenna instead, and their backup in case you forget the fob is to have you call them, only problem is their customer service isnt 24/7 like the gym itself is, so the backup only works during business hours and can sometimes take hours on hold to reach a person. 

Both of those examples the person did do something wrong, they ignored how much gas they had left or forgot their fob. But in both of these examples, their mistakes wouldn't have been a problem if the gym/gas station had the same features that every other gym or gas station had. 

I just don't understand why it's such a hard concept to want a basic DRM system that doesn't require human intervention. 

I typed in NI moving a license into google but its kind of funny that the first example proves my point. The first google result was for an engineering company "national instruments" support page and this is their answer. 

"If you have activated the maximum number of computers permitted by a license, but you want to start using another computer, you can deactivate a current computer to then activate the new computer. You can deactivate products within NI License Manager 3.7 and later versions. The instructions to do so are detailed below."

im sure a company making professional engineering equipment expects their users to have redundant systems because im sure their customers are running operations with 100x the budget of any composer. But guess what? They still designed their software to be able to be deactivated through the software instead of calling customer support. 

Now lets look at what native instruments says, and notice the part specifying computers crashing, replacing hard drives, or not being able to uninstall on the previous device. It's almost like its a common and developers make solutions for when it happens. 

"If you replace one of your computers it is not necessary to deactivate an existing installation, but due to the license agreement it is required to uninstall the product from the previously used computer.

If your computer crashed or you replaced the hard drive and it is not possible to uninstall the NI product, proceed with the activation on the new computer. You will still maintain the number of activations granted by the End User License Agreement."


Also this doesn't even take into account that they do the insane thing of limiting you based on "Resets". If you have to repair a library and everything stays on the same computer, it should be based on a unique ID thats either a serial number, MAC address, hardware ID. It's reasonable to expect to run into some hiccups if you're trying to reactivate things on a totally different computer, but this shouldn't even be a thing in the first place.


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## Brasart (Aug 6, 2020)

I think this thread should be called:

1. The risk of doing a system roll back on a commercial project with a tight deadline.

2. The risk of doing a system roll back on a commercial project with a tight deadline, and having enough entitlement to be expecting a customer support to answer you on a frickin sunday.

3. Having the audacity of complaining about a customer support which fixed your issue within two business day, arguably one.

Is this real life?


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

drews said:


> Lets do another analogy. You're driving late at night on a roadtrip and almost out of gas, which is your fault for letting get too low of course. So you have 1 mile left of gas, and there are 30 gas stations within a mile all in different directions. You drive to a gas station but when you get there you are unable to use the pump because they require you to call in to an attendant to gain access to the pump, except its 9pm and the employees went home for the night. Is it not reasonable to expect every gas station in 2020 to allow you to pump your gas without human interaction? Now what if you paid $1000 up front for the privilege to pump your gas at that gas station while everyone else pays the same except they're able to pump between the hours of 8pm-7am without human interaction.
> 
> Another analogy. You pay for a 24 hour gym, and theres a few different ones in town. Everyone except for one allows you to get inside by either a keyfob or using an access code. Now what if you pay a premium for the "spitfire" gym except for whatever reason they decided to not buy a keypad and only have an RFID antenna instead, and their backup in case you forget the fob is to have you call them, only problem is their customer service isnt 24/7 like the gym itself is, so the backup only works during business hours and can sometimes take hours on hold to reach a person.
> 
> ...


Firstly let me say great post, so we all accept now there is 2 things been talked about on this thread

1) the whole backup/restore/disaster recovery piece etc which is down to the end users competency enough said

2) spitfire DRM now this part I agree they haven’t got it right yet, they have a system that’s not self managing and as a result creates delays in the process. From what I have read spitfire is actually quite a small company and most likely don’t have a large it development team. I think moving away from Kontakt was so they could have their own DRM without paying NI along with a custom Ui. It has been mentioned that they acknowledge there are issues with DRM and they are working on them, but If they only have small development this will take a little while


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

Brasart said:


> I think this thread should be called:
> 
> 1. The risk of doing a system roll back on a commercial project with a tight deadline.
> 
> ...


1) bingo
2) bingo unless they offer out of hours support either free or you pay for
3) bingo

to me this thread was started the wrong way, rather than spitfire shit nothing works no support blah blah oh btw I did a system restore and broke everything

it should have been ‘guys can anyone help, I had to do a system restore and I’m on a tight deadline and now all my spitfire libraries have stopped working...help please’


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

drews said:


> Lets do another analogy. You're driving late at night on a roadtrip and almost out of gas, which is your fault for letting get too low of course. So you have 1 mile left of gas, and there are 30 gas stations within a mile all in different directions. You drive to a gas station but when you get there you are unable to use the pump because they require you to call in to an attendant to gain access to the pump, except its 9pm and the employees went home for the night. Is it not reasonable to expect every gas station in 2020 to allow you to pump your gas without human interaction? Now what if you paid $1000 up front for the privilege to pump your gas at that gas station while everyone else pays the same except they're able to pump between the hours of 8pm-7am without human interaction.
> 
> Another analogy. You pay for a 24 hour gym, and theres a few different ones in town. Everyone except for one allows you to get inside by either a keyfob or using an access code. Now what if you pay a premium for the "spitfire" gym except for whatever reason they decided to not buy a keypad and only have an RFID antenna instead, and their backup in case you forget the fob is to have you call them, only problem is their customer service isnt 24/7 like the gym itself is, so the backup only works during business hours and can sometimes take hours on hold to reach a person.
> 
> ...


Here is BIG software company who don’t have the best DRM.....APPLE

install iTunes on Mac/pc and sign in and you have to authorise the computer. You can authorise a maximum of 5 computers to your iTunes account. You can also deauthorise a computer as well so all appears to work fine. BUT if you Mac/pc goes bang then you won’t be able to deauthorise it so you lose a license. Try contacting Apple, support forums etc and there is no way to get that license back.


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## jbuhler (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Here is BIG software company who don’t have the best DRM.....APPLE
> 
> install iTunes on Mac/pc and sign in and you have to authorise the computer. You can authorise a maximum of 5 computers to your iTunes account. You can also deauthorise a computer as well so all appears to work fine. BUT if you Mac/pc goes bang then you won’t be able to deauthorise it so you lose a license. Try contacting Apple, support forums etc and there is no way to get that license back.


I don’t know if they still have this option but once upon a time you could “deauthorize all” and reset that way. I had to do that when one of my laptops went unexpectedly kaput.


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## brek (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Here is BIG software company who don’t have the best DRM.....APPLE
> 
> install iTunes on Mac/pc and sign in and you have to authorise the computer. You can authorise a maximum of 5 computers to your iTunes account. You can also deauthorise a computer as well so all appears to work fine. BUT if you Mac/pc goes bang then you won’t be able to deauthorise it so you lose a license. Try contacting Apple, support forums etc and there is no way to get that license back.



I'm no fan of Apple, but have never had an issue with their DRM. I thought there was a simple way to just deauthorize all of your computers at once if you ever ran out of licenses.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> I don’t know if they still have this option but once upon a time you could “deauthorize all” and reset that way. I had to do that when one of my laptops went unexpectedly kaput.


Will have a look for that as I’m on my last slot lol


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## jbuhler (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Will have a look for that as I’m on my last slot lol


It’s a pain because you have to reauthorize everything, but it did work at the time.


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## drews (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Firstly let me say great post, so we all accept now there is 2 things been talked about on this thread
> 
> 1) the whole backup/restore/disaster recovery piece etc which is down to the end users competency enough said
> 
> 2) spitfire DRM now this part I agree they haven’t got it right yet, they have a system that’s not self managing and as a result creates delays in the process. From what I have read spitfire is actually quite a small company and most likely don’t have a large it development team. I think moving away from Kontakt was so they could have their own DRM without paying NI along with a custom Ui. It has been mentioned that they acknowledge there are issues with DRM and they are working on them, but If they only have small development this will take a little while



Yeah i think we are on the same page in general. Its not a black and white issue and in this case both parties have faults. Obviously you should never make any kind of changes to your computer when you're on a deadline. And spitfire needs to do a better DRM. As of your comment about Apple, havent used apple in a while but i believe they allow you to deactivate every device once before you have to talk to support, which is a fair middle ground imo. 

But like i said in an earlier post and you mentioned in your second point. Its obvious that spitfire is a bit stretched thin and they aren't a huge company. Its likely they add a new/better DRM system in a few months but their priority im sure if ironing out other bugs with the new player first. In the end it does work, and there is a way to reset activations even if it is contacting support. But support can't help if the player itself has major issues or faults so thats obviously where they should concentrate their manpower.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 6, 2020)

Brasart said:


> I think this thread should be called:
> 
> 1. The risk of doing a system roll back on a commercial project with a tight deadline.
> 
> ...



In the seven years I’ve been on Mac, I’ve never had to perform a roll back. I wonder what the reason was? Weird how it happened at a critical time.


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## tmhuud (Aug 6, 2020)

I never rolled back until ‘Crap-alina’ came out. In fact I had to do it for a friend at a major FX house as well.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> In the seven years I’ve been on Mac, I’ve never had to perform a roll back. I wonder what the reason was? Weird how it happened at a critical time.


Oh don’t I’ve been a really good boy on not lighting that fire, super reliable never break .... lol

Or maybe end user issue not skilled


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## pderbidge (Aug 6, 2020)

Ruffian Price said:


> As far as I can tell you get a different amount of resets depending on the library (I repair some all the time, but with two I got OP's error on first attempt), probably to save on CDN use. I thought it was size-related, but HZS is huge as well, so now I'm not sure (actually wanted to check right now, but the SA app won't launch, I have to reinstall. How relevant)
> 
> That's what they're doing already (Play was the first) but I don't consider it anti-consumer in itself as long as the plugins are usable. Seems it did successfully stop pirates.


Personally I think stopping Pirates is the wrong way to look at this. It's easy for a dev to get emotional when they are shown all the pirating going on with their life's effort poured into these libraries but who knows how many of those are legitimate and working pirated copies and not just viruses and spyware. The real question is how much lost revenue is caused by the piracy? On the flip side, how much lost revenue is caused by their DRM (customers that did not purchase because of the DRM)? I would argue that it's a wash. In the end, most people worth having as a customer are not going to steal your product and long term loyalty between customer and developer is established. I know this is a bit of a tangent but removing the DRM would have saved the OP from all this trouble. I have a ton of VI's and VST's myself that are both DRM and DRM-free and 9 times out of 10, when there is a comparable non DRM Vi I can use, guess which one goes into the project? The risk is not worth the hassle when there is a suitable alternative.


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## ag75 (Aug 6, 2020)

I’ve had no problems with the spitfire plugin. My only gripe is I often go between my desktop and my laptop and I need two separate hard drives (one for laptop one for desktop) with spitfire samples to achieve this. As with Kontakt I can share the drive between the two computers. That’s frustrating for me. But I still love Spitfire and appreciate all they have done for this community.


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## dzilizzi (Aug 6, 2020)

So, I don't have a Mac, but wouldn't a clone drive work better than a time machine backup for this type of issue? I have had authorizations break restoring from a backup. So I get this problem. But people are saying "have a second system" which is a bit crazy to me when a cloned drive might work as well. Can't you disc copy on Macs?

I do agree Spitfire may want to look into the DRM issue. I had one library that told me I was out of resets and I never downloaded it. At least it was Kontakt so once downloaded, I was good. It shouldn't take 3 resets to get a library to work initially. But I heard it a lot on this library when it first came out. Maybe they should automatically reset after the first download?


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## Sugar Free (Aug 6, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I agree and just went to reread the original post
> 
> 1) I’m on a deadline and spitfire bbc is shit an stopped working and I tried all these things and it doesn’t work, they don’t respond etc
> 
> ...



I'm afraid, you are missing the whole point of this thread. Please forget for a moment about Time Machine. 

A hard drive failure and an attempt to restore the library from a backup to a fresh drive would have triggered the reset limit, causing the very same problem. Since Spitfire doesn't provide enough guidance on what kind of changes require a reset, how a user is supposed to test and prepare for this?

I wish someone had given me this advice before getting into BBCSO and the reason for my post is just this. A warning to professional composers, that Spitfire Player DRM is unlike anything else they're used to. It imposes restrictions on what you can do on your system (like performing a TM rollback) and the libraries based on it require very careful handling. What are those limits? Well... Spitfire won't tell.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 6, 2020)

pderbidge said:


> The real question is how much lost revenue is caused by the piracy? On the flip side, how much lost revenue is caused by their DRM (customers that did not purchase because of the DRM)? I would argue that it's a wash.



Do you have data on that? If not, hard to say it is a wash. I'm sure the developers have some sense and ultimately are making the call on what balance they want to strike. Vengeance is doing this with the switch to Codemeter, everybody using iLok is making that call, etc.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

Sugar Free said:


> I'm afraid, you are missing the whole point of this thread. Please forget for a moment about Time Machine.


Erm NO as its part of the reason this thread is where it is, so you cant just change the parameters of the conversation.



Sugar Free said:


> A hard drive failure and an attempt to restore the library from a backup to a fresh drive would have triggered the reset limit, causing the very same problem. Since Spitfire doesn't provide enough guidance on what kind of changes require a reset, how a user is supposed to test and prepare for this?


This may well be the case but this is NOT what happened to you or what you came here for.



Sugar Free said:


> I wish someone had given me this advice before getting into BBCSO and the reason for my post is just this. A warning to professional composers, that Spitfire Player DRM is unlike anything else they're used to. It imposes restrictions on what you can do on your system (like performing a TM rollback) and the libraries based on it require very careful handling. What are those limits? Well... Spitfire won't tell.


The Spitfire Player and DRM are two separate things, it does not impose restrictions it imposes a process that has to be followed at the present time.


Your opening gambit to this thread was to attack Spitfire and slate their product along with the DRM, it was only after this salvo that you then mention that it worked until YOU did a system restore. As i pointed out in a previous post if your opening thread have been written and worded better you would have got a very different response to what has happened.


----------



## DovesGoWest (Aug 6, 2020)

pderbidge said:


> Personally I think stopping Pirates is the wrong way to look at this. It's easy for a dev to get emotional when they are shown all the pirating going on with their life's effort poured into these libraries but who knows how many of those are legitimate and working pirated copies and not just viruses and spyware. The real question is how much lost revenue is caused by the piracy? On the flip side, how much lost revenue is caused by their DRM (customers that did not purchase because of the DRM)? I would argue that it's a wash. In the end, most people worth having as a customer are not going to steal your product and long term loyalty between customer and developer is established. I know this is a bit of a tangent but removing the DRM would have saved the OP from all this trouble. I have a ton of VI's and VST's myself that are both DRM and DRM-free and 9 times out of 10, when there is a comparable non DRM Vi I can use, guess which one goes into the project? The risk is not worth the hassle when there is a suitable alternative.





ALittleNightMusic said:


> Do you have data on that? If not, hard to say it is a wash. I'm sure the developers have some sense and ultimately are making the call on what balance they want to strike. Vengeance is doing this with the switch to Codemeter, everybody using iLok is making that call, etc.



Im a professional software developer albeit not music software and this is not just some made up issue, piracy\hacking etc costs the software industry millions if not billions a year so no its not a wash. I find it insulting that you think DRM is something made up by the industry for a problem that doesnt exist.

I use a variety of software that uses everything from iLok, CodeMeter, eLicencor, custom DRM, serial numbers etc etc. Pretty much any software has some form of DRM built in and dependning on size\cost of the software and company will depend on the implementation. The stuff that is "DRM" free tends to be small and insignificant.


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## Rory (Aug 7, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> So, I don't have a Mac, but wouldn't a clone drive work better than a time machine backup for this type of issue? I have had authorizations break restoring from a backup. So I get this problem. But people are saying "have a second system" which is a bit crazy to me when a cloned drive might work as well. Can't you disc copy on Macs?



A lot of Mac owners have software called Carbon Copy Cloner, often used instead of Time Machine. CCC can be used to run a machine after a hard drive failure because it can clone a computer’s boot drive. I have CCC, which I have used for various purposes for about eight years, but I would not plan to use it to run a failed computer without testing it first with the specific apps that I want to run. CCC itself strongly recommends such testing.

In my business, I do not regard either Time Machine or CCC as an alternative to a backup computer. I also have no interest in my business being held up while we spend time on the internet contacting, chit chatting and messing around on TeamViewer with support personnel who can be thousands of miles away in a significantly different time zone. Indeed, we make sure that we aren’t dependent on an internet connection in the first place, because here in the real world of New York, internet outages are not an uncommon event.

Computers good enough to take over if there’s a problem, secondhand if preferred, just ain’t that expensive.


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## Dr.Quest (Aug 7, 2020)

ag75 said:


> I’ve had no problems with the spitfire plugin. My only gripe is I often go between my desktop and my laptop and I need two separate hard drives (one for laptop one for desktop) with spitfire samples to achieve this. As with Kontakt I can share the drive between the two computers. That’s frustrating for me. But I still love Spitfire and appreciate all they have done for this community.


Same for me.


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## pderbidge (Aug 7, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Im a professional software developer albeit not music software and this is not just some made up issue, piracy\hacking etc costs the software industry millions if not billions a year so no its not a wash. I find it insulting that you think DRM is something made up by the industry for a problem that doesnt exist.
> 
> I use a variety of software that uses everything from iLok, CodeMeter, eLicencor, custom DRM, serial numbers etc etc. Pretty much any software has some form of DRM built in and dependning on size\cost of the software and company will depend on the implementation. The stuff that is "DRM" free tends to be small and insignificant.


I never said it was a made up issue but I believe DRM doesn't really do much to help sales. I'm sorry your offended and you're certainly welcome to disagree. Like I said, it seems to be an emotional issue with developers. The DRM free software I've bought are not small and insignificant to me. They are some of my most useful tools, ie; Reaper


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## pderbidge (Aug 8, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Do you have data on that? If not, hard to say it is a wash. I'm sure the developers have some sense and ultimately are making the call on what balance they want to strike. Vengeance is doing this with the switch to Codemeter, everybody using iLok is making that call, etc.


No hard data, just my opinion. I have everything from iLok to Waves own special installer. I use what I like but when there's a DRM Free alternative then that's where I'll gravitate.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 8, 2020)

pderbidge said:


> I never said it was a made up issue but I believe DRM doesn't really do much to help sales. I'm sorry your offended and you're certainly welcome to disagree. Like I said, it seems to be an emotional issue with developers. The DRM free software I've bought are not small and insignificant to me. They are some of my most useful tools, ie; Reaper


DRM helps sales because it goes some way to prevent software from been hacked/cracked/pirated. Without DRM and includes any form of license code then you might as well say the software is free as you have no protection.

its not so much an emotional thing but the only line of defence that software companies and developers have to protect all of the time effort they have put into their product


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## Diablo IV (Aug 8, 2020)

CGR said:


> How incredibly annoying. Almost without exception every time I call up a Spitfire Player instrument I see an error message saying it needs to be repaired (I'm running Mac OSX 10.11) Often the "repair" process does nothing, so lately I've given up and just choose a reliable and stable Kontakt or UVI based instrument, and avoid the frustration.



As you should 😉
Even though nothing's perfect, waiting 2 days for them to do something is beyond unreasonable.
I have stayed away from SF for a while now, thanks for confirming I have been doing just right, no regrets.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 8, 2020)

Diablo IV said:


> As you should 😉
> Even though nothing's perfect, waiting 2 days for them to do something is beyond unreasonable.
> I have stayed away from SF for a while now, thanks for confirming I have been doing just right, no regrets.


I’ve never heard of so many problems on Macs, the reliable platform that never breaks. Is this the seedy under belly of the Mac world they keep hidden windows users fir fear of having their halo tarnished........lol sorry couldn’t resist


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## ryst (Aug 8, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Professionals with deadlines (to which he alludes) are not going to be stuck, unable to work, because one library is inaccessible for a few days. You just use something else and keep going.



Yes, 100%.


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## d.healey (Aug 8, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> DRM helps sales because it goes some way to prevent software from been hacked/cracked/pirated. Without DRM and includes any form of license code then you might as well say the software is free as you have no protection.
> 
> its not so much an emotional thing but the only line of defence that software companies and developers have to protect all of the time effort they have put into their product



This may come as a surprise, DRM doesn't work.

Large software companies (those that push the severest DRM) don't tend to fold due to copyright infringement, yet their software is the most copied.

DRM exists as a restriction on legitimate customers, it doesn't prevent copyright infringement, although in some cases it may slow its progress.

Just as the criminalization of drugs doesn't eliminate drugs, the criminalization of sharing doesn't eliminate sharing. In both cases the only true way to eliminate the problem is to legalize them. Copyright laws need to catch up with the reality of a digital world, you can't impose the same restrictions on virtual products that you have on physical objects and expect everything to just work.

People don't buy software because they can't acquire it without paying for it. Although this is a myth a lot of software and media companies like to perpetuate to justify restricting their users. Just think about it, do you buy software because you can't get it without paying? Is this the only reason you don't download the software illegally? Of course not! The DRM does not prevent you from acquiring most software without paying, yet you choose to pay.

People buy software for a number of reasons, here are a few:

They believe it is the right thing to do (and they're not wrong)
To support the developer
For convenience
To access additional services like customer support
Trust
To get the latest updates promptly
Prestige.
I buy a lot of a software, none of it has DRM, most of it I could also acquire (legally) without paying a penny, but I choose to pay. None DRM'd software is worth far more than software with DRM.


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## JPQ (Aug 8, 2020)

KEM said:


> I’ve been having an issue very frequently where using the LABS Choir will completely crash my daw every time I try to open a project with it, it sucks, Spitfire’s player really sucks


What daw and platfrom? btw these problems makes me think i develop my stuff with using only kontakt,maybe uvi and vsl players. even i hobby composer but still. they indeed make lovely samples. eastwest play worked my mac fine but now i have another display i bet their gui is now too small even if they work well.


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## JohnG (Aug 8, 2020)

d.healey said:


> This may come as a surprise, DRM doesn't work.



Not sure where you heard that. Although it's "crackable," some DRM works a heck of a lot better than others. I have not seen East West on torrent sites, for example (though I have for, it seems, most of the Kontakt libraries).


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## KEM (Aug 8, 2020)

JPQ said:


> What daw and platfrom? btw these problems makes me think i develop my stuff with using only kontakt,maybe uvi and vsl players. even i hobby composer but still. they indeed make lovely samples. eastwest play worked my mac fine but now i have another display i bet their gui is now too small even if they work well.



Cubase 10 on High Sierra


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## d.healey (Aug 8, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Not sure where you heard that. Although it's "crackable," some DRM works a heck of a lot better than others. I have not seen East West on torrent sites, for example (though I have for, it seems, most of the Kontakt libraries).


My original version was "Most DRM doesn't work". Maybe I should have left it like that. Remember when the iLok servers went down and people couldn't access their libraries? That was DRM working 

Of course before EW switched to iLok they were using Kontakt, and their libraries were heavily "pirated". Shame that it killed their business and we haven't heard from them since.


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## Krayh (Aug 8, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Im a professional software developer albeit not music software and this is not just some made up issue, piracy\hacking etc costs the software industry millions if not billions a year so no its not a wash. I find it insulting that you think DRM is something made up by the industry for a problem that doesnt exist.
> 
> I use a variety of software that uses everything from iLok, CodeMeter, eLicencor, custom DRM, serial numbers etc etc. Pretty much any software has some form of DRM built in and dependning on size\cost of the software and company will depend on the implementation. The stuff that is "DRM" free tends to be small and insignificant.



Oh please give me a break. A product that would not have been bought in the first place cant be count as a loss in sales if it is pirated. This is such hogwash and is proven and proven again. The only ones who are really suffering are the legitimated customers.


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## JohnG (Aug 8, 2020)

d.healey said:


> My original version was "Most DRM doesn't work". Maybe I should have left it like that. Remember when the iLok servers went down and people couldn't access their libraries? That was DRM working
> 
> Of course before EW switched to iLok they were using Kontakt, and their libraries were heavily "pirated". Shame that it killed their business and we haven't heard from them since.



Which is why they have their own player, with improved DRM, Mr. Rude Reply.

Also might explain why OT and Spitfire have their own players, at least in part. I know they talk about greater outputs and other flexibility, which no doubt is true too. But I think that’s just part of it; I would wager that 75-90% of the motivation was anti-piracy.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 8, 2020)

Krayh said:


> Oh please give me a break. A product that would not have been bought in the first place cant be count as a loss in sales if it is pirated. This is such hogwash and is proven and proven again. The only ones who are really suffering are the legitimated customers.



Then are you suggesting that someone who pirated software doesn’t actually use it? Of course it’s lost revenue!! If I illegally download a library and use it, that developer is out a sale (and don’t tell me that person wouldn’t have bought it otherwise). There’s a special place in hell for these bottom feeders


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## sinkd (Aug 8, 2020)

d.healey said:


> And papers don't report people who aren't murdered, what's your point?


That one really serious user's product failure situation is not necessarily indicative of a general weakness in the product.


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## sinkd (Aug 8, 2020)

Greg said:


> This is exactly why 3rd party sample hosts make me nervous as hell. EW Play taught me this lesson a long time ago. Sine player lasted 5 minutes in my rig before being deleted. I respect my clients too much to ever risk telling them that I can't recall a session or make stems because of some shit software.


So you don't use Kontakt?


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## sinkd (Aug 8, 2020)

JohnG said:


> I use Spitfire products constantly and have deadlines. I have had hiccoughs with practically all the software I use, even the normally infallible VE Pro (once only!).
> 
> The title of this thread is wildly overblown.


Agreed. Shit happens. Be ready for it.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 8, 2020)

It is ironic that composers who would like to be compensated for their work and would not like it being used for free (especially if that use generates the user some income) would be so opposed to developers feeling the same about their work and trying to protect it. Talk about hypocrisy.


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## Joakim (Aug 8, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> It is ironic that composers who would like to be compensated for their work and would not like it being used for free (especially if that use generates the user some income) would be so opposed to developers feeling the same about their work and trying to protect it. Talk about hypocrisy.



Around and around we go...


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## pderbidge (Aug 8, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> DRM helps sales because it goes some way to prevent software from been hacked/cracked/pirated. Without DRM and includes any form of license code then you might as well say the software is free as you have no protection.
> 
> its not so much an emotional thing but the only line of defence that software companies and developers have to protect all of the time effort they have put into their product


Seems to be the opposite of what you say for the Reaper developers. I think they're a pretty good example of a success story for a developer that chooses to entice customers with value proposition rather than spend money on DRM.


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## pderbidge (Aug 8, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> It is ironic that composers who would like to be compensated for their work and would not like it being used for free (especially if that use generates the user some income) would be so opposed to developers feeling the same about their work and trying to protect it. Talk about hypocrisy.


That's a proposterous statement. Just because I'm not in favor of DRM does not mean I think devs should not be compensated for their work. I spent $10k in VSTs alone in one year. How much have you spent? Does that sound like someone who believes devs shouldn't get compensated? Devs should be thanking me for supporting them, not punishing me with the constant hassels that DRM comes with.


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## tmhuud (Aug 8, 2020)

Rory said:


> A lot of Mac owners have software called Carbon Copy Cloner, often used instead of Time Machine. CCC can be used to run a machine after a hard drive failure because it can clone a computer’s boot drive. I have CCC, which I have used for various purposes for about eight years, but I would not plan to use it to run a failed computer without testing it first with the specific apps that I want to run. CCC itself strongly recommends such testing.



yes, we have tested it and have used it in those 911 situations and it does work. It works quite well. On the other hand we do have 3 other backup options to fall back on (just in case). You really do need built in redundancies for peace of mind. A complete and totally cloned second setup has always fascinated me. Never perused due to logistics.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 8, 2020)

pderbidge said:


> That's a proposterous statement. Just because I'm not in favor of DRM does not mean I think devs should not be compensated for their work. I spent $10k in VSTs alone in one year. How much have you spent? Does that sound like someone who believes devs shouldn't get compensated? Devs should be thanking me for supporting them, not punishing me with the constant hassels that DRM comes with.



Let’s not compare our spending habits... Not sure how what I spend has anything to do with things in any case. I happily deal with DRM.

Just because you have good intentions doesn’t mean everybody does. The facts are that piracy exists and devs are trying to ensure they are fairly compensated. DRM is the defense.


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## Kony (Aug 9, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Let’s not compare our spending habits... Not sure how what I spend has anything to do with things in any case. I happily deal with DRM.
> 
> Just because you have good intentions doesn’t mean everybody does. The facts are that piracy exists and devs are trying to ensure they are fairly compensated. DRM is the defense.


I think the point is most DRMs do not prevent piracy yet the honest paying consumer suffers by having to deal with DRM. Why aren't watermarks on samples enough to take down pirates anyway?


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## pderbidge (Aug 9, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Let’s not compare our spending habits... Not sure how what I spend has anything to do with things in any case. I happily deal with DRM.
> 
> Just because you have good intentions doesn’t mean everybody does. The facts are that piracy exists and devs are trying to ensure they are fairly compensated. DRM is the defense.


The point is compensation. You insinuated that composers that don't care for DRM don't care if devs are compensated and I just pointed out that they are getting compensated by composers like myself and many many others on this forum. When you have something of value, most people worth having as a customer will pay for it. The rest aren't likely to have bought it anyways and if they would have, they aren't worth having as customers anyways because Karma makes it way around eventually but I don't think your opinion on the matter is invalid, I just don't agree with it. I think it's ok to disagree, just don't try and demonize the other side of your opinion as people who don't care. I care very much for devs to make money which is why I spend money on them.


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## MGdepp (Aug 9, 2020)

Huh! Hilarious to see to at what lengths some people go to defend their favorite dev! :-D Despite some other posters picked apart all those arguments, logic does not seem to matter much. This is obviously more of an emotional question to some, so, I am not even gonna try ...

Anyway, I WILL share my own experience: the one SF plugin I own has cost me several times to have to abandon that library during a project. For the hundreds of Kontakt libraries I own there has virtually been no problem for years. People can tell me all they want, but there is no way I will believe that those two pieces of software will appear both equally reliable and suited for professional work!

It is true: I can live with this one niche library not working again and again. But it wouldn’t be that easy, would I own multiple of their libraries for the platform, including bread and butter libraries. Given how long this software exists already, I have no high hopes this is gonna change anytime soon.


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## pderbidge (Aug 9, 2020)

MGdepp said:


> Huh! Hilarious to see to at what lengths some people go to defend their favorite dev! :-D Despite some other posters picked apart all those arguments, logic does not seem to matter much. This is obviously more of an emotional question to some, so, I am not even gonna try ...
> 
> Anyway, I WILL share my own experience: the one SF plugin I own has cost me several times to have to abandon that library during a project. For the hundreds of Kontakt libraries I own there has virtually been no problem for years. People can tell me all they want, but there is no way I will believe that those two pieces of software will appear both equally reliable and suited for professional work!
> 
> It is true: I can live with this one niche library not working again and again. But it wouldn’t be that easy, would I own multiple of their libraries for the platform, including bread and butter libraries. Given how long this software exists already, I have no high hopes this is gonna change anytime soon.


To be fair, I think it should be pointed out that East West has gone through these same issues for years and yet there are thousands of composers who have made a living, making professional music and cues with EW stuff despite the hassles. Whether you call SF software professional or not there are many using them professionally. Many composers still love SF and I like to see them being successful as it helps drive competition which is good for all of us. I still use plenty of VST's that are buggy but because I like them so much deal with their shortcomings. However, I do feel like you do when it comes to these issues you have had with SF, that there is enough competition to keep me away. I should note that I have been using Albion One more and more but not for orchestral. There are still a few products of Spitfires that are niche enough that I'd like to own them someday. ie; Tundra.


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## MGdepp (Aug 9, 2020)

Kony said:


> I think the point is most DRMs do not prevent piracy yet the honest paying consumer suffers by having to deal with DRM. Why aren't watermarks on samples enough to take down pirates anyway?


And Amen to that! I cannot tell you how many times I couldn’t play back a DRM movie bought on iTunes, because DRM was complaining about the monitor attached to my Mac! In my studio, there simply is no way to enjoy any of the streamed content on my professional studio speaker 5.1. You only get Amazon Prime in stereo on the browser. I would have to buy a frickin’ fire stick and somehow try to route the bad analog out into my professional converter ... similarly, there is no blue ray player which does not cost a fortune which can be connected to my studio speakers. Despite all that, all the films protected by DRM can be found for free all over the internet ...


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 9, 2020)

Kony said:


> I think the point is most DRMs do not prevent piracy......



I was involved in software distribtion in an unrelated, yet similarly vertical market. This software is now dongled, as it is four-figure software used in manufacturing. When people tell me the DRMs do not prevent software piracy, I shake my head in wonder at their naivety.....especially when considered internationally.

The fine people on this forum, I am sure, do indeed purchase their software. But this forum is not the world, merely a very small corner of it.

Give someone a small plug-in or library that costs less than, say, $100, and I'm pretty sure most people will buy it. Now make a $1000 dollar library that cost you $300k to produce, release it DRM free and see how long it is before it is torrented the hell out.

Steve Jobs had it right with iTunes when he said that you needed to sell the music tracks at a price that made it not worth the effort to steal them. That works with 99c 3 mintue pop songs. Less so with $3,000 software.

I have heard developers on this forum state that as soon as their product hits a torrent site, they can see the sales plummet.

With the software I was involved in, it actually drives production machinery, so some people thought it was OK to buy one copy and use it on 5 machines..... In the past they have even cracked the software so it can be used without the dongle.

I went onto on to several of these torrent sites when our dongle was cracked. It was large scale larceny, pure and simple.

So to all those who say DRM doesnt work - I tell you that it does. It's very different when you have significant premises, staff, pensions, health etc and a hefty wage bill to protect.

This doesn't mean, by the way, the DRM always works well. Some of it sucks. I know one company (years ago now) who had legitimate licences of Quark but used cracked verrsions, because it was more stable - the legit version kept 'unregistering' itself.

Without DRM, I dont think you would see higher prices, though that may also happen. What I think you would notice the most is far less products, with companies and investors unwilling to make significant investments into high value software that is easily stolen.

We all seem to disagree about DRM here. I don't mind dongles, others hate them passionately - but it's telling that the Kontakt engine seems to be the one most people say is the friendliest. It's also offers the developer the least protection, and from my brief soujourn on the torrent sites, all the pirated ibraries seem to be Kontakt ones.

I've never seen a single VSL or Best Service library on there. I haven't looked in years, but I would imagine the the same goes for Spitfire Player and Sine too - though of course it is realtively early days for those platforms.

Personally, I would never bet my business on the honesty of people worldwide. There are huge numbers who simply see software theft as a victimless crime, like insurance fraud. I know the members here are not like that, but VI-Control, and it's members are pretty special.....


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## MGdepp (Aug 9, 2020)

I think the impact of pirated libraries is overstated here. Yes, there are a few losses due to piracy! But mostly, people either use pirated software or they buy. If libraries like VSL cannot be pirated due to a dongle protection, it does not mean their sales will go up, as people using pirated stuff will just use something else which is available. Otherwise, how could devs like Spitfire or Orchestral Tools thrive as they did in the recent decade with their products all over the web? That just wouldn‘t make sense ...

I have nothing against copy protection! But I think devs should really take care that their customers don’t get annoyed by it. My days of buying VSL are pretty much done due to the dongle policy! I just don’t accept the fact of having to pay a yearly fee for an insurance of my purchases, while that is not the case with any other dev. Also, I cannot use their software on two separate machine without removing the dongle.

With the spitfire player, the DRM is probably one of the reasons that it is so unreliable. But there are developers who manage to make it Right! E.g., Wallander Instruments: I have never had problems with Note Performer or their earlier software and to my knowledge, their copy protection seems to have worked until today!


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## NYC Composer (Aug 9, 2020)

My opinion, based on about 35 years of buying music software:

1. Software developers should feel free to use any methods they choose to protect their intellectual property.

2. Any prospective customers should feel free to refuse to purchase any software with a protection scheme they feel is onerous.

3. All software devs should permit license transfer for some sort of compensation.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> I was involved in software distribtion in an unrelated, yet similarly vertical market. This software is now dongled, as it is four-figure software used in manufacturing. When people tell me the DRMs do not prevent software piracy, I shake my head in wonder at their naivety.....especially when considered internationally.
> 
> The fine people on this forum, I am sure, do indeed purchase their software. But this forum is not the world, merely a very small corner of it.
> 
> ...


I'm less disgusted by software companies screwing other companies than I am with them screwing individuals, but I feel incredibly sorry for those businesses that rely on software that they have no control over. Their businesses are now dependent on the software's owner. If the owner goes bust then every company that depends on their products is in trouble.

It seems a general theme that those who are pro-DRM are thinking mostly about the benefits it provides to the developer without considering the moral implication of instilling dependency in users.

A user should be in control of the software they use, the developer should not be in control of them.


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## AndreasHe (Aug 9, 2020)

Soon I will need to change a HD (ssd) with BBC Orchester on it (windows). Do you think it will break it? Do I need to somehow deregister it first?


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> This may come as a surprise, DRM doesn't work.
> 
> Large software companies (those that push the severest DRM) don't tend to fold due to copyright infringement, yet their software is the most copied.
> 
> ...


What a load of drivel, the best part being "I buy a lot of a software, none of it has DRM" so if we check your mac\pc your have no software at all that requires a registration\licenses key in order to operate fully.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Krayh said:


> Oh please give me a break. A product that would not have been bought in the first place cant be count as a loss in sales if it is pirated. This is such hogwash and is proven and proven again. The only ones who are really suffering are the legitimated customers.



OK if that is the stance you take and your attitude towards "buying" software then you are little more than a petty criminal dealing in the shadows.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

AndreasHe said:


> Soon I will need to change a HD (ssd) with BBC Orchester on it (windows). Do you think it will break it? Do I need to somehow deregister it first?


My suggestion is before you do it, drop Spitfire and email and tell them what you going to do etc


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## styledelk (Aug 9, 2020)

Thr macro view of "well if it hurt them so bad, they wouldn't be here and be so successful" is dangerous.

The victimless crime argument is also abhorrent.

We accept a little inconvenience in our lives every day.

I agree that people who pirate maybe wouldn't have bought anyway... that doesn't mean it should be easy for them to do so. That puts the value of the software (and the samples, human labor (the orchestra, the technicians, the support staff, the engineers, the product managers, the people that mop the floors)) as acceptable to be $0.00.

We're lucky this is a large enough industry and hobby for them to even be able to exist and eke out enough to produce it for $300-$1000 a copy and still not go under.

Signed: someone that pirated software a decade ago, but did so without putting on airs about how it had no damage, wasn't wrong, and didn't try to construct specious arguments about why Software Should Be Free Because It's Not Physical and all of that garbage.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> so if we check your mac\pc your have no software at all that requires a registration\licenses key in order to operate fully.


That's not what I said. I said I don't "buy" any software with DRM (although I have done years ago before I knew better).

I have multiple machines under my control, my personal computers have no DRM'd software. In my business I have a Mac Mini I use to compile plugins for Mac and Windows customers. This of course requires DRM, but I didn't buy it, it was given to my business by a client.


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## Rory (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> I have multiple machines under my control, my personal computers have no DRM'd software. In my business I have a Mac Mini I use to compile plugins for Mac and Windows customers. This of course requires DRM, but I didn't buy it, it was given to my business by a client.



Just trying to understand this. Are you using Linux as the operating system on your personal computers?


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## Joakim (Aug 9, 2020)

Some people here seem to argue that once a library hits the torrent sites the developers see an immediate significant reduction in sales. The funny thing about that is it proves that these pirates spend their money on libraries all the time and the fact that they torrent is not necessarily a monetary argument. 

With such a large overlap of paying customers that also pirate you have to stop and think.. why?
Perhaps the overlap would shrink significantly if developers sold their products DRM free to allow customers the ease of mind to know that the product will always work for them. Or perhaps the pirated versions provide features that the devs themselves refuse to implement?


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> That's not what I said. I said I don't "buy" any software with DRM (although I have done years ago before I knew better).
> 
> I have multiple machines under my control, my personal computers have no DRM'd software. In my business I have a Mac Mini I use to compile plugins for Mac and Windows customers. This of course requires DRM, but I didn't buy it, it was given to my business by a client.


No worries , let’s pass your details onto the Federation Against Software Piracy and let them determine how clean you are.

Obviously hats off to you that your personal computers must be running Debian Linux as every other OS has DRM.

obviously you don’t ‘buy’ any software as you don’t agree with having to pay like the rest if us, your just another software pirate who things it should be free


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> Just trying to understand this. Are you using Linux as the operating system on your personal computers?


Rory I just said the same, and it must be Debian Linux as well, any other answer than YES must mean “oh I’m talking bullshit and don’t know what I am saying”


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> Just trying to understand this. Are you using Linux as the operating system on your personal computers?


Yes, currently Linux Mint (which is built on Ubuntu which is built on Debian) on my main system. I'm in the process of transferring to a new system which runs pure Debian (although I still need non-free firmware for my GPU  ). My laptops already run pure Debian.



DovesGoWest said:


> obviously you don’t ‘buy’ any software as you don’t agree with having to pay like the rest if us, your just another software pirate who things it should be free


I don't think software should be gratis. I make my living selling software. I think it should be free as in freedom, but that's a different issue to DRM. I don't "pirate" software either! I buy software when it's commercial software, even software I can get for free I often pay for to support the developers, and sometimes I contribute to its development as well, free of charge.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 9, 2020)

Let me be unequivocal:
Developers have every right to do whatever they deem necessary to contain piracy of their products. WHATEVER.

Potential buyers have every right to make decisions on what to buy or not buy based on the steps the developer takes.

People on forums have every right to state their opinions. They don’t get to decide what should be acceptable to others, as long as it is is legal. Illegal activity is illegal and cannot be morally justified, whether it is a 13 year old bedroom user or a major recording artist


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim said:


> Some people here seem to argue that once a library hits the torrent sites the developers see an immediate significant reduction in sales. The funny thing about that is it proves that these pirates spend their money on libraries all the time and the fact that they torrent is not necessarily a monetary argument.
> 
> With such a large overlap of paying customers that also pirate you have to stop and think.. why?
> Perhaps the overlap would shrink significantly if developers sold their products DRM free to allow customers the ease of mind to know that the product will always work for them. Or perhaps the pirated versions provide features that the devs themselves refuse to implement?


Just be clear pirates versions do not include new features lol

software is cracked/pirated and placed on torrent cause people don’t want to pay the prices it’s as simple as that. This was the whole reason DRM existed and as Steve Jobs said if you make it cheap enough they won’t bother cracking it. 

I would love omnisphere and to play with it but I can’t justify the cost especially other things I have bought. Now I could go find it on torrent an get a cracked copy and say to hell with it. But that’s wrong, it’s stealing, goes against my beliefs as a developer so work around nit having it


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Yes, currently Linux Mint (which is built on Ubuntu which is built on Debian) on my main system. I'm in the process of transferring to a new system which runs pure Debian (although I still need non-free firmware for my GPU  ). My laptops already run pure Debian.
> 
> 
> I don't think software should be gratis. I make my living selling software. I think it should be free as in freedom, but that's a different issue to DRM. I don't "pirate" software either! I buy software when it's commercial software, even software I can get for free I often pay for to support the developers, and sometimes I contribute to its development as well, free of charge.



I presume you have no issues then with having all your plugins cracked and placed on torrent for anyone who wants them


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## Rory (Aug 9, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> Illegal activity is illegal and cannot be morally justified, whether it is a 13 year old bedroom user or a major recording artist



People do things that are illegal but morally justifiable all the time. That’s what civil disobedience is by definition, and why people often risk being arrested at demonstrations.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about intellectual property. The United States has been particularly aggressive on intellectual property rights both domestically and internationally. Three days ago, Donald Trump, of all people, announced that the U.S. Government is going to circumvent U.S. IP laws, enacted to benefit the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, by purchasing drugs from Canada, where drugs cost less.

The fact that certain business interests, including media interests, manage to get expanded IP rights over and over, may make these expansions legal in some jurisdictions, but it doesn’t make it right. Nor does it automatically make a refusal to obey such laws, which expand monopolies, morally wrong.


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## Joakim (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Just be clear pirates versions do not include new features lol
> 
> software is cracked/pirated and placed on torrent cause people don’t want to pay the prices it’s as simple as that.
> 
> I would love omnisphere and to play with it but I can’t justify the cost especially other things I have bought. Now I could go find it on torrent an get a cracked copy and say to hell with it. But that’s wrong, it’s stealing, goes against my beliefs as a developer so work around nit having it



Now you are just making assumptions and showing your ignorance.

It might not be very common but if you think Reverse Engineers never do any modifications to improve upon things then you might want to look into it again. A prime example of this is Kontakt itself.

And what about addressing the actual argument I made instead of laser focus on the last sentence I wrote?


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## Ashermusic (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> People do things that are illegal but morally justifiable all the time. That’s what civil disobedience is by definition, and why people often risk being arrested at demonstrations.
> 
> Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about intellectual property. The United States has been particularly aggressive on intellectual property rights both domestically and internationally. Three days ago, Donald Trump, of all people, announced that he’s going to circumvent certain U.S. IP laws, enacted to benefit the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, by purchasing drugs from Canada, where drugs cost less.
> 
> The fact that certain business interests, including media interests, manage to get expanded IP rights over and over, may make these expansions legal in some jurisdictions, but it doesn’t make it right.



Please tell me you are not equating civil disobedience with theft, which is what software piracy is.


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim said:


> Now you are just making assumptions and showing your ignorance.
> 
> It might not be very common but if you think Reverse Engineers never do any modifications to improve upon things then you might want to look into it again. A prime example of this is Kontakt itself.
> 
> And what about addressing the actual argument I made instead of laser focus on the last sentence I wrote?



I remember back in the day with the Commodore Amiga there was a game called Operation Wolf. It was a vesion of a popular arcade game at the time. This was when games were sold on 3.5" floppies. Anyway, this one game happened to come on two floppies that annoyingly needed to be swapped all the time. Anyway, a cracker managed to squeeze the program onto one floppy and fix a couple of bugs. IIRC the company that made it found out who he was and hired him.

This is a popular myth, yes it's true that he got the job, but it also cost the developer a huge amount of sales as it was one of the top titles at the time. (Ah the 80's).



DovesGoWest said:


> No worries , let’s pass your details onto the Federation Against Software Piracy and let them determine how clean you are.



There's really no need to take this tone with such a long standing and respected member of this forum. We are all friends here and it is absolutely fine to have differing views on things.


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## tmhuud (Aug 9, 2020)

If I can only find that 9Volt Audio article...


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## Joakim (Aug 9, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> Please tell me you are not equating civil disobedience with theft, which is what software piracy is.



Copyright infringement is not theft.


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## Rory (Aug 9, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> Please tell me you are not equating civil disobedience with theft, which is what software piracy is.



There‘s no point in engaging with someone who is as unquestioning of authority, and as unknowledgeable about intellectual property rights, as you have demonstrated you are.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim said:


> Now you are just making assumptions and showing your ignorance.
> 
> It might not be very common but if you think Reverse Engineers never do any modifications to improve upon things then you might want to look into it again. A prime example of this is Kontakt itself.
> 
> And what about addressing the actual argument I made instead of laser focus on the last sentence I wrote?


Oh you do make me laugh there is no assumptions or ignorance dinwitt let me repeat I AM A SOFTWARE DEVELOPER many moons ago most likely before you were born I was a Cracker/Hacker/Pirate so trust me I KNOW

I bet you have no clue as to the time and cost it takes to reverse engineer something. The game and challenge for crackers is to breakdown the walls and barriers

you make no argument


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## Joakim (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Oh you do make me laugh there is no assumptions or ignorance dinwitt let me repeat I AM A SOFTWARE DEVELOPER many moons ago most likely before you were born I was a Cracker/Hacker/Pirate so trust me I KNOW
> 
> I bet you have no clue as to the time and cost it takes to reverse engineer something. The game and challenge for crackers is to breakdown the walls and barriers
> 
> you make no argument



Enough proof that you argue in bad faith and giving me no choice but to block you.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim said:


> Enough proof that you argue in bad faith and giving me no choice but to block you.


Pmsl ...... subtext ‘oh shit this guy knows his onions’


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim said:


> Copyright infringement is not theft.


Not if you ask nicely first


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## Ashermusic (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> There‘s no point in engaging with someone who is as unquestioning of authority, and as unknowledgeable about intellectual property rights, as you have demonstrated you are.



And there is no point in engaging with a person with a broken moral compass.


----------



## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> I remember back in the day with the Commodore Amiga there was a game called Operation Wolf. It was a vesion of a popular arcade game at the time. This was when games were sold on 3.5" floppies. Anyway, this one game happened to come on two floppies that annoyingly needed to be swapped all the time. Anyway, a cracker managed to squeeze the program onto one floppy and fix a couple of bugs. IIRC the company that made it found out who he was and hired him.
> 
> This is a popular myth, yes it's true that he got the job, but it also cost the developer a huge amount of sales as it was one of the top titles at the time. (Ah the 80's).


That’s where I honed my craft as a cracker/pirate twas a different era then. 



Michael Antrum said:


> There's really no need to take this tone with such a long standing and respected member of this forum. We are all friends here and it is absolutely fine to have differing views on things.


I apologise my defences go up as a developers after having bee burnt so much


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## NYC Composer (Aug 9, 2020)

NYC Composer said:


> My opinion, based on about 35 years of buying music software:
> 
> 1. Software developers should feel free to use any methods they choose to protect their intellectual property.
> 
> ...



See above for a quote from a VERY reasonable person who I admire deeply...


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 9, 2020)

It's getting a little heated in here. I shall have to have a word with @Mike Greene about how disagreements should be settled and honour restored. 

Obviously good old fashioned duelling with swords will break the social distancing regulations, so I propse that in future, these kind of arguements are settled with......

a dance off, to be published on you tube. Just think of the careers that could be destroyed with an ineptly performed moonwalk, or sloppily executed orange justice. (OK, I admit it, I googled that one)....

But it could be awesome....


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Maybe it’s time to lock this thread


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## Uiroo (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Maybe it’s time to lock this thread


You've been the most active the last two pages, do you realise how ironic that is?


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Uiroo said:


> You've been the most active the last two pages, do you realise how ironic that is?


Yeah I really have better things to do but when your waiting on the results of a Covid test what can I say


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 9, 2020)

Clearly some differing opinions and strong stances here but one thing I think is important is to avoid assumptions like piracy has no impact on the sample developers. The only people that really know that are the developers who are tracking their sales numbers daily. The scale of that impact is unknown to outsiders and of course, the developers will choose how aggressive they want to be in defending against it.

One interesting side effect of things like SINE (and maybe the Spitfire player) is it could provide smaller developers a new, more secure platform to release on since Kontakt libraries are easily cracked it seems (of course, Kontakt also has the largest user base so something to consider). Time will tell.


----------



## MartinH. (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Of course before EW switched to iLok they were using Kontakt, and their libraries were heavily "pirated". Shame that it killed their business and we haven't heard from them since.



If they were still using Kontakt, I'd have bought hollywood orchestra.




tmhuud said:


> If I can only find that 9Volt Audio article...



I didn't know what you were talking about, but since one of my first Sample Library purchases was 9V Audio's "Taiko", I got curious and searched for it. I believe this is what you were looking for: 






The Pirating of my Library


For a long time I have felt ambivalent about piracy in the digital realm. As the owner, operator and janitor for Nine Volt Audio I long ago came to an acceptance that my sound libraries would be pirated, offered free for the taking to the likes of thousands. I remember long ago, back around...




vi-control.net







I vaguely remember seeing "Taiko 2" listed in some sales (likely at Bestservice and/or the 9V Audio closure sale), and thinking "I already have a good Taiko library, I don't really need another one.". So I wouldn't be surprised if the library failed commercially for reasons related to percieved redundancy and/or marketing.
Very sad either way.

I always thought it's super nice that my 9VAudio Taiko library doesn't have DRM and I'll likely be able to still use it as long as I can run Kontakt somehow (cracked if necessary when/if NI goes under too). If it came as vst plugin with proprietary DRM, it would likely have turned into the first library I can't use anymore because the dev no longers is around to support the DRM activation.


----------



## Rory (Aug 9, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Clearly some differing opinions and strong stances here but one thing I think is important is to avoid assumptions like piracy has no impact on the sample developers. The only people that really know that are the developers who are tracking their sales numbers daily. The scale of that impact is unknown to outsiders and of course, the developers will choose how aggressive they want to be in defending against it.
> 
> One interesting side effect of things like SINE (and maybe the Spitfire player) is it could provide smaller developers a new, more secure platform to release on since Kontakt libraries are easily cracked it seems (of course, Kontakt also has the largest user base so something to consider). Time will tell.



I think the question isn’t whether piracy has an impact, but what is the economically intelligent way to deal with it. On that question, opinions vary, even among people who study the question. Speaking about intellectual property generally, there are also completely legitimate issues about the proper scope of, and length of, monopolies, which is what holders of intellectual property rights enjoy. That is why IP rights are an explicit exception to national laws on competition (what in the U.S. are called antitrust laws).

To my mind, the importance of Spitfire’s App and Orchestral Tools’s SINE is that they challenge Native Instruments’s market dominance, indeed near monopoly on distribution of virtual instruments, which it monetises, in part, by charging users to use the full version of its player. This challenge should result in a more competitive market and quite possibly lower costs for users.

This is why I think that Spitfire’s App and SINE are extremely healthy developments that deserve support, notwithstanding the growing pains.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> I think the question isn’t whether piracy has an impact, but what is the economically intelligent way to deal with it. On that question, opinions vary, even among people who study the question. Speaking about intellectual property generally, there are also completely legitimate issues about the proper scope of monopolies, which is what holders of intellectual property rights enjoy. That is why IP rights are an explicit exception to national laws on competition, and what Americans call antitrust laws.
> 
> To my mind, the importance of the Spitfire’s App and Orchestral Tools’s SINE is that they challenge Native Instruments’s market dominance, indeed near monopoly on distribution of virtual instruments, which it monetises, in part, by charging users to use the full version of its player. This challenge should result in a more competitive market and quite possibly lower prices for users.


Piracy existed back in 80s as much as it does today, during this every form of DRM has been tried and as each version is cracked it evolves. It’s the never ending war between good and bad, sith and Jedi and will continue long after all of us are gone.

I do agree that the move away from Kontakt by several companies is a good thing and could see lower costs as a result along with challenging NI dominance. Also as a developer using Kontakt you have no control or say in how it evolves and your at the mercy of NI to their charges. I’m sure I read somewhere about some libraries that no longer work in the latest version . If your a developer that’s a huge issue


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I presume you have no issues then with having all your plugins cracked and placed on torrent for anyone who wants them


My plugins are free software so that's not an issue I have to worry about.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> I think the question isn’t whether piracy has an impact, but what is the economically intelligent way to deal with it. On that question, opinions vary, even among people who study the question. serve support, notwithstanding the growing pains.



Which is why each developer needs to make their _own_ choice. We, as consumers then choose and vote with our wallets.

Why is that not simply common sense? We are not dealing with a monopoly.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> My plugins are free software so that's not an issue I have to worry about.


Hmmmm ok I must think free means something different then as a number of your free software plugins seem to have a cost against them.


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## Rory (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I do agree that the move away from Kontakt by several companies is a good thing and could see lower costs as a result along with challenging NI dominance. Also as a developer using Kontakt you have no control or say in how it evolves and your at the mercy of NI to their charges. I’m sure I read somewhere about some libraries that no longer work in the latest version . If your a developer that’s a huge issue



We’ll know that competition is working if Native Instruments loosens its stranglehold on developers and consumers. Rest assured that NI knows that it is possible to obtain the full version of Kontakt for much less than full retail. It may take some time, but don’t be surprised if the full version of Kontakt becomes free.

VSL strikes me as a once dominant company that is slowly being squeezed. One interesting question is how much its method of enforcing digital rights costs it in revenue from lost sales. Nobody is copying its model, I think for good reason.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> Which is why each developer needs to make their _own_ choice. We, as consumers then choose and vote with our wallets.
> 
> Why is that not simply common sense? We are not dealing with a monopoly.


Yep your exactly right, I think going back to the start of this thread the problem was:

I want your software
you use some DRM I don’t like
I want your software so I buy it
Everything works
I do somethings to break my system
You softwares DRM is a pain in the arse I don’t like it to will complain (although I still bought it)


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

In any industry, piracy has never hurt the big players (who are famous enough to have enough paying customers) as much as it has hurt the medium-sized and small players. 

Any composer on this forum who would rightly expect to be paid for any use of his or her music and would feel aggrieved if it was used with no compensation, and yet denounces library developers for seeking to protect their creations with DRM, is an idiot. 🤘🏻


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Yeah I really have better things to do but when your waiting on the results of a Covid test what can I say



It's a nasty little virus by all accounts, and where I live we have been lucky to be more on the fringes of it. I'm sure you'll be fine and don't need to worry.



Rory said:


> VSL strikes me as a once dominant company that is slowly being squeezed. One interesting question is how much its method of enforcing digital rights costs it in revenue from lost sales. Nobody is copying its model, I think for good reason.



It is odd you should say that, as I very much had the impression they were having a bit of a renaissance, particularly with VSL pianos which are now my firm favourites, and also the BBO series, which they have been banging out at the rate of a couple a month now. Genuine question - Is that something you know for sure, or just a general impression ?

There was certainly a period, particularly when Synchron Strings was delayed (and such an initial disappointment for so many) that I genuienly worried for VSL. I also thought the fact they were doing a 'Pre-sale' on VePro 7 a little unusual too.

But since then I had thought they were powering from strength to strength. At least i do hope so. Their support has always been epic and everyone says they are some of the nicest people in the industry.


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## Mike Greene (Aug 9, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> It's getting a little heated in here. I shall have to have a word with @Mike Greene about how disagreements should be settled and honour restored.


Seems like a good discussion to me, although it would be good if people were a little less personal in their responses.

Also ...


Joakim said:


> Copyright infringement is not theft.


It's pretty absurd to think that if someone is using a copy of my work without my permission, then that is not theft. Then again, people believe all sorts of things.

On this forum, though, it is axiomatic that copyright infringement is theft. So consider that debate over.

As to whether it has an effect on sales, I can say first hand that it does. Perhaps not as significant as some claims I've seen, but it's definitely there. And given that just about every major music software developer employs some form of copy protection, it seems my experience is not unique. We're not _all_ overreacting silly gooses. 

Also, as I explain in this post, it's not just a money thing. My work is personal and I have a certain emotional connection to it, so knowing people have unapproved copies feels like a personal affront to me.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Hmmmm ok I must think free means something different then as a number of your free software plugins seem to have a cost against them.


Yes free as in free speech not free beer - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Yes free as in free speech not free beer - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html


Ah ok, so according to that link, you sell 1 copy and then that person can redistribute it free gratis to anyone. Also I get a complete copy of the source code too to do with as I please.

that licence/definition stinks as you are valuing all the time/effort/ip/resource you put into a plugin at a 1 time fee, say it’s £49.99 that you value yourself for after 1 sale the person who buys it can give it away


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## Rory (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Yes free as in free speech not free beer - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html



A lot of what Mr. Healey is saying would be uncontroversial among GNU/Linux users. Nobody has to agree with him, but his is a legitimate perspective with a long history.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Ah ok, so according to that link, you sell 1 copy and then that person can redistribute it free gratis to anyone. Also I get a complete copy of the source code too to do with as I please.



Yes. This is the same model that has been used for many decades by many companies. Wordpress is one of the most recent and well known businesses that use the model.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

Rory said:


> A lot of what Mr. Healey is saying would be uncontroversial among GNU/Linux users. Nobody has to agree with him, but his is a legitimate perspective with a long history.


So is flat-earthism.


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## Joakim (Aug 9, 2020)

SupremeFist said:


> So is flat-earthism.



Did you just equate free software to a conspiracy theory or am I reading this wrong?


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## jononotbono (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Yes, currently Linux Mint (which is built on Ubuntu which is built on Debian) on my main system. I'm in the process of transferring to a new system which runs pure Debian (although I still need non-free firmware for my GPU  ). My laptops already run pure Debian.



just out of curiosity, why do you use Linux? What is it the Win or OSX doesn't do for you? Genuinely interested whether it's because Linux actually offers you something you can't already get or whether it's just the "I'm a rebel" and going to do something different than the norm! Not saying you are of course but I'm just curious about it.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim said:


> Did you just equate free software to a conspiracy theory or am I reading this wrong?


You're reading it wrong.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

It'll be a shame if this thread devolves into a clichéd "commercial software vs FOSS" fight, because there is a serious point here for those of us who accept devs' freedom to protect themselves with DRM but wish to insist that some forms of DRM are more user-hostile and aggravating than others. (Eg as someone who is now a pleased customer of VSL pianos, I've never seen a good explanation of why, if I lose my dongle or it breaks, VSL can't just remotely disable those licenses and issue me new ones, rather than demanding half the cost again if I don't buy their "insurance".)


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## Mike Fox (Aug 9, 2020)

Funny little story about piracy.

I once was reading the reviews for an album I had put on Amazon, and one of the reviews read something like this....

"I searched all over for this album on torrent sites, but couldn't find it, so i just ended up buying it."

I personally found it hilarious that the reviewer actually admitted in the review that they tried to torrent the album.

Some people.


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## pkm (Aug 9, 2020)

One thing I don't think is talked about often is the impact of piracy on companies other than the ones being pirated. You hear often that piracy doesn't necessarily correlate to loss of sales, which is true, in many cases people pirate a library that they would never ever buy. But if you go a step further, if you can't pirate the $1000 library you never would have bought, your options change and you may actually *buy* the $150 library from a smaller developer. 

I think the Spitfire player is a smart choice for Spitfire and the "sampling economy" as a whole, a little worse for the end user because the Spitfire player is not as good as Kontakt (IMO), but it has the potential to get here and I'm willing to give it the time.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> just out of curiosity, why do you use Linux? What is it the Win or OSX doesn't do for you? Genuinely interested whether it's because Linux actually offers you something you can't already get or whether it's just the "I'm a rebel" and going to do something different than the norm! Not saying you are of course but I'm just curious about it.


This won't be a short post....

I've never really used OSX except briefly at university and in studios (and now for compiling plugins). I've always been a Windows fanboy. I'd tinkered with various GNU/Linux distros over the years, never as a main system though.

I switched my main system to GNU/Linux about 4 years ago, having used it on my laptop for a few years prior.

Much to the bemusement of my brother, every time I installed Windows I would spend the next few days removing all of the crap that came with it that I didn't need. He'd ask why I bothered doing it when it was only taking up a little bit of hard-drive space, my response was "I did it because it was my system and I get to decide what's installed on it, not Microsoft.". Then Windows 10 hit and after every update Microsoft would helpfully reinstall all of the bloat I'd removed, because everyone needs Candy Crush!

After I got involved with HISE in about 2015 I started looking at licenses for the plugins I was making and I came across the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. I learned about its history, philosophy, and ideals and I realized that all these years when I was trying to be master of my own computer I had been following the same goals. I didn't have a label for what I was trying to achieve, and I hadn't heard of "free software", I thought, like most of you, that it meant freeware. I didn't realize there was an ethical issue regarding the control of one's system and that software developers were actively exploiting their position of power purely for their own benefit.

So what else can you do when you realize that you've been taken for a ride at your own expense and no-one told you!? I was disgusted! I dropped Windows and moved to Linux Mint (it's not wholly free but it was a good start).

I thought the transition would be a bit bumpy but actually I was already using a lot of free software without knowing it. My browser was Firefox, my email was Thunderbird, I used Inkscape, and GIMP (having dropped Photoshop many years ago), I used GNUCash, and Musescore, etc.

I was a little concerned about Kontakt and Reaper but as it turned out I didn't need to be. Although the native Linux version of Reaper was only in beta it worked perfectly; and Kontakt was fairly easy to get up and running in WINE, as were a few other programs and games. It was quickly obvious to me that I now had access to pretty much all of the software that is available on Windows with the addition of hundreds of apps that weren't. I was also now in control of my OS instead of Microsoft.

Nowadays I've managed to transition from Reaper to Ardour, and I don't use Kontakt. The few other proprietary apps I have installed are mostly games and are DRM free.

Unfortunately there is a lack of good sample libraries/virtual instruments for GNU/Linux. There are tons of great audio plugins and syths but not much for an orchestral composer. But since I'm a plugin developer that isn't too much of a problem for me, I just have to work a bit harder.



> Genuinely interested whether it's because Linux actually offers you something you can't already


Yes, freedom. Windows and MacOS are controlled by the developer not by the user.



SupremeFist said:


> there is a serious point here for those of us who accept devs' freedom to protect themselves with DRM


I don't think that anyone would disagree that a developer can add what ever (anti)features they like in their software. I'm just amazed that people choose to defend it. DRM is created with one purpose, to restrict you. It's like you all have Stockholm syndrome. Developers will survive without DRM, yes they might not make as much money, boohoo, your rights are more important than their coffers.



SupremeFist said:


> It'll be a shame if this thread devolves into a clichéd "commercial software vs FOSS" fight


It's proprietary vs FOSS. There is nothing stopping FOSS being commercial.


----------



## jononotbono (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> This won't be a short post....
> 
> I've never really used OSX except briefly at university and in studios (and now for compiling plugins). I've always been a Windows fanboy. I'd tinkered with various GNU/Linux distros over the years, never as a main system though.
> 
> ...



Ok thanks. So the price of having this "freedom' means that there is a lack of sample libraries that are usable in Linux? Meaning if you rely on Sample Libraries to write music you are in fact not free at all and at the mercy of what is available for Linux? 

I guess I don't really think about these things because at the end of the day, I just want to write music and I'll use whatever gear necessary to do so. Thanks for explaining why you use it.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

jononotbono said:


> Ok thanks. So the price of having this "freedom' means that there is a lack of sample libraries that are usable in Linux? Meaning if you rely on Sample Libraries to write music you are in fact not free at all and at the mercy of what is available for Linux?


Only if you don't want to use proprietary sample libraries or those with DRM. Kontakt runs just fine on GNU/Linux (not sure about K6), as does Aria, and a few other players, and there are bridges for VSTs. I don't think iLok and other dongles will work but I might be wrong (ask over at the Linux Musicians forum if you want to know about specific apps).


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> I don't think that anyone would disagree that a developer can add what ever (anti)features they like in their software. I'm just amazed that people choose to defend it. DRM is created with one purpose, to restrict you. It's like you all have Stockholm syndrome. Developers will survive without DRM, yes they might not make as much money, boohoo, your rights are more important than their coffers.


Even if I took the view that my rights are more important than the rights of other creative people (I don't), a little further thought would lead me to the conclusion that I am harming my own future rights, in terms of choice of tools, if I agitate against developers doing whatever they need to do to stay in business.


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## jononotbono (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Only if you don't want to use proprietary sample libraries or those with DRM. Kontakt runs just fine on GNU/Linux (not sure about K6), as does Aria, and a few other players, and there are bridges for VSTs. I don't think iLok and other dongles will work but I might be wrong (ask over at the Linux Musicians forum if you want to know about specific apps).



No need for me to find out specific apps as I have no plans to move away from stuff that works for me. Thanks though.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> It's proprietary vs FOSS. There is nothing stopping FOSS being commercial.


FOSS has a decent-ish track record of reverse-engineering/cloning software that was originally built by engineers who were being fairly compensated for their ingenuity by governments and/or corporations. But, correct me if I'm wrong, it has zero track record of real innovation. There's a reason why nothing in the FOSS world compares with Cubase or Logic.


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## drews (Aug 9, 2020)

Only thing i'll add to this before it eventually gets locked is look at what Epic games is doing with Unreal engine. If someone makes a top tier sample library and releases it as free with a licensing agreement, watch all the big boys absolutely freak out.

I'll add to this. Imagine if someone developed a top tier sample library and partnered with Epic to make it free to use in Unreal engine. All of a sudden half the games in the world would be using it that library.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

SupremeFist said:


> it has zero track record of real innovation.


Absolutely correct.
Wordpress has not innovated.
GCC, no innovation there
The Linux Kernel has no innovation
JitsiMeet never did anything new
All those pesky reverse engineered web standards and server backends
Gnome desktop is a total rip off of everything that went before it
Musescore is just Sibelius but less cool
Firefox was created after Chrome and Edge so that can't be original
Email is just stealing ideas from the postal service
etc.

What a stupid argument. Innovation is irrelevant. I'm arguing for freedom not new shiny features.

I'm not saying there is a free software equivalent for every proprietary app. I'm saying the I'm able to do my work with free software, the only compromise I feel I've made is losing Reaper (which contains some free software). If you can't bear to part with shiny features that are only available in X app then that's totally cool, but I see the loss of Reaper as a small sacrifice.




SupremeFist said:


> FOSS has a decent-ish track record of reverse-engineering/cloning software that was originally built by engineers who were being fairly compensated for their ingenuity by governments and/or corporations.


You are obviously unaware of the amount of free software that is commercially developed.


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## drews (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> You are obviously unaware of the amount of free software that is commercially developed.



Im curious what your opinion of unreal engine is


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

drews said:


> Im curious what your opinion of unreal engine is


I don't really know anything about it.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> What a stupid argument. Innovation is irrelevant. I'm arguing for freedom not new shiny features.


Cool, cool, you're entirely satisfied with the feature set of all software as of 2020 and just want to use free clones of it. Personally I'd like to see what clever and appropriately incentivized people can do in the future.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Aug 9, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> Isn't it possible to watermark software and then simply give the buyer a serial number once and for all? Then if the software gets spread illegally, the developer checks the watermark to see who spread it.
> 
> (But I guess if it was that easy, then that's what the developers would do instead of the current anti-pirate stuff)



While watermarking is an interesting alternative, it is not without its drawbacks. For one, it requires legal action against the user that leaked the software, which can be costly especially when the user is in a country other than where your company is located (especially for a small developer). Secondly, by then, the software is already out in the wild, so the piracy has not been stopped. And lastly, a lot of piracy occurs through the use of fraudulent or stolen payment instruments. So, while watermarking could be a deterrent, it is likely not deterring the right individuals and not stopping piracy at the source (which DRM attempts to, for better or worse).

As some folks here are implying, piracy can be seen as the cost of doing business and probably isn't significant, but as the actual sample developer in this thread has stated, it _is_ significant and on top of that, there is an emotional component for the developer who created the product through their own hard work that fuels trying to stop this misuse of it.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2020)

SupremeFist said:


> Cool, cool, you're entirely satisfied with the feature set of all software as of 2020 and just want to use free clones of it. Personally I'd like to see what clever and appropriately incentivized people can do in the future.


Well you missed the rest of my post or didn't detect the sarcasm. I'm already using innovative free software, and so are you. Free software is highly innovative and a lot of it is funded by governments and big organizations.

Git for example is probably the most innovative version control system, owned now by Microsoft. And HISE of course has features not available in any other sampler, totally innovative and commercial. 

But innovation isn't important to me, I just happen to benefit from it.


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## Mike Greene (Aug 9, 2020)

Joakim's post is on the political side of things, and undoubtedly headed for a predictable fate, so I've moved it here. For responses of a political or world view nature, please post there.


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## JohnG (Aug 9, 2020)

_Developers: "Piracy hurts my business and I find it sort of hurts my feelings too. My libraries are a bit like family to me."

Guy who's never developed a library: "No it doesn't hurt sales. I think."_

I only know a handful of guys personally who are sample library developers, but every one of them says piracy hurts their sales. Moreover, it is maddening for them to see a server far beyond anyone's legal reach (in a foreign jurisdiction where it's expensive and hard to bring an action) that is making money off their work, with zero compensation to the developer. It's not always a "high school kid in his bedroom who can't afford it." Sometimes it's a money-making organization.

So, fine to complain about the _implementation or functionality_ of a particular DRM. Maybe that will be influential? But to claim, without evidence, that all piracy is "a sale that wouldn't have happened" fails to take into account the opinions of the developers and also ignores the professional sites that make money from pirated software.


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## SupremeFist (Aug 9, 2020)

JohnG said:


> _Developers: "Piracy hurts my business and I find it sort of hurts my feelings too. My libraries are a bit like family to me."
> 
> Guy who's never developed a library: "No it doesn't hurt sales. I think."_


I have a low enough Slashdot user ID to have seen every version of these arguments come around multiple times, and I've arrived at the settled view that the anti-DRM or pro-piracy argument is exclusively put forward by two types of people:

1) A large majority of young men living in their parents' basement who resent and despise anyone who is successful being creative; and

2) A small minority of thoughtful adults who have an unrealistically optimistic view of human nature.


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

JohnG said:


> _Developers: "Piracy hurts my business and I find it sort of hurts my feelings too. My libraries are a bit like family to me."
> 
> Guy who's never developed a library: "No it doesn't hurt sales. I think."_
> 
> ...


Can I say as a software developer.....thank you


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## DovesGoWest (Aug 9, 2020)

SupremeFist said:


> I have a low enough Slashdot user ID to have seen every version of these arguments come around multiple times, and I've arrived at the settled view that the anti-DRM or pro-piracy argument is exclusively put forward by two types of people:
> 
> 1) A large majority of young men living in their parents' basement who resent and despise anyone who is successful being creative; and
> 
> 2) A small minority of thoughtful adults who have an unrealistically optimistic view of human nature.


You hit the nail on the head, Thinking about it this was why spitfire did the bbcso discovery edition to lower the entry costs. Soundiron are another who do micro and element editions and both if these also discount the upgrade costs based on what you spent with them


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## dzilizzi (Aug 9, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> It's getting a little heated in here. I shall have to have a word with @Mike Greene about how disagreements should be settled and honour restored.
> 
> Obviously good old fashioned duelling with swords will break the social distancing regulations, so I propse that in future, these kind of arguements are settled with......
> 
> ...


But Fencing would be okay. You wear masks and if you get too close, you get poked. 🙂


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 9, 2020)

d.healey said:


> DRM is created with one purpose, to restrict you.


DRM is created to prevent piracy, not to restrict legit users. Unfortunately the latter is hard to avoid though.


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## Klesk (Aug 10, 2020)

Wow.
A lot of interesting views but what's up with the assumptions and personal attacks?
Some quotes, in random order:

Capital owners and their sycophants (pro DRM) values capital above all else

You are just making assumptions and showing your ignorance

No point in engaging with a person with a broken moral compass

You are little more than a petty criminal dealing in the shadows

Obviously you don’t ‘buy’ any software as you don’t agree with having to pay like the rest if us

Illegal activity is illegal and cannot be morally justified

It's like you all have Stockholm syndrome

I am assuming you pro DRM people are also against the right to repair

Your just another software pirate who things it should be free

...


I just can't decide which one should be chorus. And whether each quote should start with 'I feel'.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 10, 2020)

Klesk said:


> Wow.
> A lot of interesting views but what's up with the assumptions and personal attacks?
> Some quotes, in random order:
> 
> ...



Speaking only for myself, I am not a Christian and when attacked, I don’t turn the other cheek.


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## Joakim (Aug 10, 2020)

Klesk said:


> I just can't decide which one should be chorus. And whether each quote should start with 'I feel'.



Welcome to the internet


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## NYC Composer (Aug 11, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> Speaking only for myself, I am not a Christian and when attacked, I don’t turn the other cheek.


Jay Asher-rabid attack dawg of the InterWebs!


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## Michael Antrum (Aug 11, 2020)

Be careful dude.....


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## koolkeys (Aug 12, 2020)

So I've recently run into the need to request more resets (for whatever reason, two different libraries got messed up during an update, leaving me without loads of sample content, and no way to retriever that missing content). 

When Spitfire gives you more resets, do they typically add comments on your support ticket? I have two tickets, one for each library. One was closed without any comment. The other is "open" but shows activity from an hour ago, but no replies. 

So I'm curious if I got my resets, or if they just refused them? I'm not at my system to try until at least tonight. So just curious.

Brent


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## styledelk (Aug 12, 2020)

koolkeys said:


> So I've recently run into the need to request more resets (for whatever reason, two different libraries got messed up during an update, leaving me without loads of sample content, and no way to retriever that missing content).
> 
> When Spitfire gives you more resets, do they typically add comments on your support ticket? I have two tickets, one for each library. One was closed without any comment. The other is "open" but shows activity from an hour ago, but no replies.
> 
> ...



They usually reply to me.


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## koolkeys (Aug 12, 2020)

styledelk said:


> They usually reply to me.


Ok. Very strange then. I mean, the ticket that was closed has the "solved" status, and the other still says open (I didn't submit them on the same day). The one that was solved as assigned to a rep, and the other one just says the last activity was a couple of hours ago, but no assignment. And no response to either. 

I guess I'll just have to check this evening to see if I'm able to reset the libraries. I REALLY wish there was a way to just check the currently downloaded samples and only download what is missing. But it doesn't appear to be able to do that without a full reset.

Brent


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## koolkeys (Aug 12, 2020)

Well, it appears I didn't get any new resets. I've never requested them before, and I don't even know if I've used reset on one of these libraries. 

Kind of frustrating to have no reply, but have it marked "solved", but also have no new resets. Created a followup ticket to see what they say.

Sorry if this is at all off topic, but I found the experience relevant in context of things. 

Brent


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## kgdrum (Aug 12, 2020)

fwiw 
Every time I have needed to reinstall a library and needed a reset Spitfire has always come through.
Most companies are working remotely with less people at the moment,I’m confident Spitfire will always try to take care of a customer.


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## pderbidge (Aug 13, 2020)

Klesk said:


> Wow.
> A lot of interesting views but what's up with the assumptions and personal attacks?
> Some quotes, in random order:
> 
> ...


Very good observations. I should know better than to fuel the debate with my opinions because of how personal people can get over this topic. I don't think there is any way to prove one side or the other because it would take a massive amount of unbiased research that includes all kinds of outliers in the data to validate the outcome. I'm not sure that's possible to do when it comes to the effects of piracy on software sales because there's too many assumptions made regarding the data, probably on both sides.

Two things I think all can agree on are:

1. Developers deserve to be compensated for their hard work, whatever that compensation may be. For most that would mean money.
2. Customers deserve a working product that allows them to use the product in the way it was intended without jumping through massive amounts of hoops that stifle creativity or deadlines. I was going to write "hassle free" but that doesn't really exist in the software world. Not even with free software.


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## exdev (Sep 7, 2020)

Interesting read.
I was on the fence to buy a Spitfire Audio plugins but I would think it again.
I already had troubles with my SSD dying with my whole system last year and the result was painful.

- The worst was with my VOCALOID synths, I needed to contact Yamaha and Japanese companies to reset my licenses, one of them didn't bother to answer me until I translated my message to Japanese using google translation. I'm glad my years of watching anime gave me some Japanese expertise to know I was not sending pure gibberish. But is all well now, and un-authorized just in case my new disc decides to die. I don't want to pass the same process again...

- I had issues with Avenger that got fixed with emails, but I'm scared now to buy more expansions from them. Avenger is cool and all but I don't know if the Codemeter thing is better now.

- The Native Kontakt libraries only needed to be downloaded again, it was painfully slow due to my third world connection, even when I had the Native libraries files available in another disk.

- I lost 1 Sylenth activation, they give you 10 forced deactivations.

- Some iLock products lost activations, some no, I'm scared about my UVI activations there.

- Fabfilter, EZDrummer, were the simplest ones, great kudos to them. I hope Fabfilter adds the white noise somebody indicated in this thread for the cracked versions, it would be funny, they deserve their money! They create great plugins indeed, I hope more devs were like them.

Regarding the piracy and DRM debate, I think DRM is a necessary evil, here in my country due to the poor economy/ethics I mostly see pirated versions, so people like me are like the exception not the normal, the reason I buy my software is primary by convenience, I used to have pirated versions but they were all full of virus, trojans and bitcoin miners and I didn't wanted to live with the hassle. Russian hackers are the ones making big money distributing these cracked versions to steal credit cards, bitcoin-mine on your PC or use it as zombie PCs for other hacker attacks, of course many musician don't know that but I can see it very well, I used to work in a digital security company. Even professional audio engineers here use pirated version but they are limited to use certain versions that works or don't have many virus and sometimes even sell these versions to other people. Just imagine if all software were DRM free...

What I would like very much is to have discounts for third world countries like Latin America (where I live) or Africa, we earn much less money and is very hard for us to have money to spend on software. Just imagine if instead of paying $1000 dollars for a VST, now you have to pay $3000, because that is more or less what cost for us, I know that this would have logistic problems to be implemented, but having something like that would help to people buy legally the software in these corners of the world.

I hate USB dongles, never would buy anything like that here, because if returning/getting the dongles was already painful on your first world mailing system, imagine the hell that happens here and the expensive that is to have DHL for everything, I was very happy when Nexus 3 didn't require a dongle anymore, they actually won a customer.

The second reason I started buying VST was because only paying for something you get to appreciate the value and put some effort on using it well. Thanks God I have a well paying (for my country) work unrelated to music that is just my hobby but also my passion. Also not having a SO helps with the expenses 😂


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## pawel (Sep 8, 2020)

d.healey said:


> Git for example is probably the most innovative version control system, owned now by Microsoft.


Just a small correction here: Git is not owned by Microsoft, GitHub is.


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## soapmak3r (May 5, 2022)

Pretty recent Spitfire customer here. I see that this is still an issue with activations, as I am currently experiencing this. The library seems to just randomly deactivate itself and require 'fixing'.
I have already run out of authorizations once and had to contact support. Now it is happening again on both a Win11 system and a MacOS Big Sur system.
I have reactivated the Big Sur system, and am pretty sure that if I reactivate the Win11 system, that will be me out of resets.

I tried contacting live support earlier about it, but there was none. I am also experiencing very erratic behaviour in the Cubase 12 performance meter after adding Abbey Road 2 to a bare bones project.

I don't think I would have bothered buying the library if I knew it would be such a hassle. I won't be buying any more (at least until I am satisfied that issues have been properly resolved).


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## GtrString (May 5, 2022)

Whoops, Im on the brink of getting BBCSO. Cant have this, though. Hope Spitfire will address this and do the update..


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## Daniel James (May 5, 2022)

I also just had to migrate my system to a new one after a motherboard failure. Even with my direct migration I still lost access to my Spitfire Player libraries, exactly how you did. The ones I needed most I was able to re-download. However I couldn't get BBCSO working again so just deleted it outright, and given how little I was using it I am actually much happier with the free 500gig on my SSD.

I hope they figure this player out soon, it really is getting in the way.

-DJ


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## Cdnalsi (May 5, 2022)

Can I just say that if you're a 'working composer' you really shouldn't do a system recovery while on deadline. If something went so wrong to warrant a system recovery it sure as hell wasn't because of the player but more likely because of bad user OS upkeep. Since we're pointing out common sense things.

I'll add my experience, I've never had an issue with either BBCSO or AR2 getting reset or having any sorts of errors, for about 6 months now of daily use since I got my new computer.

edit: Also I've never had to do a system recovery EVER on any of my Macs since 2006.


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## Daniel James (May 5, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Can I just say that if you're a 'working composer' you really shouldn't do a system recovery while on deadline.


I imagine most are not doing them for fun. And no one is blaming Spitfire for causing system recovery, more that a system recovery breaks your Spitfire installations and it seems to be hit or miss on how straightforward it is to get them working again.


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## TomaeusD (May 5, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Can I just say that if you're a 'working composer' you really shouldn't do a system recovery while on deadline. If something went so wrong to warrant a system recovery it sure as hell wasn't because of the player but more likely because of bad user OS upkeep. Since we're pointing out common sense things.
> 
> I'll add my experience, I've never had an issue with either BBCSO or AR2 getting reset or having any sorts of errors, for about 6 months now of daily use since I got my new computer.
> 
> edit: Also I've never had to do a system recovery EVER on any of my Macs since 2006.


That's great for you, but these issues also happen to responsible working composers.


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 5, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Can I just say that if you're a 'working composer' you really shouldn't do a system recovery while on deadline. If something went so wrong to warrant a system recovery it sure as hell wasn't because of the player but more likely because of bad user OS upkeep. Since we're pointing out common sense things.
> 
> I'll add my experience, I've never had an issue with either BBCSO or AR2 getting reset or having any sorts of errors, for about 6 months now of daily use since I got my new computer.
> 
> edit: Also I've never had to do a system recovery EVER on any of my Macs since 2006.


I had the dreaded deactivation randomly happen once with BBCSO Pro, right in the middle of a major project (on Mac). Touch wood it hasn't happened since.


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## soapmak3r (May 5, 2022)

The worst thing that a company can do to a paying customer is frustrate and inconvenience them, or worse, cost them time and money. 

Software activation that is unreliable and randomly deactivates, then requires you to contact support, stuck in limbo while you wait for them to get back to you is in my experience, the worst way to approach copy protection.

Their current copy protection system is clearly problematic. The player itself also seems to be quite poorly optimized.


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## PrimeEagle (May 5, 2022)

soapmak3r said:


> The worst thing that a company can do to a paying customer is frustrate and inconvenience them, or worse, cost them time and money.
> 
> Software activation that is unreliable and randomly deactivates, then requires you to contact support, stuck in limbo while you wait for them to get back to you is in my experience, the worst way to approach copy protection.
> 
> Their current copy protection system is clearly problematic. The player itself also seems to be quite poorly optimized.


Completely agree. As a software engineer, I can confidently say that not making this system more user-friendly isn't due to DRM concerns, as it wouldn't have made the DRM any less secure. It's just a time and money concern that they didn't want to spend time and/or money to develop these features. If something has a limited number of activations it should show you how many are remaining so you can make an informed decision before deactivating. If you try to deactivate your last one, it should show you a warning explaining potential consequences and ask you to confirm. It should have a way to deactivate old activations in order to free up new ones that doesn't require human intervention. These are all features that could easily be added without compromising DRM in the slightest.

For me personally, this won't stop me from buying Spitfire products though it does make me somewhat disappointed in them. But that's because I'm not a working composer that makes money off music, I'm a hobbyist. So if it takes me offline for a few days it's no big deal. However, I feel for those of you that depend on it for your careers. Production quality software should be more robust if one expect professionals to depend on it. I had my development software lose its license a while back, and it gave me a warning that it couldn't verify my license and therefore it would only function for 10 more days. It constantly showed me and reminded me of this whenever I ran it. This is also an acceptable solution, as it didn't keep me from working and gave me plenty of time to resolve the situation. This was a Microsoft product.


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## jcrosby (May 5, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Can I just say that if you're a 'working composer' you really shouldn't do a system recovery while on deadline. If something went so wrong to warrant a system recovery it sure as hell wasn't because of the player but more likely because of bad user OS upkeep. Since we're pointing out common sense things.
> 
> I'll add my experience, I've never had an issue with either BBCSO or AR2 getting reset or having any sorts of errors, for about 6 months now of daily use since I got my new computer.
> 
> edit: Also I've never had to do a system recovery EVER on any of my Macs since 2006.


You're lucky. I had a High Sierra security update in 2018 completely cripple core audio. Any application using audio would start glitching after 45 mins. Logic, Live, RX; even itunes, web audio etc all exhibited the same behavior. Stutters and glitches after 45 mins of consistent audio use in any application.

I was also able to verify it was the update by booting to a clone I made just before installing the update. After a week of pulling my hair I out (and confirming this issue was directly caused by the security update) I was left no option but to wipe my internal disk and cone back.

No surprise to me, the issue magically disappeared and never came back. Also just to be clear... I actually read the release notes before installing the update. Not a single mention of anything that pointed to Core Audio being affected by the update. In theory this shouldn't have had resulted in the behavior it did)....

Anyway... My point is is that sometimes stuff like this just has a way of happening at the least convenient time.


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## Jdiggity1 (May 5, 2022)

I recently had all of my spitfire-player libraries break from, well, nothing?
Every single library, selections, labs, etc, all needed repairing. Was all working fine a week ago.
Things I'd done to my system since then:
- Plugged in and removed an external hard drive
- nothing

So, yeah it does seem like this sort of thing - while rare - does happen.


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## jbuhler (May 5, 2022)

Jdiggity1 said:


> I recently had all of my spitfire-player libraries break from, well, nothing?
> Every single library, selections, labs, etc, all needed repairing. Was all working fine a week ago.
> Things I'd done to my system since then:
> - Plugged in and removed an external hard drive
> ...


I've not yet had a paid SF player library break or need repair, but my Labs libraries are showing increasing erratic behavior, with installed libraries showing as needing installation. And when I reinstall them they continue to say they need to be reinstalled. It started out as just a few libraries but is now about a dozen. Most curiously, it is only reported in the SF downloader not in the Labs player, where all the libraries remain playable.

It's just a glitch so far for me, but it doesn't exactly instill confidence.


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## ALittleNightMusic (May 5, 2022)

I’ve never had a problem with any Spitfire library or activation (knock on wood), but I believe I read on their forums that they are aware of the challenges and are working on a revised system. No idea on the ETA.


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 5, 2022)

JohnG said:


> It is wildly overblown because:
> 
> *1. The OP had a computer problem* -- Computer problems cause -- problems. It could have been another library so why pick on any one developer? It wasn't _caused_ by Spitfire or anything to do with the library, it was the OP's own issue with (presumably) his boot drive or the drive where the library was stored.
> 
> ...


An old comment but... I'm to appalled to not reply.

It's not a computer problem when the developer set up things to make it impossible to reinstall a software without human support for which there seems to be a disproportional risk over at SF.
Doing a system reset or recovery also isn't a computer problem by itself. Usually it's as simple as relocating the samples to get back up and running. I've done 2 system resets without problems mostly, even with Spitfire. It seems I'm lucky and haven't used up my "resets", but it did happen before.

And - there is no one generic "professional composer" or situation.
I can easily imagine a pro composer having lets say only BBCSO as main orchestral library and only some complimentary stuff on the site, maybe because they don't do a ton of orchestral stuff. In that case it's simply not true. Not everyone has copies of the same types of libraries, whether pro or not.
Maybe Spitfire should out your "Pro-Usage-Safety-Requirements" on their site as a disclaimer!

It also sounds like there is some soul dead "getting the job done" approach promoted here where you quickly find some next best thing to "finish the job".

If someone is less of an offense to the world music and rather spends hours dialing things in and searching for the right patches it doesn't work that way and having to use something else instead is tearing the vision of how it should have sounded like to shreds. If the client is similarly fuzzy/nerdy it can be a problem.

It also doesn't matter whether the job "can be finished". It will definitely be compromised in some way and it's a massive hassle if you use a library extensively, which is a valid reason to complain.


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## MarkusS (May 5, 2022)

Interesting discussion! I agree with anyone avoiding 3rd party players other than Kontakt. Used a lot of VSL and East West until they got their own player. Moved on to some OT until they got their own player. It’s actually great because successful developers creating their own players opens the door to new developers and products like the Cinematic Series or Performance Samples that I use a lot now. But if they move on to their own player I’ll stop using them, too. It’s just too much hassle and too risky (I agree) to use all these different players at once. I totally understand why developers want to have their own player but I’ll still avoid them.

Also I love Kontakt because I can easily create and program my own libraries and also reprogram libraries I bought (if allowed).

Never had a single problem with NI access but I know developers complain about their products being cracked. I for one would never use a cracked product and will buy any NI library (even if cracked somewhere on the net) if I like it enough or think it’s useful for a commercial project and I suspect many others here will, too. ☺️


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## JohnG (May 5, 2022)

Lionel Schmitt said:


> I can easily imagine a pro composer having lets say only BBCSO as main orchestral library


Well, we disagree, Lionel.

Part of the issue is that the sample companies understandably fear piracy if there is no limit to the number of downloads or resets. Part of it is that I've had at least as many problems with Kontakt / NI over the years as the proprietary players. Part of it is that your reply implies that there is some precious perfection in one library for which there is no reasonable substitute in another library, which I think is rare.

*It's Piracy's Fault*

Practically since sample libraries were invented, the developers have had to watch as illegal torrent sites steal their work, often within a few days, that might have taken many months and plenty of money to produce. They can't just go 'naked.'

If one is working professionally, by definition you didn't take up composing last week, and most composers have at least one alternative for almost any instrument, maybe excepting some esoteric or ethnic ones. Certainly "regular" orchestral instrument substitutes abound on most professional composer rigs. Hardly anyone is going to get, say, a Netflix gig with their starter setup.

Naturally, it's awful getting interrupted. However, if you've had to, as the OP wrote, perform a system recovery while mid-project, I think it's rough to call out a company over it. That said, maybe there's a more optimal number of resets, or a better policy? I'm not nuts about most of the alternatives, including hardware, but I sympathise with developers needing some protection from torrent downloads.

[note: I have received free products from Spitfire]


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 5, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Well, we disagree, Lionel.
> 
> Part of the issue is that the sample companies understandably fear piracy if there is no limit to the number of downloads or resets. Part of it is that I've had at least as many problems with Kontakt / NI over the years as the proprietary players. Part of it is that your reply implies that there is some precious perfection in one library for which there is no reasonable substitute in another library, which I think is rare.
> 
> ...


Well, I think there is uniqueness to every patch of every library and it's not unusual for me to go through 10 viola spiccato patches to find the... hopefully... right one. Maybe I just have finer ears for samples!
Some libraries even have very non subtle differences in dynamics (like not going to FF or very soft etc), overall volume etc and everything has to be reprogrammed and remixed.
And, I can't imagine every composer has equivalents for every patch, especially if it's a different style than what they do regularly. Even if it's just 1%, that's still thousands of composers who will be in trouble.
I have more sympathy with that than a company like Spitfire dealing with piracy. Kontakt libraries are easy to pirate and yet they managed to get to the point where they are now just fine.
Sorry not sorry, I have more empathy for every single composer who's work is interrupted by this nonsense.
And as others have mentioned - there MUST be a way to view how many resets are left so you can even sort stuff out when you see you only have none before hitting that limit.
There have also been cases mentioned here where libraries got deactivated randomly.
And a system reset is nothing super crazy, definitely must be taken into account how to reactivate stuff in such a case by developers, especially mammoths like SF.
It should be as simple as reinstalling the software and relocating the samples. I'm not a software designer but I would be surprised if you couldn't protect against piracy in a way that doesn't require a reset of the installation.
With the Sine Player as far as I experienced it you simply download the player on the website, log in and relocate your libs. Done. No resets, no redownloads (except the player ofc).
And I'm sure they have piracy protection!!!
One issue here might be that the Spitfire Player is essentially a different plugin for every library which makes it fairly unique in that regard and thus also brings some fairly unique risks.


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## Kyle Preston (May 5, 2022)

JohnG said:


> It's Piracy's Fault


Yes, but their response (building their own player) creates a weaker option for their *paying *customers (working composers, hobbyists, etc.) Essentially, _we’re_ paying the cost for other people’s piracy. _They’re_ passing the buck on to _us_.

I’m sure SF and others are aware that _some_ of us won’t buy libraries without Kontakt editing abilities — maybe there’s not enough of us for them to care really. And that’s fine, it just means those libraries or companies are prioritizing other things. And maybe they’re not for me anymore. Maybe most users don’t care if it’s Kontakt or not, I dunno.

But another example of this is the annoying orange dot in the top right corner of Apple devices now — which indicates that a program is recoding audio. To those of us working in audio professionally, seeing that stupid dot is like a “yea, no shit Sherlock” reminder. Why didn’t they give us the option to remove it? Why do I have to hunt on GitHub to find a reliable solution? (Thank God for coders that make solutions freely available to the world). I don’t know if he’s responsible per say, but the orange dot started (I think?) around the time that guy working for The New Yorker was gross in front of his camera on Zoom. Now EVERY Apple user has to see that Goddamn orange dot on their screen. Is this to prevent a lawsuit? I honestly don't know, but let's call a spade a spade — companies solve _their _problems before solving _ours. _


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## rgames (May 5, 2022)

JohnG said:


> if you've had to, as the OP wrote, perform a system recovery while mid-project, I think it's rough to call out a company over it


I agree. To your point - system screw-ups can cause screw-ups in other software. I've had that problem with other software as well. But again as posted elsewhere, the Spitfire player will also say you are not licensed when you've changed absolutely nothing on your system - no recovery, no new software, no OS updates - nothing. One day it works fine - the next, you can't use it.

So the problem is broader than how you're describing it. You're giving Spitfire a pass using an explanation that is inconsistent with other examples.

The solution is to simply give a 15-day warning or something like that. That at least allows you to keep working while Spitfire has time to respond to the request for another authorization. And I can't see how this approach would have an appreciable effect on piracy.

Everybody wins. It's an extremely simple fix.

But Spitfire hasn't fixed it (apparently), presumably because there are enough other people who do *not* have the problem to make them not care about those who do. (Note: I haven't actually tried to use any Spitfire player products in a while, so my comments are based on my experience from a few years ago.)

Caveat emptor.

rgames


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## PrimeEagle (May 5, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Practically since sample libraries were invented, the developers have had to watch as illegal torrent sites steal their work, often within a few days, that might have taken many months and plenty of money to produce. They can't just go 'naked.'


Piracy has been around way longer than sample libraries, and other industries also have to worry about piracy. Games are a great example, but there are many others. Windows itself, Microsoft Office, and many others. Most, if not all, of those have protection methods that are way less risky and invasive.


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## MauroPantin (May 6, 2022)

I have been getting a lot of random de-activations lately, with no change in my system. I have Windows updates completely deactivated. So if something is changing for the player to deactivate I fail to see what it is. It also keeps asking me to re-install stuff that is supposedly already installed.

Additionally, a few of the libraries on the new player (no major ones, the "originals" for the most part and BBC Discovery... AROOF is doing fine, thankfully) are getting these random audio dropouts. If you play a few notes too fast and close together it just stops all audio until you reset the transport. These libraries are not critical to my workflow (a library rarely is at this point) but come on dude! I want to make a quick sketch of an idea and I end up in this technical hallway instead. It's a buzzkill and freaking annoying.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (May 6, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Well, we disagree, Lionel.
> 
> Part of the issue is that the sample companies understandably fear piracy if there is no limit to the number of downloads or resets. Part of it is that I've had at least as many problems with Kontakt / NI over the years as the proprietary players. Part of it is that your reply implies that there is some precious perfection in one library for which there is no reasonable substitute in another library, which I think is rare.
> 
> ...


No, John, it’s not “Piracy’s fault” - it’s the developer’s fault, specifically Spitfire’s, that they’ve made a copy protection scheme which is, seemingly at random, causing problems for paying customers.

Other sample library companies have made working anti-piracy measures. So can Spitfire, but of course only if they make it a priority in between their many new library releases.


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## Michael Antrum (May 6, 2022)

It would help if the number of resets was displayed, at least then you could request an extra reset if you got low.

I have Ableton Live 11, and it randomly asks me to re-authorise, but because it looks at the machine and compares it to the previous authorisation, my number of authorisations never goes down, because it knows it's the same PC....

Spitfire need to fix this, a nd I'm sure they will....eventually.


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## GMT (May 6, 2022)

I still don't understand the limited reset/repair concept. When the library is on the computer it was downloaded on it makes no sense. I've had at least three sessions with support to fix problems (always happened at the weekend) which took seconds. So, show me how to do it and save all the hassle. I have updates ready for BBCSO which will never be downloaded because I can't be bothered with the potential headache.


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## Virtuoso (May 6, 2022)

Michael Antrum said:


> Spitfire need to fix this, and I'm sure they will....eventually.


The last time I had to mail Spitfire support to beg for a reset after an unexpected lockout (and yes - it was a Friday afternoon, so I lost the whole weekend), I pointed out what a hostile and irritating system it is and they replied...

"we are aware of how frustrating this feature of the Application can be and are working on a new system of local authorisation"

That was 8 months ago though, so it doesn't seem to be a priority. I wonder how many loyal customers they are losing with this crap?


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## JohnG (May 6, 2022)

*Why do we have new sample players? * 

Piracy _is_ a key impetus that has driven sample library producers to generate their own players. Sure, in addition to that, some developers want additional capabilities that Kontakt doesn't offer, and some have other issues, but without piracy, I believe (with some testimonial evidence from developers who've said so point blank) that we would have fewer custom players.

*Why do we have any kind of DRM protection for libraries?*

Of course, it's piracy, or we wouldn't need any DRM at all. Have you ever watched how many days it takes for a torrent of new Kontakt libraries to appear? Less than a week, in many cases.

*Is Spitfire's DRM protection worse? How About Microsoft?*

I think whether one DRM setup is worse or better than another is a matter of opinion, which is often, it appears, driven by individual, idiosyncratic experience. 

Anyone who's ever lost a Microsoft license (for Windows or other software) may have had the Kafka-esque experience I had with them. Undoubtedly, it's difficult for MSFT or any other software to balance "easy to fix" with "stop piracy." Sometimes people lean further one way than I'd like. It's very frustrating at times.

Spitfire's solution doesn't bother me too much, though I've also had to contact them for resets at least twice, and the process wasn't instantaneous. I don't see that as a huge burden and I have deadlines just like everyone. Over time, I've had some trouble with all the players. After a while they improve.

*Does Anyone Here Have Enough Information to be Sure?*

We clearly have a few people who disagree with me, and fair enough to them as individuals. I'm sympathetic; those kinds of problems are very frustrating. 

That said, I don't get the vehemence. I doubt anyone writing here has enough data to say with certainty that this or that player is causing problems for all / most users. How could they? It's proprietary information that only the developers themselves have.


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## Mike Fox (May 6, 2022)

Nothing will stop piracy, regardless of how “protected” some of these developers may think their players are.

I worked in IT for a few years, and it was pretty astounding to see just how clever and creative hackers could get when they wanted to (seriously, they’re evil geniuses). 

When there’s a will, there’s a way.


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## Kyle Preston (May 6, 2022)

Imagine if every time you picked up a guitar, before you were allowed to strum chords, you had to authenticate your purchase to some corporate entity first. And if your fingerprint scan fails, and it takes 2+ days for said entity to get back to you, that idea you thought of might get lost forever.

THAT, is why this is a problem, at least for me. It’s not just about deadlines (although sometimes it is)— it’s about destroying creativity. I understand why a company would add friction to prevent piracy, but as a user, I’m not willing to pay that cost for them. That's my personal line in the sand. Just give me the guitar, that’s what the money is for. Otherwise, we’re just _renting_.

I realize these are special case scenarios we're talking here, but, it's happened to me enough times with SF that I just use (and purchase) their libraries less -- why would I risk losing an idea? Ideas are literally how I pay my bills and nourish my soul.

There are just too many amazing options and companies out there to blindly (and riskily) commit to one -- which, I think is a really good thing!


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## MartinH. (May 6, 2022)

I'm not up to date what the piracy scene does or does not do, did Spitfire Player and Sine actually prevent their libraries from being pirated? I know the people doing the actual cracking used to treat it like a literal sport... with leaderboards and shit. Don't they do that anymore?


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## Kyle Preston (May 6, 2022)

I dunno about samples libraries -- they definitely did that with music files back in the Napster/Kazaa/LimeWire days. The level of competition and group in-fighting was kind of amazing actually.


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## Crowe (May 6, 2022)

I sincerely doubt using a proprietary sample player to fight piracy is going to recoup the sales you lost to people who refuse to use your bad sample player. At least I was able to buy the Arks on Kontakt still. I will _never _buy a Spitfire library that runs in their own player. And yeah, I've bought a bunch of their Kontakt ones.

It's all moot point anyway, especially since we buy _ licenses_ more than we buy samples. I can download cracked libraries all day if I want to, but if I'm going to use them in actual music I'll have to buy the license anyway.

There's something really sad about the thought that (semi)professional composers will generally always just buy libraries outright. That means that Spitfire is forcing their anemic sample player on us for _perceived lost sales to hobbyists._ Who are Pirates. Class act, all in all.

Of you accept the narrative that this is all about piracy, of course.


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## jbuhler (May 6, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> Imagine if every time you picked up a guitar, before you were allowed to strum chords, you had to authenticate your purchase to some corporate entity first. And if your fingerprint scan fails, and it takes 2+ days for said entity to get back to you, that idea you thought of might get lost forever.


Have you looked at how farm tractors work these days? This is more or less the model. And farmers often have to wait days to have an authorized service person come out and fix/unlock the tractor software. Something to look forward to!


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## El Buhdai (May 6, 2022)

JohnG said:


> *Does Anyone Here Have Enough Information to be Sure?*
> 
> We clearly have a few people who disagree with me, and fair enough to them as individuals. I'm sympathetic; those kinds of problems are very frustrating.
> 
> That said, I don't get the vehemence. I doubt anyone writing here has enough data to say with certainty that this or that player is causing problems for all / most users. How could they? It's proprietary information that only the developers themselves have.


I think it could be valuable to better understand _why_ people are so vehemently against this, or at least why I would be.

I, and likely many others, see no practical benefit in any composer going to bat for Spitfire on something like this. Defending what is clearly a poorly designed and intrusive DRM system won't make their libraries cheaper, better, easier to use, or more beneficial to you as the customer.

It doesn't benefit Spitfire, either. People who _can_ and _want _to pay, will pay. People who _can't_ or don't _want_ to pay, simply won't. From all the studies I've been able to find, there is little conclusive evidence surrounding the effectiveness of DRM at mitigating piracy. Some studies say it has no impact, others say it's limited, and some even noticed that the reduced quality and freedom of legally obtained products as a result of DRM actually bolsters piracy rates. Anecdotally, all I've seen it do is delay the inevitable and protect initial sales as hackers find ways to bypass these systems.

All we _can_ know is that DRM makes legally obtained products worse for actual paying customers. Some games run better when pirated. Some sample libraries require less loading time and CPU usage when pirated. Some software won't even run offline unless it's pirated. All we can say definitively about the impact of DRM is that it gives a worse experience to the people who actually pay.

With that in mind...

If we know we're going to put up with a worse experience as paying customers, it is in our best interest _as_ customers to demand that the inevitable downsides of obtaining software legally are mitigated as much as they can possibly be. Locking people out of professional tools with no warning and requiring a slow, inefficient, and external method of re-authorization (which, laughably doesn't even work on weekends) to regain access to the tools that maintain their livelihood doesn't sound like "mitigated downsides" to me. You don't really benefit from defending Spitfire on this if you're a paying customer.


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## Kyle Preston (May 6, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Have you looked at how farm tractors work these days? This is more or less the model. And farmers often have to wait days to have an authorized service person come out and fix/unlock the tractor software. Something to look forward to!


That's pretty nuts! Sounds like monopoly behavior?


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## jbuhler (May 6, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> That's pretty nuts! Sounds like monopoly behavior?


With an assist from the DMCA. It did allow John Deere to shut down tractors Russia tried to appropriate from Ukraine. So there’s that I guess.


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## Kyle Preston (May 6, 2022)

Hmmm, interesting. We've got a weird future on our hands.


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## PrimeEagle (May 6, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> I'm not up to date what the piracy scene does or does not do, did Spitfire Player and Sine actually prevent their libraries from being pirated? I know the people doing the actual cracking used to treat it like a literal sport... with leaderboards and shit. Don't they do that anymore?


I doubt it makes a huge difference. As far as I know, the Spitfire and SINE players have not been cracked (yet), but other proprietary players have - EastWest, Best Service, even iLok and Steinberg protection have been cracked. I think the only reason those others haven't been cracked yet is because of demand. Once there is enough demand for them, someone will crack them.


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## rrichard63 (May 6, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Labs libraries are showing increasing erratic behavior, with installed libraries showing as needing installation. And when I reinstall them they continue to say they need to be reinstalled. It started out as just a few libraries but is now about a dozen. Most curiously, it is only reported in the SF downloader not in the Labs player, where all the libraries remain playable.


This has been a problem for quite a while now. As far as I know, it only affects libraries in the Labs series. Spitfire updates the installation manager fairly often, so I have to believe that it should have been fixed by now. But it hasn't.


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## zodiaclawl (May 6, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Part of the issue is that the sample companies understandably fear piracy if there is no limit to the number of downloads or resets. Part of it is that I've had at least as many problems with Kontakt / NI over the years as the proprietary players. Part of it is that your reply implies that there is some precious perfection in one library for which there is no reasonable substitute in another library, which I think is rare.
> 
> *It's Piracy's Fault*
> 
> Practically since sample libraries were invented, the developers have had to watch as illegal torrent sites steal their work, often within a few days, that might have taken many months and plenty of money to produce. They can't just go 'naked.'


I can definitely understand the reasoning behind locking libraries so that they have to be activated using some kind of online activation with licenses often provided in limited numbers.

However what I don't understand is limiting the number of downloads. A pirate only needs to download a sample library once to be able to distribute it. Piracy protection comes from DRM systems such as activation, constant online authorization, or god forbid some physical kind of key like a USB stick.

It simply does not make any sense to limit downloads except for maybe bandwidth cost reasons.


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## blaggins (May 6, 2022)

El Buhdai said:


> It doesn't benefit Spitfire, either. People who _can_ and _want _to pay, will pay. People who _can't_ or don't _want_ to pay, simply won't. From all the studies I've been able to find, there is little conclusive evidence surrounding the effectiveness of DRM at mitigating piracy. Some studies say it has no impact, others say it's limited, and some even noticed that the reduced quality and freedom of legally obtained products as a result of DRM actually bolsters piracy rates.


I'm interested to read more about this. It's certainly a compelling narrative, would you mind sharing some of the studies?



El Buhdai said:


> All we _can_ know is that DRM makes legally obtained products worse for actual paying customers. Some games run better when pirated. Some sample libraries require less loading time and CPU usage when pirated. Some software won't even run offline unless it's pirated. All we can say definitively about the impact of DRM is that it gives a worse experience to the people who actually pay.


Totally agree. The only counter I can think of is if something is really easy to pirate, and especially if pirating it has no possibility for legal ramifications, then that mere fact might cheapen the product. We all want to believe that our expensive vsts and plugins are worth the money we paid for them, but if I turned around and found out that all of my neighbors were using them all for free, then I might feel a little bit like a sucker. And I say a only a little bit because there is of course value in honesty as well.

I haven't actually studied it but I feel like something like this must have happened around the Napster days with the perceived value of music. Albums went from $14 to free and so getting people to willingly pay $14 for them again was an uphill battle, and the eventual compromise was streaming services that are really cheap for the consumer (thus palatable as an alternative to pirating, especially with the threat of your ISP coming after you) but it took a really heavy toll on the artists. Right?


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## Lionel Schmitt (May 6, 2022)

tpoots said:


> Totally agree. The only counter I can think of is if something is really easy to pirate, and especially if pirating it has no possibility for legal ramifications, then that mere fact might cheapen the product. We all want to believe that our expensive vsts and plugins are worth the money we paid for them, but if I turned around and found out that all of my neighbors were using them all for free, then I might feel a little bit like a sucker. And I say a only a little bit because there is of course value in honesty as well.


ha, wow. I'd think the neighbor's are assholes and keep paying while feeling like a somewhat better person than them. Zero feelings of being a sucker.
+ My money will go into more cool libraries.


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## ALittleNightMusic (May 6, 2022)

Given Spitfire sold Kontakt libraries for many years, I’m sure they have a good idea of the benchmark for lost sales due to piracy. And I imagine they have a similar baseline for users that used to buy their Kontakt libraries and now don’t buy their custom player ones (as a proxy for “they don’t like the player”). As far as I know, the Spitfire player libraries have not been cracked yet (and nor has iLok2 as was basically confirmed by VSL in another thread). Given Spitfire was made aware of the annoyances with their license reset system months ago and still haven’t changed it either means they haven’t found an alternative they are satisfied with from a protection standpoint or the amount of customers complaining about the current system is a very small percentage such that changing the system is not a priority because it isn’t impacting the overall business (and may be protecting it based on the aforementioned data). Either way, if you stop buying their libraries due to this, it’ll show up in their data and while it _might_ move the needle enough to make them change (similar to sending a support ticket complaining), it might not either. User complaints did end up changing how Vengeance Avenger synth’s protection was implemented so, worth a shot!


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## Mike Fox (May 6, 2022)

Crowe said:


> I sincerely doubt using a proprietary sample player to fight piracy is going to recoup the sales you lost to people who refuse to use your bad sample player. At least I was able to buy the Arks on Kontakt still. I will _never _buy a Spitfire library that runs in their own player. And yeah, I've bought a bunch of their Kontakt ones.
> 
> It's all moot point anyway, especially since we buy _ licenses_ more than we buy samples. I can download cracked libraries all day if I want to, but if I'm going to use them in actual music I'll have to buy the license anyway.
> 
> ...


Totally. After buying Epic Strings and Legendary Low Strings I refuse to buy anything else from Spitfire that uses their player. 

But you should see the amount of Kontakt Spitfire libraries i have!


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## curtisschweitzer (May 6, 2022)

JohnG said:


> …I've had at least as many problems with Kontakt / NI over the years as the proprietary players.



I have considerably *more* problems with Kontakt libraries than PLAY/Spitfire specifically. I always wonder where the beautiful island is where Kontakt libraries work so flawlessly, but I and several generations of machines on both Windows and Mac are not on it. 

Which isn’t to say it is bad software! I am impressed by the ecosystem they’ve built and am happy and excited to use more Kontakt-based libraries in the future. But my experience is definitely not reflected in the attitude that seems quite prevalent here in VIC that it is dramatically superior in day to day use.

Also I would recommend that any professional composer work toward having several options in case. I understand that can seem like a tall order financially but no software is immune to unexpected turbulence no matter how well you follow best practices.


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## Jdiggity1 (May 6, 2022)

The "several options" approach is fine and all when it comes to bread and butter orchestral sounds, but the appeal of many sample libraries (particularly many of Spitfire) is the uniqueness of the sound or articulation. A single specific patch could be the anchor to a whole cue, or even score.
If ARO or BBCSO aren't working for me, then sure I can hack a new orchestral ensemble together to replace it, but Woodwind Evolutions? Eric Whitacre Choir? Some of the Originals/Labs, Hammers... Arguably, they don't exactly have equal alternatives that can be swapped out 1 for 1.

The biggest rub for me, though, is the mid-project block. Starting a new cue/session and some plugins don't work? Whatever, choose others and get on with it like you used to do before owning these libraries.
But opening a session that's due tonight and already has several days worth of work put into it, built on these plugins that are now not working.... what are the options here? If you've got resets left, then good news, you can spend the 45 minutes closing down your templates, re-authorizing everything and reloading everything back up (tick tock), but if you don't have resets left... is there even an option here?
Would a system restore even fix the issue, or is the spitfire app still going to communicate with home base and say "nah this ain't authorized".
If a system restore would work, then it implies that there's probably just a few small files in the spitfire config folders that could be backed up for such an occasion. IF that is the case, it would be an 'acceptable' workaround, as it's within our control. If it doesn't, well... i don't see a way out of the "you're screwed" scenario.


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## El Buhdai (May 6, 2022)

curtisschweitzer said:


> I have considerably *more* problems with Kontakt libraries than PLAY/Spitfire specifically. I always wonder where the beautiful island is where Kontakt libraries work so flawlessly, but I and several generations of machines on both Windows and Mac are not on it.
> 
> Which isn’t to say it is bad software! I am impressed by the ecosystem they’ve built and am happy and excited to use more Kontakt-based libraries in the future. But my experience is definitely not reflected in the attitude that seems quite prevalent here in VIC that it is dramatically superior in day to day use.
> 
> Also I would recommend that any professional composer work toward having several options in case. I understand that can seem like a tall order financially but no software is immune to unexpected turbulence no matter how well you follow best practices.


Similar situation for myself. For me, Kontakt has not been the paradise everyone makes it out to be. I'm not quite in a place in my career yet where it's reasonable for me to have multiple alternatives to every library, but it's a solution worth considering for later.

I think much of the Kontakt loyalty comes from its ecosystem and history as an established player (literally and figuratively) in the industry.


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## CT (May 6, 2022)

I've not had the Spitfire player screw with me yet, but this issue in general is another piece of the puzzle that is constantly inching me towards doing my own libraries, although obviously 1) that's a difficult and expensive solution and 2) it doesn't free you from the need for a flawed (and surely not immortal) platform like Kontakt, unless you build your own... which may have crossed my mind as well.


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## rgames (May 6, 2022)

curtisschweitzer said:


> I have considerably *more* problems with Kontakt libraries than PLAY/Spitfire specifically. I always wonder where the beautiful island is where Kontakt libraries work so flawlessly, but I and several generations of machines on both Windows and Mac are not on it.


But what kinds of problems? Licenses disappearing when nothing has changed on your system? I've been involved in VIs for decades and I've never seen that happen with any software other than the Spitfire player.

The other thing to keep in mind with Kontakt is that it's an open platform and there are a *lot* of poorly scripted Kontakt instruments. That poor scripting has nothing to do with Kontakt, itself.

But I do agree that Kontakt, itself, certainly has presented me with challenges in the past. Just never with licenses disappearing for no reason.

The baffling part of the whole Spitfire situation to me is that the problem seems so easy to fix: give a warning before the license is considered missing. I really think you could give the code to some high school kid and give him $500 and a week to fix it and he would. If it were my product I would do that even if it only affected 10 or 20 users. It's just a matter of pride in your product at that point. For me it would be like fixing a typo: does it really affect anything? No, but it's so simple...

But maybe it really is a tough problem. I don't know. I just can't see how. It's such a common capability that if it is a tough problem for Spitfire then it must be because they made a bunch of other poor software architecture decisions. Again, I've never experienced this problem with any software other than Spitfire and I've been using license-managed software for more decades than I care to think about.

rgames


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## Michael Antrum (May 7, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> Hmmm, interesting. We've got a weird future on our hands.


There’s a bit of legal action going on there though….









ONGOING COVERAGE: Right-to-Repair Impact on Dealers, Deere, Other OEMs


During a farmer panel at this year’s Ag Equipment Intelligence Executive Briefing, 3 farmers sat down to talk about their concerns heading into 2023, and one topic that came up was their ability to repair their own equipment.



www.farm-equipment.com


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## Michael Antrum (May 7, 2022)

Michael Antrum said:


> There’s a bit of legal action going on there though….
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Actually, I best be careful posting links about tractors…….


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## Mike Fox (May 7, 2022)

Been using Kontakt for the last 13 or so years, and have never had any significant problems with it. 

Native Access, on the other hand…


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## Alex Fraser (May 7, 2022)

zodiaclawl said:


> It simply does not make any sense to limit downloads except for maybe bandwidth cost reasons.


Possibly the answer. Amazon Cloudfront etc charge sample developers based on data transfer.


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## aeliron (May 7, 2022)

tpoots said:


> I'm interested to read more about this. It's certainly a compelling narrative, would you mind sharing some of the studies?
> 
> 
> Totally agree. The only counter I can think of is if something is really easy to pirate, and especially if pirating it has no possibility for legal ramifications, then that mere fact might cheapen the product. We all want to believe that our expensive vsts and plugins are worth the money we paid for them, but if I turned around and found out that all of my neighbors were using them all for free, then I might feel a little bit like a sucker. And I say a only a little bit because there is of course value in honesty as well.
> ...


Sounds like an argument for subscription services! 🤔


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## blaggins (May 7, 2022)

aeliron said:


> Sounds like an argument for subscription services! 🤔


Oh I don't agree with that at all. That would seem to combine the frailty of a third party authorization system with the frustration of having to continually pay for something that you would have long ago outright owned if you had just bought it. 

Assuming we both want and need anti-piracy measure, i just don't see the big trouble with iLok. At first it annoyed me but it seems to protect the manufacturers IP very effectively, and they have a cloud and physical token option (with possibility for backing up the physical token). It seems pretty unlikely that you would be without your authorizations at a critical moment with all that. Personally I would take iLok over a subscription service any day.


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## Kyle Preston (May 7, 2022)

tpoots said:


> I haven't actually studied it but I feel like something like this must have happened around the Napster days with the perceived value of music. Albums went from $14 to free and so getting people to willingly pay $14 for them again was an uphill battle, and the eventual compromise was streaming services that are really cheap for the consumer (thus palatable as an alternative to pirating, especially with the threat of your ISP coming after you) but it took a really heavy toll on the artists. Right?


This is _exactly _what happened. Some economists predicted that for listeners, "unlimited options" would outweigh the risk of illegality through piracy. Whereas others (typically from a psychological bent) fretted over users getting accustomed to _cheap _or "free" music and would eventually lose their incentive to pay for it. 

What's really interesting though, I read this in Donald Passman's book, is that in the heyday of CD sales, an average CD buyer spent about _$45 per year_ on CDs. But today, if we balance for GDP in the countries that stream music, the average user spends about $7 per month, so _$84 a year_ on music. 

That's pretty significant, and is a good argument for subscription. But, it's also worth mentioning that the experience is so different today as a listener. Spotify is more of a content factory where we're all milk cows, and "content" is more important than "albums". So, it's a tradeoff without an easy answer. But interesting none-the-less.


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## jbuhler (May 7, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> This is _exactly _what happened. Some economists predicted that for listeners, "unlimited options" would outweigh the risk of illegality through piracy. Whereas others (typically from a psychological bent) fretted over users getting accustomed to _cheap _or "free" music and would eventually lose their incentive to pay for it.
> 
> What's really interesting though, I read this in Donald Passman's book, is that in the heyday of CD sales, an average CD buyer spent about _$45 per year_ on CDs. But today, if we balance for GDP in the countries that stream music, the average user spends about $7 per month, so _$84 a year_ on music.
> 
> That's pretty significant, and is a good argument for subscription. But, it's also worth mentioning that the experience is so different today as a listener. Spotify is more of a content factory where we're all milk cows, and "content" is more important than "albums". So, it's a tradeoff without an easy answer. But interesting none-the-less.


Well, it wasn’t a straight line from Napster to Spotify. digital downloads (iTunes) was an initial response to Napster that proved robust until streaming broke that model.


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## soapmak3r (May 7, 2022)

The thing that confuses me about Spitfire's current system is that in order to 'fix' the library, I already need to be logged into my account through their install manager.
The additional restriction of a limited number of 'repairs' seems completely redundant to me.
It seems like the way that they have implemented the DRM, whether system based IDs or some other method, is totally broken.
The only thing that I changed was the removal of a Thunderbolt 4 external hub, or perhaps connecting an external hard drive.

Loading up a project to find that a library needs 'repaired' is annoying enough, but closing down the project and DAW, opening the install manager, only to find that you have no more 'repairs' left and have to reach out to support is a slap in the face.

It is disheartening to see that this thread has been around for so long and people are still experiencing these issues.
DRM that frustrates and inconveniences paying customers, discouraging them from buying more of your products doesn't really make any sense at all.


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## timprebble (May 7, 2022)

There IS one thing you can pre-emptively do to avoid (or at least minimise) potential pain:
print stems! As soon as you have a workable version of a cue, print stems of it!

I tend to route every instance of Kontakt directly to its own audio track and I monitor it that way, so the act of printing a version takes real time at the most, and there is no set up time.
And every time that cue is 'improved' I print new stems of it.

Many DAWS can also freeze a track (ie render a version) much faster than real time.
Even if you have no doubts about the reliability of your setup, it is still wise to do.

The change from 32bit to 64bit plugins also means some older plugins won't ever be updated to work in a 64 bit environment (same for updating to new M1 macs etc), so if you don't print stems of any sounds created with those 32 bit plugins then it may become very very difficult to recover those sounds ever again eg I used to like the RobPapen synth Albino 3, had lots of great presets for it & used it in many sessions over many years, none of which are accessible now, if I had not printed stems.


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## nuyo (May 8, 2022)

barteredbride said:


> The thing is, we never hear of the thousands of users who post threads saying: just to let everyone know, everything is working normal with the spitfire player and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary.
> 
> I hope the OP gets his problem sorted. Maybe contact another composer friend in NYC and use their computer / Logic just to finish the que??


And don't forget the people (like myself) who just stop and ignore Spitfires Player because it doesn't work as easy as a Kontat Library.


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## Kyle Preston (May 8, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Well, it wasn’t a straight line from Napster to Spotify. digital downloads (iTunes) was an initial response to Napster that proved robust until streaming broke that model.



iTunes itself was a robust response, but it never made up for lost sales due to piracy. Because legally, MP3 players, like iPods, were considered fancy hard drives and not “recording devices”, like Walkman’s. It’s an important distinction because most people were buying iPods to store pirated music, not to buy albums on iTunes. And since iPods were just fancy hard drives, Apple and others weren’t legally responsible for what users did with them. 

That’s why I don’t think iTunes was ever a realistic replacement for CD sales. A million iPods sold should’ve meant tens of millions of albums sold, but that wasn’t even close to the reality.

In this way, streaming seemed inevitable because Spotify replaced that vacuum of lost sales.


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## jbuhler (May 8, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> iTunes itself was a robust response, but it never made up for lost sales due to piracy. Because legally, MP3 players, like iPods, were considered fancy hard drives and not “recording devices”, like Walkman’s. It’s an important distinction because most people were buying iPods to store pirated music, not to buy albums on iTunes. And since iPods were just fancy hard drives, Apple and others weren’t legally responsible for what users did with them.
> 
> That’s why I don’t think iTunes was ever a realistic replacement for CD sales. A million iPods sold should’ve meant tens of millions of albums sold, but that wasn’t even close to the reality.
> 
> In this way, streaming seemed inevitable because Spotify replaced that vacuum of lost sales.


It would be more accurate to say that Spotify destroyed what was left of the market. It turns out that most people prefer to rent their music and stream it rather than own it. Consumers may be paying more per year in music with streaming subscriptions but if so that money isn’t for the most part flowing to the artists. And if artists were mostly worse off with iTunes than selling CDs they are now mostly worse off with streaming than with iTunes.


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## Kyle Preston (May 8, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Consumers may be paying more per year in music with streaming subscriptions but if so that money isn’t for the most part flowing to the artists.



Do you have any data or studies to back this up? I know this is a popular topic for op-eds and thinkpieces, but, the numbers, as far as I can tell, don't agree with this. Especially for independent artists.

There's plenty to criticize about Spotify, but I really don't agree that they destroyed what was left of the market. There was nothing left to destroy. It's true, consumers (currently) prefer to _rent _their music rather than _buy_ it. But they also prefer to rent it rather than _pirate_ it.


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## SupremeFist (May 8, 2022)

The CEO of Universal made $300 million last year, without as far as I know releasing any of his own music.


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## jbuhler (May 8, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> Do you have any data or studies to back this up? I know this is a popular topic for op-eds and thinkpieces, but, the numbers, as far as I can tell, don't agree with this. Especially for independent artists.


Everything I’ve read suggests Independent artists—if we’re talking about those artists who used to make their money touring and selling CDs and merch—yield virtually nothing from streaming, and as far as I’m aware iTunes didn’t much change that part of the independent CD market, but streaming has basically destroyed it. What numbers do you have to suggest otherwise?


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## Kyle Preston (May 8, 2022)

I mean, I'm not the one claiming that streaming "destroyed" the music industry. If we really believe that, then why? Because it feels true?

Obviously, the big corporate entities have mostly only ever cared about the top tier (financially speaking) artists [some of the history is *outlined here*]. In that respect, nothing at all has changed. Spotify isn't to blame for that. CDs were never going to replace what piracy destroyed, and I'm not sure if you're suggesting that streaming destroyed merch sales?

But, here are some numbers: 
- *Music Business Worldwide*

My general takeaway was this, of the 8 million artists on Spotify, 5.4 million of them, 68%, have uploaded less than 10 tracks. Does any serious artist expect to make their living from just 10 tracks on streaming services? 

Where Spotify needs to do better is in how they support the artists who are, at least in their terms, "professional". Which they define as either having more than 10,000 monthly listeners, or based on successful ticket sales, or some combination of both. Only 8% of these _professionals_ earn more than $50,000 per year on Spotify, which, imo, isn't even close to good enough (I'm biased because I'm in the other 92%). 

But the bleak reality is, to quote the article: 

_“To put it a slightly crueller way, 98% of the 8 million artists on Spotify today either aren’t popular enough to have 10,000 monthly listeners, or have released [fewer] than 10 tracks to date.”_

I don't really see how this is Spotify's fault, when 40,000 (not 60,000) songs are uploaded every day to their platform. 

- Here's a *Music Ally analysis* that emphasizes the same reality. 
- *Other things* I think Spotify should do
- Also, findings *from the RIAA explain* all of this as well. 






Key takeaways are:
_
"While the iTunes Music Store pushed back against unauthorized file-sharing, and also took revenue share from CD sales, that shift was transitory, setting the stage for streaming."

...

"But “renting music” via subscription service has proved to be the most important savior of the U.S. music business, contributing $7-billion in 2020 and accounting for nearly 58% of total 2020 revenue."_

I know earning money from streaming services can feel like squeezing juice from a rock. I'm painfully aware, really, but we have to be able to talk about the actual reality of our situation as artists. 

And I don't mean to take away too much more from the original thread, even though I think there are some seriously useful parallels between music streaming and the VI industry. Hopefully we learn the lessons from the former.


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## jbuhler (May 8, 2022)

Kyle Preston said:


> I mean, I'm not the one claiming that streaming "destroyed" the music industry. If we really believe that, then why? Because it feels true?
> 
> Obviously, the big corporate entities have mostly only ever cared about the top tier (financially speaking) artists [some of the history is *outlined here*]. In that respect, nothing at all has changed. Spotify isn't to blame for that. CDs were never going to replace what piracy destroyed, and I'm not sure if you're suggesting that streaming destroyed merch sales?
> 
> ...


I know lots of artists, folks who once upon a time would have been able to scratch out a living playing music and no longer can. They now play music as a hobby because there’s not a living in it. Indeed they generally do it at a loss. 

I thought your claim was that Spotify had made things easier for independent artists. Nothing in any of this data suggests that. It indeed points to a concentration in the industry where the top talent continues to do fine but the lower tiers do not. Oddly digital downloads don’t register in that chart until 2005 even though iTunes starts selling in 2001 downloads. 

In any case, no one is disputing that streaming has displaced CDs and digital downloads or that consumers like streaming (indeed I stated that evidently consumers prefer to rent their music) or that the business execs are finding a way to get streaming to work for the big recording companies. But that doesn’t mean it’s working for most of the artists, even as you note for the vast majority of artists that Spotify deigns to recognize as professionals, it’s yielding more than $50k a year for 8%. It would be interesting to know how this compares to the age of iTunes and indeed the age of CDs. My guess is the tail was much thicker earlier, that is more musicians were able to make money at it. 

If your point is that the industry has been able to reorganize its business to use streaming to capture a larger revenue flow, I would agree that seems to be the case, but the recapture is for the most part not finding its way to artists. 

The parallels between the vi market and the music market and how piracy might affect them seem hard to make clear. The sampling companies are like recording companies in the analogy and the artists are the musicians who are being sampled. (The latter aren’t figuring in the sample discussion much at all.) The sampling companies are like the recording companies in believing piracy to be a significant problem. They are both working with a product whose marginal cost is extremely low, essentially the price of digital storage and the bandwidth to deliver it to the consumer. They both sell with a significant mark-up over that marginal cost, which makes it a tempting target for piracy. So there are some similarities. Sampling companies don’t stream for the most part and it’s hard to see how that would scale in practice at current bandwidths, but some companies offer subscriptions, which is probably a decent analog to streaming. But the market for VIs seems quite different from the recording market. For one thing the sample market remains closer to the stage of iTunes, with digital downloads dominating distribution, and the companies face
threats of easy proliferation through cracked software but also from the ease of something like Logic’s Autosampler that makes resampling extraordinarily easy. This is similar to the threat of the mp3, the small size of which allowed file sharing services like Napster to proliferate. Where the recording market embraced streaming before the recording companies were really ready for it, as far as I can tell, the virtual instrument market has a lot of built in resistance to the subscription model. 
Given that, it’s hard to see what lessons sampling companies should take from the recording industry.


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## ALittleNightMusic (May 8, 2022)

What streaming did was expand the exposure an artist could get. Broadened their audience base because there’s no cost of entry for a new listener to explore their music (which is a unique benefit of streaming). The revenue from streaming isn’t going to be what sustains an artist (except for the very top few) - instead, the artist needs to leverage the audience that streaming can reach and monetize them in other ways (touring, merch, etc). Spotify provides a lot of data about audiences to artists for example. However, now there’s a lot of playlist manipulation happening - ultimately listeners can’t differentiate and it costs streaming services a lot less to make flat rate deals with no-name artists that can write in a specific style. The other challenge is more so for folks “behind the boards” - the songwriters, mixers, producers. They have traditionally benefited strictly from record sales (physical and digital), but have seen their revenue dwindle due to streaming royalty rates. Sync deals are great for them, if the artist / agents / they can land those. Tough shift though - will see how things change in the next 5-10 years.

Source: used to be pretty senior at Spotify


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## MauroPantin (May 9, 2022)

Michaelt said:


> I've not had the Spitfire player screw with me yet, but this issue in general is another piece of the puzzle that is constantly inching me towards doing my own libraries, although obviously 1) that's a difficult and expensive solution and 2) it doesn't free you from the need for a flawed (and surely not immortal) platform like Kontakt, unless you build your own... which may have crossed my mind as well.



You can use HISE. I made a couple of personal libraries on it before I was able to purchase the full Kontakt player. Not as powerful as KTK of course but it gets the job done for something simple.


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## soapmak3r (May 9, 2022)

I have contacted Spitfire support and suggested that until they have 'repaired' the issues with their authorization system, they should not be restricting the number of 'repairs' that customers can perform.
The fact that we have to be logged into our Spitfire account in order to use their install manager should be enough.
I would encourage others experiencing issues to appeal to them to do this.

I want to be able use the library that I paid for without issue or inconvenience. I don't think that this is an unreasonable expectation.


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## Michael Antrum (May 10, 2022)

Back In the day I was visiting a client, and discovered they were using about 25 copies of Quark XPress that were cracked. When In pointed this out to one of the managers, he showed me the software cupboard where they had the correct number of Xpress boxes with serial numbers.

He explained that they had so many problems with the legit versions randomly de-authorising themselves, and that the support line was so poor, that they used a cracked version as it was way more reliable......


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## MartinH. (May 10, 2022)

Would be interesting (although impossible) to know the relative damage that changes in the supply and demand balance did compared to piracy. I would expect there is actually a decrease in the demand for music as less people commute to work, and more people listen to podcasts or play games to fill their free time. And we know for a fact that the amount of available music is only ever increasing.
With sample libraries the amount of consumers is probably still increasing as hobby composing gets more and more accessible, but after you have 20 string libraries, do you really need that many more? Won't there eventually be a saturation of that market where people won't even want to pirate more libraries because SSD space is expensive and they don't even use half of what they already have?


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## PrimeEagle (May 10, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> after you have 20 string libraries, do you really need that many more?


This might be the wrong place to ask that...


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## Shad0wLandsUK (May 12, 2022)

Michael Antrum said:


> Back In the day I was visiting a client, and discovered they were using about 25 copies of Quark XPress that were cracked. When In pointed this out to one of the managers, he showed me the software cupboard where they had the correct number of Xpress boxes with serial numbers.
> 
> He explained that they had so many problems with the legit versions randomly de-authorising themselves, and that the support line was so poor, that they used a cracked version as it was way more reliable......


I have heard of such situations myself...
Not good

All of them need to step up their game


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## AndyP (May 12, 2022)

Michael Antrum said:


> Back In the day I was visiting a client, and discovered they were using about 25 copies of Quark XPress that were cracked. When In pointed this out to one of the managers, he showed me the software cupboard where they had the correct number of Xpress boxes with serial numbers.
> 
> He explained that they had so many problems with the legit versions randomly de-authorising themselves, and that the support line was so poor, that they used a cracked version as it was way more reliable......


I remember that very well, the old Apple Talk serial connection where the dongles were attached. That was extremely unstable and probably also a reason why Indesign has prevailed.


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## Instrugramm (May 12, 2022)

Regularly having a broken Spitfire library when opening up my DAW has become sort of a standard thing for me. I tend to start some compositions with Spitfire Player stuff but often either end up replacing those tracks with libraries from other manufacturers or get back to Spitfire Kontakt libraries if possible.

Especially the Abbey Road Selections have been a pain to use as there's always one that needs repairing...


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## Henrik B. Jensen (May 12, 2022)

@Spitfire Team : Have you guys seen this thread? A number of users are saying they have problems with your copy protection.


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## soapmak3r (May 19, 2022)

My main system is a dual booting Win11 and MacOS Big Sur system. My latest authorizations for Abbey Road 2 de-authorized after about 1 week. 
This is the response that I have received from Spitfire support regarding the current authorization system: 
"So for the repairs, part of the issue here will be the dual boosting between the two OSs sharing the single drive, our system doesn't support this. Each OS will need a dedicated drive to avoid this issue."

So, as soon as I authorize it on one OS, it appears to invalidate the authorization on the other OS because they are sharing the same sample library location.

No other sample library has given me this much grief (or any grief really). I give up. I see no incentive for me to double the space this library is taking up, because even when it works, it does not seem to want to play nicely with Cubase 12 anyway. 
First time Spitfire customer, but I think I am done with them. A really poor user experience here.

This seems like a classic example of punishing the paying customers for their support. I won't support that. I consider myself burned now.


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## colony nofi (Aug 4, 2022)

soapmak3r said:


> My main system is a dual booting Win11 and MacOS Big Sur system. My latest authorizations for Abbey Road 2 de-authorized after about 1 week.
> This is the response that I have received from Spitfire support regarding the current authorization system:
> "So for the repairs, part of the issue here will be the dual boosting between the two OSs sharing the single drive, our system doesn't support this. Each OS will need a dedicated drive to avoid this issue."
> 
> ...


Adding to this.
I used to travel with my external SSD's for sample libs, and then come back to the studio, plug them into my main system and keep going. One drive to maintain. Brilliant. And I kept a second as a backup. With the right setup, you could literally just plug in the second drive and keep working.
(Same drive name, exact same files etc)


Worked for Omnisphere, All Kontakt libs.

However, it turns out PHOBOS didn't like it. At all. Absolutely stuffed me on a score where I was travelling to work direct with the dance theatre company. Like - I had to completely change / rewrite a 3 minute cue, which made the dancers and choreographer extremely annoyed right before production week - and stressed me out no end.

Now, its even worse. I don't think ANY of the spitfire libs outside Kontakt work where you share the one drive between two different computers.

In which case, I now need to carry a SECOND computer just in case my library drive dies.

It is completely bonkas and incredibly annoying. 

My new travel system has an 8TB internal drive. I now just use that. If the drive fails the computer doesn't boot anyway. So I also carry an old 2018 MBP as backup, with external sample library. What a waste of technology and huge waste of money. 

(don't get me started on apple hardware as well though - where as in the past in most cities you could walk to an apple store and buy a new computer if one died, now its virtually impossible for the higher end pro Macs. So you're forced to buy a second one JUST IN CASE.)

It all makes me sad. What a waste of money and resources. Rant over.


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## synergy543 (Nov 15, 2022)

I just experienced a similar situation where I couldn't open a library after moving it to another drive. It took several days and several exchanges with support before getting the library back online. It required a reset on their end so there's nothing I could have done to expedite the solution. While support was quite helpful, it still took several days. Fortunately, I didn't have an impending deadline but I could see where this could be a nightmare of a situation if deadlines are urgent.

It's surprising that after two years, this serious flaw has not been addressed.


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## NYC Composer (Nov 15, 2022)

I am deathly afraid to move ANYTHING EVER, not to mention my deep fear of system upgrades/updates. Inevitably, my VEP/Cubase templates and projects get screwed up.


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