Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards iLok vs eLicenser, war(or horror) stories?

I know there has been quite a rackets for iLok after their recent software/servers update. Is eLicenser better? Is there a list of software pianos that use either(or neither) usb dongles?

None of my pianos require a dongle:
- Ivory 1.5 and 1.7
- Galaxy: Vintage D
- Galaxy: Steinway
- Galaxy: Vienna Grand
- Native Instruments: The Giant
- Native Instruments: New York Grand

My experience with Steinberg's eLicenser is in horror story territory.

I have it for use with Cubase not any software pianos.

I have had no issues with ILok. I missed needing to authorize anything during whatever time that was they had problems.
I do very much like that I can put my IvoryII on as many computers as I feel free to do so. I can be the only user.

The only horror stories I have are with PC's and ms. I have many many of them.

This has brought home to ilok end-users what most had suspected - that they are far behind the developers in the pecking order.

I've no doubt most of the time Ilok does its job but Pace's behaviour here has evidently caused deep resentment.

The iLok works fine for me - it licenses two EWQL libraries that I have and has worked fine for two computers - one of them online, and the other offline, which uses a different licensing procedure. Fiddly but OK (well I was tearing my hair out at one point, but that's to be expected with these types of things). For user-friendliness, it's more or less like Native Instruments' licensing system, which does not use any kind of physical lock or dongle.

But the iLok is expensive - about 40 or 50 dollars - for something that should come free with the product you're enabling. Also, the iLok site has a bit of a cheek - asking you to buy 'multiple iLoks' in case one of them fails so you can 'transfer your licenses instantly free of charge'. That is after you've paid them around 100 dollars or more.

update....I've just tried to log on to iLok to check my facts.....but the site no longer exists. So I googled them and found a temporary site saying 'we are working to make things better', and a red button saying 'known issues'. However, it does allow me to log on, and my licenses are listed, but this strange behaviour does not give you much confidence.

I think people are resentful because the 'all software should be free' culture that pervades the internet, especially with under 30 year olds - apparently have their trouble free, cracked versions downloaded and up and running while paying customers are struggling with a complicated licensing system full of do's and don'ts and blind alleys. And, according to dire tonic's link, serious system failures for the end user, the honest customer.

I can appreciate that Ilok worked (past tense) just fine ... but the big news surrounds an update they made recently. It seems the update broke the system for anyone who pulled down the update. If you didn't, you're good, as far as I can tell.

So the issue isn't about locked software. It's about failure of the lock.

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Wow, what a post.

I think what it boils down to is that any DRM that only inconveniences your paying customers isn't a good idea. And since DRM will be cracked anyways I personally consider it a waste of time and money.

The only DRM that I've found reasonable is something like Steam, where it is also a service that genuinely adds value to your product (cloud saves, always up to date, etc.)

And yes, I'm a programmer.