Concerns about Steinberg Licensing

Cubase
1

My Reply…

Excellent way to spin what is happening ……

I will translate…::

We intend transitioning the license to a subscription despite assuring customers we would not go down this rabbit hole.

Based on Steinberg coming clean today, This is one studio that will not be continuing to support development of the product beyond 11.xx.

Thanks for at least announcing ahead of time for us larger studio footprints to manage and protect our investment:

I want to keep my rights in owning a licensed product and the recording efforts produced by and or for my customers retaining the same protections.
As long as the subscription service model is being introduced you are losing customers over this. Yamaha this is a bad move on your part.

Fellow owners take heed This dilutes your rights of ownership and their responsibilities towards those rights of ownership that We currently hold under international law:

I walked away from microsoft office because of it best decision I have made.

Luckily the present patches make for a stable production suite on 11.

Folks be wary of any future patching make certain you employ effective roll back and change management procedures.

Truly Disappointed but I will be saving money from now on so thanks.

Ron Southworth

10 Likes
2

I am sorry if that is what you read between the lines because it isn’t what we are aiming for…

3

That is totally crap and the language is like we are poodles to Steinberg. It is this arrogant managment behaviour which upsets a lot of people, you can be sure about that. This is going into the wrong direction! I don’t want to be controlled by companies who I pay for the products they deliver. We get leashed to the will of a software company, which should serve us.
I bought so many Steinberg licenses , which allowed me to stay offline as long as I want, not been given time schedules of being “allowed” by the software maker.

5 Likes
4

“Leader” … “allowance” … what have we come to?
This sounds like a bad dream to me.

2 Likes
5

At least it will save me some money as I won’t buy anymore steinberg products with the new licensing system. I have a no perfectly running machine and a backup of the current system. Keeps me running for the next 10 years.
I know steinberg enough to know that it’s very much possible that you can’t unlock a certain software version anymore in maybe 5 years when the 30 days or one year is up.

5 Likes
6

And knowing how reliable the steinberg servers run I already see the complaints when the 30 days run out and the server doesn’t work.

4 Likes
7

Hey guys, I have moved your posts into a new thread. I hope you don’t mind. Reading through your comments I felt like this would need a separate discussion a part from the announcement.

So as I understand it the requirement to be connected to the internet every 30 days or in the offline use-case once a year is your main concern, or am I wrong?

1 Like
8

We see this already with VPS Avenger by Vengeance - it is the worst solution right after being completely bound to the internet 24/7. It is the direction what I hoped Steinberg wouldn’t go.
The more products you have with this bossing around of the customer, the more you get administrative hassles. Imagine alone 10 software packages having different cylces of re-activations etc. The more stuff you buy, the more hassle you will get. In the end you will think twice as a customer to add more software like this - it will hurt sales.

1 Like
9

We are not asking to be online 24/7 and Cubase will always refresh the 30 day lease when you start it while you are connected to the internet.

Is your music production computer not connected to the internet at all? Or only from time to time?

1 Like
10

Hi, why can’t you just allow one user to activate the software on one machine and still allow the e license to be used also on another, Propellerhead Reason does this and it works just fine, so the elicense can be used on your studio pc or mac and then activate your laptop via the internets new license system, keeping the elicense dongle system also is a more sensible option, surely. That way we all didn,t just spend money on dongles to just chuck them away and our loyalty with Steinberg will be rewarded with more flexibilty, not shackled to an internet connections to use the software we have bought.

3 Likes
11

Unfortunately keeping the eLicenser is not an option. The whole system just reached its limits. We had to move to a modern solution.

3 Likes
12

Totally agree.

This is a fatal move from Steinberg. I will stick to my current products, and if that licensing system goes on, I will consider a new software. It is sad after decades of using Cubase, but I have paid for the products, and I want to keep using it whenvever and wherever I please thanks to my USB licenser.

6 Likes
13

Yes, absolutely! As an artist you need ease of mind with your tools. In our technocratic administered world nowadays, where profit maximisation is king, companies try to revert the power from the customers to the companies and their management to generate a constant stream of a certain level in revenues. That is the reason the permanent licensing is taken away from us, the buying customer. Permanent licensing, no matter if to a dongle or machine based, could bring the customer to the point of “freezing” their working environments for some time, which wouldn’t be good if you want to generate a permanent stream of income on the software company side.
There is more pressure to update old licenses, because your old licenses stop working if the dongle breaks - the user cannot move or repair licenses anymore. This is taking away the payed, permanent license … or the customer is spending more money - this is the goal in the end.
It is the total victory of the Business Management over usability and customer needs. All discussion is just busy work to cover this.

6 Likes
14

When would you feel limited by the new system? Could you explain a little more?

1 Like
15

No, the internet connection is not the trouble. What is unacceptable is not to be able to use my paid products in any computer at any time using my USB licenser. Just two computers at the same time with the new licensing system? That is not acceptable. You are seriously mistreating your customers, not a good idea given the options avalaible in the market.

3 Likes
16

One of the problems is the following:
Anyone remembers Adobe CS6? You bought a perpetual licence which (in theory) allows you to use the software until the end of times. But less than 5 years after the release of CS6, the activation servers were shut down.
Back to Cubase and Steinberg:
If anything happens to Steinberg / Yamaha and/or their servers, my eLicenser and the software I downloaded and archived will still work for decades if I wish so. Even if I need to swap hardware and reinstall.

Guess that many people just don’t want to make their business/job/hobby rely on the availability of “activation servers”. Many (including me) have made bad experiences with this before. I’d rather stick with my eLicencer dongle … and still happily pay Steinberg for new releases if they help me do my work. :slight_smile:

9 Likes
17

From a different perspective it would have been way easier (and cheaper) for us to keep the current system. But in the interest of our users we decided that it is time to move on. There were so many issues with the eLicenser in the past. Nearly half of our support inquiries are related to eLicenser issues. We had several issues with the eLicenser server in the last 24 months which led to situations where customers couldn’t activate their products. There are lot of users who are appreciating to get rid of the USB dongle because it’s blocking a port of their system or it’s breaking when they are using it on their notebook. The eLicenser was also quite limited when it came to institutional accounts or larger corporate accounts. Ask any admin who had to take care of setting up a classroom of Cubase Elements versions.

4 Likes
18

So why need to update it every 30 days? can it not be one machine gets activated and then that’s that? every time that machine then uses Steinberg software whilst it is connected to the internet it verify’s it’s license, but those who choose not to have a connected device can still use the software regardless?
The machine that gets activated would have to be de activated or stated as stolen, lost or broken and could not then be updated before a new one is activated, so piracy would be still at a minimal.

2 Likes
19

It’s pretty much the same with the USB eLicenser. If Steinberg would go down the drain and the eLicenser server wouldn’t be available any more, there would be no chance to go on when your USB eLicenser breaks or your would like to update to a new OS.

2 Likes
20

Matthias, sure you are not saying that Steinberg would that to their customers, aren’t you…

1 Like