Pirates !

[SWAN]

I am totally opposed to copy protection.It won't stop people using cracked versions and I don't see why I should have to be inconvenienced by it.I bought Alexb's latest modern flagship console and I detested having to jump through hoops to register it.Alexb has stated that it's his ball and he gets to decide but I really sincerely doubt that he is going to gain any extra sales from implementing copy protection most of the big audio software names have ditched the dongle long ago.If nebula ever decides to go for ilok I will ditch them instantly.Copyright infringement might be unpleasant for developers but trying to conflate copyright infringement with theft is pure BS in my opinion nothing has been stolen it has been illegaly copied.I believe that the paying customer should be the focus of the seller and not the hypothetical individual who uses unpaid for software if they can't get it for free those individuals will simply move on to some other cracked software they are almost certainly not going to buy the licenced version.Remember "home taping is killing music" it was BS then and it's BS now.There's more music available now than ever and the same goes for software.Reaper is a shining example of how to treat your potential customers it's called TRUST.

Come on man...Copy protection is 10 minutes of your time as long as it works ok. Is it really 'that' much to ask? Its fairly plain that Alex B sales went down significantly since they were pirated - but you dont care? Because you are a customer you deserve to be molly coddled and Alex B deserves to loose the majority of his income - or else - you leave! I dont think that is a fair behaviour...

If you quote Reaper as a shining example - it tells me a lot - because Reaper is not run for a profit business due to its developer Justin having made millions through selling Winamp back in the day - allowing him to create that business model where it is just him working (low overhead) and not focus on having a sustainable business from financial point of view. Its entirely unfair to normal humans to compare any audio business to Reaper.

Time and time again the notion of relying on 'trust' has failed. Whether it be DDMF trying to sell his plugins at a donation basis - and giving up...even recently a guy asking for donations for his logic theme - and no one donate everyone takes for free...and so it is when there are libraries up on crack sites. The temptation is too great for the majority of people...in their mind just like you 'oh its not stealing - maybe I'll buy it later...' whoops...

When iLok 1 was cracked several companies almost went out of business. But still - you dont believe that they loose sales? What evidence is that based upon- a hunch?....

With business like this - when you buy a product you enter into a deal with a person - and it must be a fair deal with respect on both sides. A customer is not entitled to demand the seller's neck and take the world just because he has given a small amount of money....

[giancarlo]

Anyway Giancarlo you already have you own copy protection system just find a method to protect customers in the eventuality onw dev goes off duty and most of all push devs to use it (!!)...
Devs should develope some automated system to validate licenses (sort of what AITB did) or just sit down with all dev and study a centralized licesing system, so that all enabled users pass from this site (that would also cover user in case a dev goes off).
Then if and when a "key generator" comes out you'll switch to more robust system imho.
Why think now to a more coumbersome protection when you (the devs) are not using the one available yet and it's not even been cracked already!?

we already have it! our actual system IS automated.
Anyway even if I "could" authorize products released by 3rd party devs out of business, I CAN'T do it. I can't modify or authorize something released by someone else. The only way is buying products released in our store only, which is a sort of guarantee at the moment. On next months we'll sign agreements with actual developers in order to protect you in case they go out of business (damaging acustica too). Maybe we'll find a sort of agreement about the future of commercial libraries released but from companies out of business. An agreement signed from both parts.

[koda]

Exactly what I was talking about. That said, you already have a working (for now at least) protection system, it's just that not all the devs use it (till now)

[Mauri]

Greetings,

I obviously don't know the cost of these different kinds of protection systems, but Steinberg's eLicencer, I believe, is doing the job for them, as is iLok for other developers.
I very much like the dongled protection, it's so easy to reinstall, especially if your DAW is offline like mine.

I know others with mobile/laptop DAWs may not totally agree but there you go .

Mauri.

[indelible]

I'm totally no ilok!Everyone here know what people outside Nebula community things about it.''Yes sounds good but...(it's geeky,is cpu killer,it's workflow killer).If you introduce an ilok protection it will be very hard to bring new users to the Nebula world

[Mauri]

I'm totally no ilok!Everyone here know what people outside Nebula community things about it.''Yes sounds good but...(it's geeky,is cpu killer,it's workflow killer).If you introduce an ilok protection it will be very hard to bring new users to the Nebula world

I was'nt suggesting Nebula should adopt iLok, just commenting on the general gist of this topic, and the effectiveness of some protection systems.
Anyway, I've had iLok protected (quite a few) software for sometime and have had no problems with it, and does not seem to affect my CPU usage negatively, of course it has to use some resources although it's minimal. Same with eLicencer.

Sorry, but I think this is a bit of an overstatement."...(it's geeky,is cpu killer,it's workflow killer)."

Actually, Nebula itself is somewhat "geeky" but is certainly worth it !

Mauri.

[Tim Petherick]

Interesting to see how many are against ilok.....


I guess without some sort of protection we may have problem of not having any new developments. So I guess do we really have the choice?

[indelible]

I'm totally no ilok!Everyone here know what people outside Nebula community things about it.''Yes sounds good but...(it's geeky,is cpu killer,it's workflow killer).If you introduce an ilok protection it will be very hard to bring new users to the Nebula world

I was'nt suggesting Nebula should adopt iLok, just commenting on the general gist of this topic, and the effectiveness of some protection systems.
Anyway, I've had iLok protected (quite a few) software for sometime and have had no problems with it, and does not seem to affect my CPU usage negatively, of course it has to use some resources although it's minimal. Same with eLicencer.

Sorry, but I think this is a bit of an overstatement."...(it's geeky,is cpu killer,it's workflow killer)."

Actually, Nebula itself is somewhat "geeky" but is certainly worth it !

Mauri.

I'm not saying this about Nebula but a lot of people in audio forums do.Propellerhead use something in between.You can authorize your hardware(PC) at home and use the dongle on the notebook while you are on the road.Your hardware and OS generates a unique number that they use to recognize you.Personally I don't have any intention to spend extra money for a usb key just to use it with Nebula

[richie43]

Interesting to see how many are against ilok.....


I guess without some sort of protection we may have problem of not having any new developments. So I guess do we really have the choice?

As has been mentioned already, the libraries found on the "crack-warez" sites are the libraries that have no copy protection. To my knowledge, none of the libraries that use CP have ever been cracked. In fact, the only AITB library O have seen is Doc Fear, which does not require authorizing. So....don't we already have some form of protection? The older ilok software has been cracked, and it's only a matter of time before the new ilok will be cracked. Besides, in order for Nebula to effectively use ilok, it will also have to be adopted universally by all library devs (or the reluctant devs will not be able to develop for the Nebula platform, I assume). This is not free, and I will assume that some of the costs will need to be absorbed by the devs, the devs of algo-based plugins that use ilok that I have spoken to said that they had to do this. So if this happens, we lose a few devs, and the one's that remain will need to charge more, which will affect sales. I do think that libraries are sometimes overly-fair priced, they are worth more than what we pay, for sure. But when a library that had cost $30-$50 USD goes up to $100+, per library, do you think that the Nebula "industry" can survive?
I have said many times that I do think that Acustica and devs need to do whatever they feel they need to so that they can continue development and sales of this unique and awesome tool. I just don't think that the Pace ilok is the answer. I actually think that going with ilok would be the beginning of the end of Acustica, but if they still decide to go that route, I truly hope that I am completely wrong.

[koda]

Interesting to see how many are against ilok.....


I guess without some sort of protection we may have problem of not having any new developments. So I guess do we really have the choice?

May I ask why don't you implement the protection which is already available from Acustica? I always wondered why just some (like AITB) used it. Is it complex to bind in the libraries?

[kylen]

ok cool, richie it sounds like possibly ser/auth copy protection for all devs could be the answer. I'm in! But that's easy for me to say, I'm not a dev...hopefully it is not too intrusive for devs.

[Tim Petherick]

Maybe my original message was not clear , I was not saying Ilok was the only way forward....

If the current protection on offer is what people would like , I'm happy for that although it does mean more work for something I would sell normally very cheap ...I'll have to look into it again. Maybe it would be not as hard to implement to my website for new releases
prices are as cheap as I can make them but prices are just gonna have to go up for new stuff .... My combo programs means that everything takes way more samples than the average nebula library. Plus I'm doing 4 native sample rates!

I will sit this out to see what other solutions we have.

[Martinez]

I think the question is this. Is a form of copy protection going to stop piracy?

No.

Pirates will pirate. Decent people will pay for your goods and those are the people who you should be trying to make keep happy.

[richie43]

I think the question is this. Is a form of copy protection going to stop piracy?

No.

Pirates will pirate. Decent people will pay for your goods and those are the people who you should be trying to make keep happy.

I agree with this, unless you are advocating not using ANY copy protection to keep users happy. Are you? I think that you are right, pirates will pirate, for sure. In fact, many software hackers aren't even doing it to get use of the software necessarily, it is for ego and a sense of accomplishment. Because of this, some kind of semi-effective nuisance CP is good, but if it is too crazy (like an ilok), then the egomaniacs will try harder. Also, if the cost needs to be raised significantly to pay for expensive CP, then this aspect makes it more attractive to the crack-warez folks. Unfortunately, the only real solution is for people to start behaving more like decent creatures and stop stealing (you know, act with morality and such...). That's a dream, I know.

[SWAN]

I think the question is this. Is a form of copy protection going to stop piracy?

No.

Pirates will pirate. Decent people will pay for your goods and those are the people who you should be trying to make keep happy.

this is a theory. From what I have heard from developers who sell this stuff - sales go down or disappear when things are released cracked - coincidence?

People will pirate depending on how easy it is. If they see stuff and its very easily and freely available - they are tempted to take it. Some people have a theory of 'line of least resistance' - ie people will take something in the easiest way its presented. The moral aspect of downloading digital material is hazy for many people when they dont understand the direct consequence.

This is why copy protection is worth working with. People need to know that it will be difficult to use pirate libraries - or they may not even work well. There needs to be some hurdles in place - even if they dont always work - the effort needs to be there in order to say 'we will fight you and our work is worth it'.

Then the developers need to make easy shopping, good prices and effective delivery...simple and easy copy protection...and of course - build customer relationship. If all that is in place - who wants to go to some horrible crack site and use annoying links/torrent to download faulty material? If you like the developer who serves you well with nice emails, deals etc - why would you steal from him like that?

Its an effort that need to be understood and dealt with well on all fronts. We as customers need to help the small businesses otherwise they simply wont last.

I have been surprised even when policemen I know have quietly said to me 'damn I paid for that and then it came out on the scene I could have saved some money'...its not so cut and dried that 'pirates' will never buy anything...that is too simplistic...