Before everything else I hope? Sorry for being so obnoxious and it’s probably irrelevant, but I’ve had a severe case of BFDitis lately, where failed license checks could scrap data. Preferences, cached kits, this sort of thing. I am of the opinion that the “door” should close forcefully upon the user BEFORE the program bothers to do anything else. 
Dear Ed_Doll,
sorry to say, I read inbetween the lines the exact same message. If it is not the intention of Steinberg then do your job and get the communication right. Or say the truth to the people.
The problem is the language in the announcement. It leaves no room for interpretation. Sentences from CEO Stelling like: "The introduction of Steinberg Licensing does not change anything today about the way we sell our products. However, the new system does open up many new possibilities for the way we offer our products, and we plan to explore these in future.”
Why is there the word “today”???
“We know that many of our existing customers are concerned that Steinberg may switch to a subscription pricing model for our products. Please be reassured that whatever options for buying Steinberg software products may be offered in future, we have no plans to withdraw the option to buy and use our existing software products under a perpetual license, just as we always have.”
“Nobody plans to build a wall.” this quotation from German History just tells what the perception is if somebody says “we have no plans”. Plans change so quickly.
Frankly these are the same arguments that MS used when switching to Office 365 subscription and also Adobe when moving to the subscription only model. Adobe also promised keeping perpetual licensing and they kept their word by having a last release of the suite that was frozen and never updated. Inbetween it not even runs on modern versions of MacOS.
My personal feeling is that Steinberg is planning the same trickery as Adobe did and the carefully designed statements and messages just amplify my concerns and negatively affect my thinking about Steinberg as reliable brand and Yamaha as parent company. Please submit this to Mr. Stelling as well as to Ikeda-san and Nishimura-san. This decision also affects the reputation of Yamaha as reliable partner in the music production business.
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I can’t promise anything at this stage, as we’re just beginning the transition.
Ben,
I hope Steinberg considers the fact that a stable well-known system is very valuable to us professionals. There is a mantra among many of us : DON’T UPGRADE UNLESS YOU’RE FORCED TO.
Before downloading an app was commonplace, many studios did not even have an internet connection but ordered hard copy of the software.
Even today I keep my internet connection off on my main computer and switch it on only for the occasional download.
The truth of deciding on a new software purchase is that ads by the company are only one factor . Increasingly, input and reviews from longtime users are a major factor. To use an Americanism, don’t piss us off.
Thanks.
We very much appreciate this and will do our best to ensure that you have access to stable software whenever you need it.
Will you offer out a minimum agreement as to how long the eLCC client, and servers will be maintained for legacy customers?
Appreciate the target is to move everyone over and you don’t want to be overwhelmed with legacy licenses, but there’s going to be a small percentage who have been with you for decades who may need older builds, so seek more defined assurances?
If not a minimum term, then at least a minimum notification period of shutdown/cease of eLCC client updates?
I’m not in a position to make those commitments myself. How to handle the “long tail” of licenses for older products will be a question that we will answer well in advance of a proposed switch-off of the eLicenser servers.
Exactly this ^^^. I was a BFD user, got forced to upgrade my perfectly good BFD2 software because the licence servers were switched off and now have BFD 3 which randomly de-auths mid-session and requires an internet connection to work again. I bought an alternative drums vst. If Cubase is going down this route I’ll have to look at an alternative. Pretty annoying as I have invested so heavily over the years, and it’ll be difficult to get to grips with something new. 20, 40 or 365 day leases are a no-go. A USB based licence which doesn’t need refreshing is better. The comment was made on the BFD forum that if you make the use of paid software so difficult, people are going to seek out cracked versions…
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Todays awaking thoughts. Yes Cubase update drops soon, lets see what the buzz is online.
Day officially ruined. Sad as it may read. Christmas holidays officially ruined. I really hope that all the dongle complainers are happy now.
This post be lost in the sea of words here but… I always said keep the dongle, fully supported it, knowing the efforts any switch would take away from seeing our beloved DAW evolve, the many bugs fixing, improvements we want and not to mention the graphical inconsistencies.
it was going to happen 1 day but I’d hoped to see the other things come first.
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How about the eLCC application required to connect to the servers? That’s as important as the servers themselves, yet I see no specific mention of it’s continued maintenance.
As these things have to budgeted, there must be an acceptable period for both client and server upkeep at this point? This is all quite a shadowy area that I think someone needs to get a handle on personally.
On a personal level I’m really pleased with these changes, but seeing people getting frustrated I feel that they’re not representing themselves with the salient questions that need more concrete answers. Hence why I’m playing devils advocate here.
Please rest assured that the design of the new system is such that the software cannot become deactivated in the middle of a session. If it is activated when it starts up, then it will remain activated for the duration of that session, even if the offline allowance period has expired under the hood. (So if you can keep Cubase or Dorico running on your computer for 100 years without needing to quit the application, then your session could be 100 years beyond that 30 day limit, and it would still keep working!)
Typically the eLCC software only needs to be updated to add new licenses to its built-in database (which it can also obtain by performing its default maintenance tasks). Every once in a while we have to make larger changes to it, such as we did a couple of years ago to improve its reliability on recent versions of macOS, and such as we are in the process of doing at the moment so that we can release a version that runs natively on Apple silicon-powered Macs.
Obviously our goal will be to spend as little time as is reasonably possible on further development of the eLicenser infrastructure in future, but as we have expressed over and over again over the past 36 hours, it is not in our interest to cut off the licenses of existing users. We have made certain contractual commitments to those partners who license eLicenser technology from us, but any dates for end of support that we are providing to partners who have signed agreements with Steinberg do not imply anything about what will actually happen to the eLicenser infrastructure beyond that point.
We have already said in our FAQs that we expect the transition to take a couple of years. You can be reassured that the eLicenser system will be available for the duration of the transition, and as Ben has stated explicitly above, we will have determined what to do about existing licenses that would be affected by the shut-down of the eLicenser servers, implemented a solution and communicated about it to our users well in advance of that shut-down. We are not going to leave our customers in the lurch.
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The hassle is that I have to trust one of the companies with the worst customer service to unlock my computer in 3 years. And with Steinberg I don’t have that trust. Sorry.
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You are not going to leave customers to relay on USB dongle (whether it will survive or gets broken) but you would actually provide solution for customers that want to stay on Cubase 10.5.12(like myself) even if dongle dies or get lost?
We can’t say exactly what that solution will look like at this point. I know it’s frustrating that we cannot answer every possible future scenario with certainty, but please be assured that we will communicate these things as clearly as we can as the information becomes available.
I dont think it can be tweaked to be useful and still fulfils primary function.
So if I’m not using Cubase on my laptop for 5 weeks then leave for a trip and while on the plane I decide I want to check some stuff in Cubase, I assume my “perpetual” license will laugh in my face, isn’t it?
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One thing that I have not seen discussed yet is stolen software. People are using gmail etc and it is a problem that those are hijacked, and it can therefore also be using for theft of licenses or account are just gone. This is very much harder to do with a dongle.
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The thing is that after when Cubase 11 (and earlier versions) will only depend on dongle physical strength and durability, customers who paid for perpetual license(400-600$) actually sums their usage for mercy of the dongle (which is 25-30$) meaning if that if something happens with the dongle they cannot use those products anymore and they are forced to upgrade to Cubase 12 (and future versions) don’t you think that is a bit unfair?
I don’t have anything against new licensing system tbh, but ability to manually transfer license from one dongle to another dongle or USB stick (without needing server) would be welcomed. That way customers can maintain using versions prior 12 perpetually which they paid. Or simply transfer those old versions to new system which actually I dont know how much technically is possible?
Thanks Daniel
This is a legitimate concern and we do plan to solve this. I can’t say today exactly what that solution will look like, but we will come back to you with more information about it soon, and certainly before Cubase 12 is released.
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