Previously a buyer of all your plugins released before Neon where you took up the iLok thing. I have not bought Neon and won't even be able to test Xenon. Too bad, I'm a great fan of your products. Just not to the point where you get to decide what to put in my USB ports.

If iLok was only a way for you to meet customers needs (practical movement of licenses etc) you probably would provide the possibility for me to buy a non-iLok version. So I suppose the main cause is piracy protection. Actually I'm curious about wheather it works well or not, does iLok applications not get cracked? Hopefully the protection you get is worth the sales dropout from the likes of me.

Hi BB54.

The decision to use iLok was not easy. What convinced us was the quality of the protection. Yes - iLok is not cracked. At least not on Mac. On PC it was cracked couple of times, but it takes about one year from the release of new version of iLok wrapper, which is not bad either. Neon HR was kind of experiment. Also giving the users the option to store their licenses for other plug-ins on iLok allowed us to estimate its popularity. Telling truth we are surprised by how many of our users requested iLok authorizations. So it seems that it works. Anyway, we are still considering and looking for alternative means of reliable protection (as an option - we definitely won't quit iLok), as we realize there are many users like you who simply don't want to keep their licenses on USB dongle. By the way - I would greatly appreciate if you told us why you don't want it. And what kind of protection would be right for you. Machine-bound challenge-response? I know the best protection (for the user) is no protection at all But I'm sure you understand our standpoint as well. It's the piracy that makes our aims contradictory, which is extremely sad. Our mission is to deliver the good stuff for you. But without protection system we might not be able to deliver it at all... Anyway - as I said, we have some other protection systems on our minds. This is why I'd like to know your reasons for not using iLok and your protection-type preferences. Thanks

I like to keep my music computer as clean as possible and not add unnecessary complexity layers. If I can go elsewhere to get something that gets the job done without iLok, that's what I'll do. I'm not sure how Machine-bound challenge-response works - but any solution where I don't have to pay for a piece of non-sounding hardware that lives in USB ports is intresting.

I actually have a Steinberg USB dongle for C4 already - that's a hard one to say no to. Could it be used for this purpose too? And the Logic/Sonar/etc dongles? Probably a harder nut to crack for you but better for your customers.

Of course I want you to get properly paid for your work, this is more about not adding complexity/thresholds/sales stoppers for the people that like to pay. Perhaps we already talked about all this last time (Neon) I don't remember.

I'm new to this iLok thing. I already have 2 USB dongles on my system - 1 for Samplitude and the other for an EQ plug. Neither of those are iLok; 1 is Codemeter and the other Synchrosoft.

I just bought Xenon regardless of the iLok issue because I know that it will be a great tool. However, I would love to be able to use one of my current dongles for Xenon so I don't have to buy yet another dongle and have 3 on my system.

Is there a way to use one of the dongles I already have?

There you go, OTR, good example of the user situation today.

Aaah wait... it's your future... I see an USB Hub!

I too was disappointed about the iLok requirement. I had a bad experience with a dongle several years ago (difficulty installing, weird driver issues coming up, always having to swap it when switching between my desktop and laptop, paranoia over losing it when traveling, etc.) Fortunately that product was upgraded to a dongle-less version so I've been happy, but the experience has led me to shy away from them. There are many products on the market that don't use a dongle, so I prefer to stick with products that avoid them. I'm sure they work fine for many folks, they are just not for me.

As a current, happy PSP customer I of course realize the sad necessity to protect your products from piracy. The "serial # only" protection obviously has its limitations but is simple for users. I'm fine with machine-bound challenge-response as long as (1) it is straightforward to do (e.g. via your website and I can get the response code immediately), and (2) I can put it on 2-3 machines (desktop + 2 laptops).

I like that you have offered protection options for other products, and I hope you will continue this in the future. Going iLok-only for the "pro" versions is fine by me for now since I'm just a home studio user, but at some point I may want the pro versions.

Fortunately Neon has a non-iLok option since I'm in the market for a high-end EQ plugin. I look forward to demoing it. Which reminds me, for demos I prefer the occasional audio drop-outs instead of a fixed-length trial. I find that I'll demo a plugin and decide not to buy it, but months later want to try it again as my needs change. So having the "crippled" version still sitting in my VST list makes it easy to give it a quick try again which often results in a purchase. Fixed-length trials make this more difficult. I'm not sure if other users are the same, but this happens to me often.

Anyway, good luck with Xenon. I hope to see a non-iLok version sometime- it looks like a great plugin.

Regards,
Chris

Already there....

funny, I had lots of those horror problems with computers in the past in general, but still keep using them. Maybe that is just the nature of that little/big box ....

best

I'll try to answer couple of questions and issues mentioned here.
Seems that some of you might have experienced problems with iLok before. We are aware such problems happened with earlier versions of it. However, Pace Antipiracy, the developer of iLok, has spent a lot of time and effort to make it run well on PCs since then. Quite a serious number of our customers uses iLok on PCs and, telling truth, have been reported hardly any iLok-related problems. I use iLok on couple of machines and did not have a single problem with it, so it seems to be quite reliable and stable. Of course I understand that some of you don't like this kind of protection. That's why we are considering alternatives.
However, I can't agree with some of you. You can avoid the paranoia over loosing an iLok by using the zero-downtime feature of iLok.com (it's not free, though). I understand it's annoying that you need to move your iLok when switching before computers. But many people consider having their licenses in one place to be an advantage. The main alternative way of copy protection that works - challenge-response - is very annoying when reinstalling, changing hardware config etc. iLok is much more convenient in such situations.
Unfortunately, using another dongles - Syncrosoft, Codemeter - for storing PSP licenses is not possible. We are not going to support them in the future. We are seriously considering using challenge/response protection, though.

I just bought a new PC recently and went through the hassle of re-installing and re-authorizing everything (non-iLok), and it was quite irritating. (Is what would be really cool is if the plugins could reside on the dongle so you don't have to install software anywhere...Lot of good it does you to show up at a pro studio with your iLok only to discover they don't have the plugin you want...)

Glad to hear dongle technology has improved.

Ultimately for me, iLok comes down to another barrier for purchase...yet another thing I have to do to purchase a product. $40 for a dongle is not outrageous, but it's still another $40 I have to spend. Once you already have an iLok and are in the "iLok universe" then it's probably fine. I'm just not excited about taking that first step.

As I noted earlier, challenge/response is fine with me.

Regards,
Chris