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VSL Announcement: Moving to iLok Key / Cloud - We are live!

Here’s my take on safety:

- Ilok cloud: nice as long as the cloud is online
- machine based CP: nice until the drives crashes
- Ilok key: nice until it dies... unless ...

but above is not all. If you invest 30 bucks per key per year, all you need is a replacement key and you’re nearly instantly back in the game. Since I have ZDT I sleep better. honestly. Both other options require an much bigger effort to get back to my status quo. and that‘s why that‘s totally worth the 30 bucks, at least for me.

i‘ve had every USB Ilok model ever built. and whenever a new one came out (we are at model 3 now) I’ve upgraded and moved the licenses. I never had an issue with any of my iloks in the last 20 years.
 
Is there going to be a grace period or refund or whatever, for people who just recently bought two e-licensers ...
What about us who don't wanna transfer to iLok
and just wanna continue using eLicenser on the
existing stuff we have...can we?
Good question. If I understand them correctly, VSL says that their eLicenser licenses will continue working indefinitely. But it seems to me that Steinberg is going to pull the plug on the servers at some point. I don't think they've given us any hints about when that will be.
 
Can someone enlighten me on how a dongle is less reliable than machine-based activation? I know probably several dozen people who use dongles and I've never heard of one dying. Computers, however, especially hard drives, fail pretty regularly. So.... ???

I wouldn't be surprised if dongles are 1000x more reliable than machine-based validation.

rgames
That might (or might not) be true with today's USB flash drive technology (e.g. iLok 3). But flash drives used to have a bad reputation for longevity -- worse than spinning hard drives. The other issue with dongles applies mainly to use on portable laptops: they are prone to physical damage in use and during transport.

Two big advantages to iLok. First:
If you invest 30 bucks per key per year, all you need is a replacement key and you’re nearly instantly back in the game. Since I have ZDT I sleep better. honestly. Both other options require an much bigger effort to get back to my status quo. and that‘s why that‘s totally worth the 30 bucks, at least for me.
Second, when your PC fails or becomes obsolete, your iLok licensed software is the easiest to reinstall and reauthorize. And for that you don't even need to pay a $30 insurance premium. This happened to me last August. Starting from scratch with new computer made me a firm believer in iLok.
 
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For further clarification we've added some additional information to the original announcement:
For every registered product in your VSL account, you will receive an iLok license. You will NOT be asked to return or delete any of your existing licenses on the eLicenser.
 
For every registered product in your VSL account, you will receive an iLok license. You will NOT be asked to return or delete any of your existing licenses on the eLicenser.
This is great news. I was going to ask if we would get any additional authorizations (which is common in the iLok world), so that we can use our VSL libraries on VEP slave machines as well as our main DAW units without having to shuffle licences between dongles.

So regardless of what happens with iLok, the ability to still use our Vienna Key licences gives us at least one slave option. :2thumbs:
 
I really like dongles, especially my iLok. I've upgraded my computers and drives so many times, and the iLok has made it so easy. The machine licenses are the worst. Right now, I'm going to have to put my old nvme drive back in my music computer because for some stupid reason Steinberg installed padshop with a soft license instead of a elicenser license. I get error messages every time I load the DAW. And I really don't use Padshop much. With a dongle, I can load libraries everywhere and they run great with only having to plug in the dongle. No authorization questions, signing in, remembering passwords, finding serial numbers, etc... Install, plug in dongle and done. Such a timesaver.
 
Bottom-line:

@Ben two related questions:
- can I use an iLok dongle as a backup if the online-check fails?
- can I use the online-check as a backup if the iLok dongle fails?
 
Bottom-line:

@Ben two related questions:
- can I use an iLok dongle as a backup if the online-check fails?
- can I use the online-check as a backup if the iLok dongle fails?
I think that will depend on how many activations VSL give us. With iLok you decide whether your license will be in the Cloud OR on your dongle. With two or more activations, that issue goes away.
 
For further clarification we've added some additional information to the original announcement:
For every registered product in your VSL account, you will receive an iLok license. You will NOT be asked to return or delete any of your existing licenses on the eLicenser.

That's good. What it does not clarify, however, is how long Steinberg's eLicenser servers will continue to run.
 
So, we are hopping from the frying pan into the fire.
It does not seem to be much of a change.

My older EW things that I have with an iLok now don't work on several computers anymore when moving the dongle from one machine to another: I call that utterly useless.
Having to be constantly online for authorization is invasive and makes one feel like a non-trustworthy customer after having obtained a legal license, it also limits mobility or travel to remote places with sketchy internet.
In case of iLok putting responsibility on the user about retrieving keys, malfunctioning of authentication servers etc. in regards to the copy protection alone is just another layer of impertinence - making them pay an insurance on that is beyond greed and rudeness.
I say for whomever customer relation is somewhere near the top of the list on the business plan there surely can be a better way to be found that does not have to encumber customers or invade their privacy to such a big degree.
 
So, we are hopping from the frying pan into the fire.
It does not seem to be much of a change.

My older EW things that I have with an iLok now don't work on several computers anymore when moving the dongle from one machine to another: I call that utterly useless.
Having to be constantly online for authorization is invasive and makes one feel like a non-trustworthy customer after having obtained a legal license, it also limits mobility or travel to remote places with sketchy internet.
In case of iLok putting responsibility on the user about retrieving keys, malfunctioning of authentication servers etc. in regards to the copy protection alone is just another layer of impertinence - making them pay an insurance on that is beyond greed and rudeness.
I say for whomever customer relation is somewhere near the top of the list on the business plan there surely can be a better way to be found that does not have to encumber customers or invade their privacy to such a big degree.
iLok has worked for well over two decades. You don't have to be online constantly if you use the dongle. There are a number of benefits as others have mentioned in terms of migrating to new machines. It takes me far less time to get a new machine setup with iLok libraries / plugins than ones that have computer-based CR schemes or license files. There's no invasion of privacy or impertinence here for a customer.

And it is better than eLicenser for a number of reasons mentioned earlier.
 
For further clarification we've added some additional information to the original announcement:
So in essence this means one licence (since elicencer fades out) per purchased library. Such an offer is no longer up to date and highly unflexible. It prevents us from distributing a library on several VEPRO servers or from using a library on a laptop on the road AND in the studio. So, frankly where is the advantage in switching to iLOK?
 
So in essence this means one licence (since elicencer fades out) per purchased library. Such an offer is no longer up to date and highly unflexible. It prevents us from distributing a library on several VEPRO servers or from using a library on a laptop on the road AND in the studio. So, frankly where is the advantage in switching to iLOK?
How is this different from what we already have?
 
Wow, this is great news, and quite a pleasant surprise at the end of a hard day's slog!

I have had many problems with eLicenser over the years, but none since buying the latest rev of the dongle a few months back. I've always been nervous about my VSL investment as a result.

It never occurred to me to consider iLok Cloud, so I'll have to check into whether one can have the license on a dongle and on iLok Cloud, in case either fails.

Also, I seem to recall ZDT being per-license vs. per-dongle way back, and quite expensive and not even guaranteed to replace the licenses (vendor by vendor), so it's good to see the latest status on ZDT. I'll buy into that ASAP.

I do not have the latest and greatest iLok; I have the previous generation. I may need to upgrade, to hold more licenses. One of the reasons I prefer iLok though, is that VSL can quickly cause one to reach the maximum number of licenses -- at least on older versions of the eLicenser dongle.

I'm also pleased that resale will be easier now, as I at some point need to canvas my redundant or no-longer used older VI libs now that I am almost all-Synchron in my workflow, and it was just too daunting to think about how to deal with that so I haven't bothered yet.

Perhaps best of all, I'll have one less fragile thing sticking out of the back of my 2017 iMac to worry about breaking, and one more USB port available for direct connection sans hub (the dongles haven't worked so well when connected to hubs vs. plugged directly into the computer's ports).

As an aside, I constantly get "license not found" with eLicenser, in the middle of a session or especially at startup (though "retry" usually works). My heart skips a beat each time, thinking the dongle broke.
 
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I'm also pleased that resale will be easier now,
This isn't clear yet (at least not to me). iLok will let you transfer licenses that are not marked NFR or with some other special status. But by itself that does not register you with the developer as the new owner and doesn't give you access to technical support or upgrades. With most developers, transferring an iLok product is a two-step process involving both the developer and iLok.

EDIT: in #136 immediately below, Mark clarified what he meant by easier resale. My comment above is true (I think) but not really responsive to his point.

It never occurred to me to consider iLok Cloud, so I'll have to check into whether one can have the license on a dongle and on iLok Cloud, in case either fails.
That depends on the number of authorizations allowed by the developer. It's often two or three but some developers limit you to one (as VSL does on eLicenser). If the developer allow more than one authorization, unused ones stay in your account and can indeed be considered backups of a sort.
 
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Maybe so, but that doesn't bother me. Sure, there's an iLok transfer fee, but VSL has a transfer fee anyway (and understandably so). The main thing is not having to ship a dongle back and forth multiple times, which is risky and also makes it hard to sell things piecemeal, meaning more potential customers, which in turn is a win-win as those same buyers of used licenses are then more easily able to flesh out their VSL collections with first-hand sales from the vendor (or an authorized dealer).

For those who don't look at ads, I'm making my own extra dongles available for free based on this news, knowing it will help some people who would rather not invest actual money in a short-term dongle, but I think VSL's lowered price combined with their voucher amounts to the same thing.
 
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I think this is a great decision. I wish all companies using e-Licenser would move over to iLok(Steinberg, I'm looking at you).
Then I wouldn't have to worry about multiple dongles.
And iLok3 looks like it has better build quality than those plastic e-licensors which I hear fall apart from time to time.
 
@Ben: will there be a price reduction of the protection plan as well? One of my e-licensers is running out of warranty in a couple of months. Therefore I‘d like to be covered until the advent of the iLok licensing.
 
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