Just seen that Stomp Filter and Stomp Delay are now using ilok.

For me, that is bad news. One of the plus points with PSP is that they don't use any CP such as Pace and that was a major consideration in me purchasing a lot of their products. If Pace is being applied to all plugins, that means my collection is now static with no further updates and no further purchases.

Adding Pace to a product that previously didn't use it is like changing the method of usage with no warning and no benefit to the customer.

Sorry to sound negative. I really like PSP products but I don't support CP systems that move from a simple user-friendly method to one that requires additional software and procedures that have a negative impact on the customer.

We understand that feelings run high about the PACE authorization system, because so many audio plug-in use it. We did not make this decision lightly, and we wanted to explain our reasons to you.

Authorization and copy protection is a pain not only for every legitimate user but also for us - developers. For the last couple of months, problems with our in-house authorization system has been our main cause for support requests, especially on macOS. It seems every OS update brought us new hassles and headaches. We are not a large company with dedicated support staff and programmers who just deal with authorization code; it was getting to the point that trying to keep our authorization system working was taking time away from PSP Audioware’s real mission: developing professional audio processors. We went looking for what technology is out there that other audio plug-in companies are using. The undeniable truth is that a lot of audio companies use PACE technology successfully. They’ve improved the speed at which they support updates to Windows and macOS considerably over the years. Many professionals in the audio world already have iLok accounts with hundreds of licenses that they use without issue so choosing PACE seemed the most seamless and trouble free option.

Our main goal is for this transition to be as seamless as possible to our customers, thus:
All forthcoming updates to existing plug-ins and new plug-ins in the future will use PACE. Versions of software available prior to this announcement will continue to use our in-house authorization system
We won't change our prices to pass our extra costs onto our users.
We intend to keep our license support as direct as before.
We will allow license transfers after initial approval without charging you the PACE license transfer fee.
We do NOT require you to use iLok hardware dongle - you can select hard drive authorization if you prefer.
For your convenience you can activate your license in three separate locations, each of which can be either a computer or an iLok key (2nd generation or above).
The transition of all our authorizations to PACE will take time, and we appreciate the understanding and cooperation of our user community as we make these changes.

Antoni Ozynski

This is bad news, not because 'so many audio plug-ins use it', but because PACE / Ilok is not a user-friendly solution.

I have been supporting PSP since the first days and I have always been particularly happy about the authorization system because - unlike pace - it worked flawlessly for me and I didn't need to worry about the amount of authorizations (which naturally does keep growing over a period of more than a decade) or any other stuff.

It is a serious amount of work to keep track of all the installations in different places when a system is being upgraded or changed, so far the PSP stuff had been on the friendly side, making my life easier. The ILok stuff is the opposite of that. For example some weeks ago several ILok authorized plugins stopped working without any previous warning, forcing an update of the ILok software. It is obviously unbearable in a professional client situation, that the working session can't be opened any more due to such issues. Also some years ago my ILok suddenly broke - even though I housed it safely inside my computer and it was never even touched or moved. Fixing that did cost me more than a day of work and several hundred Euros. After that I was the proud owner of an insured ILok which would have cost me a considerable annual fee - unfortunately for the already broken and returned ILok. My emails to ILok regarding this topic have been unanswered.

So my consequence is to avoid ILok based software as much as possible. I don't say that I will never again buy anything ILok based in my life - but it would really have to be so good, that I couldn't 'avoid' it. Luckily several other very good plugin developers have their own user friendly authorization system now, so that I am not at all out of options.


True - but you impose the cost of running the ILok system onto the user. I like to pay for the function I want to use and I am going along with the copy protection out of respect for the developer - but I am not willing to add extra time or money for maintaining the copy protection.


Which will certainly give you trouble if a hard-disk dies.

So that means that I will have to move on from PSP, I hope the old plugin versions will keep working for a while...

Michael

I am quite sure they would get you a new license if your hard drive crashed, unless this is abused of course.

Sure we will.