Good day
I’ve seen in the reply regarding Cubase 12, that your Cubase 11 License will still be on the e-licenser and you can still use Cubase 11…
If that is the case - Then what would stop you from gifting my e-licenser to my friend, with the Cubase 11 license on it… If I can use the Upgrade licensing of Cubase 12.
Either the Cubase 11 license would need to be removed from thee-licenser, or Cubase 12 would have to read the e-licenser to make sure that it is still with me…
Did I miss something?
You can gift it but they will never be able to upgrade and when the dongle dies so does Cubase 11. Saying that they should get a few years out of it and can then decide if they want to buy the latest version themselves. They would be starting from scratch as you have the right to upgrade from 12. There aren’t two rights to upgrade.
I don’t think to dongle can technically every die - It’s not like Steinberg is going to refund someone who does not want to upgrade? If a client is happy with Cubase SX3 running windows XP, he can still run It I guess for always - as he have bought it. And if the license is registered on his account, and the dongle becomes faulty, Steinberg would have to give him his license as per the agreement he bought the software under. How is Steinberg going to handle this? You can drop support - Yes that is true, but you can not make the software unusable.
Well not in this case as the user will have updated to Cubase 12. The version 11 and dongle will have been given away but the account is with the person owning Cubase 12. There is no contract with the recipient.
I do agree in a upgrade case- But not when a user does not want to upgrade? So if a user upgrades, there is no point to keep the license on the dongle. Null-And-Void it…
This thread is specifically about giving away the dongle with Cubase 11 on it. I have answered accordingly. Read the initial question.
I may put Cubase 11 on my sons pc when I get 12 but it will still be mine. I can’t transfer it to him as the licence I now have is Cubase 12.
If you upgrade from 11 to 12, just because you get the free ‘grace period’ does not mean you own two separate Cubase licenses. Your license to Cubase 12 was an UPGRADE from your old license. You have the privilege of still using the old one simply because we’re moving to new copy protection.
Technically you can’t give your dongle away because that 11 license is tied specifically to YOU and is the reason you are allowed a 12 license. You dont have two, you have one that was upgraded from an older one. That person will never be able to register that license and once that dongle dies or they shut off the elicenser server, they get to start from square one. That license is always going to be attached to your account.
The license is not tied to a person - it is tied to the dongle. Register yes - but not legally tied as per license agreement. You can own a Cubase license without it being registered, as long as you have a dongle. Was never tied to a person and always to the physical dongle. That was the whole idea with the Licenser.
And that dongle requires it to be registered under YOUR Steinberg account. The elicenser software has you sign in to YOUR Steinberg account. The Steinberg Download Assistant makes you sign into YOUR account. All of your download activation codes are tied to YOUR Steinberg account. Sorry but that dongle IS tied to a person regardless of what you think.
Your upgrade to 12 was dependent on you owning a license for 11. Which means you cannot give away your license to 11 regardless of how it is stored, or what you think your license is actually tied to. Giving away your license to 11, forfeits your upgrade to 12, unless Steinberg all of a sudden decided to have the most generous upgrade policy ever.
You do not own two separate licenses, you own ONE Cubase license, you simply have the ability to run the older version because they’ve changed the copy protection in 12 and haven’t deactivated the elicenser yet. That doesn’t mean its a free for all and everybodies friend now gets a free Cubase 11 license cause we can give the dongle away after it comes out.
Dont get me wrong - I’m all for only 1 license- I bought my version and I would like to protect that. I’m all for Steinberg removing the license from the dongle for all I care. I just raised a concern. That is all…
Wherever the dongle may be, if it has a Cubase 11 licence then it will work but that’s it.
If you get into some kind of problem with version 12 so you need to revert to version 11 (or an earlier version), you will need to keep the dongle to be able to open that older version.
Great point.
How many times did you have to revert back to previous version? I’ve been running since SX3 - Never had too…
I have never reverted and have been using Cubase since the Atari. What I do though is have a cross over period between versions until I’m happy with the new one. I may do this until the first maintenance release arrives.
C11 will become a NFR (Not for resale) activated license. So I presume you will not be able to transfer it, but of course passing your old dongle on would be outside of the system anyway.
I fear quite a few people will get mugged off online buying C11 licenses via ebay etc., thinking they’re full licenses, but can’t be upgraded in future. Forum will be fun when that happens!
Hopefully, the NFR status is clearly shown on the e-licenser so that users can easily check.
Jip this would be a problem - That is why I’m all for deleting the license from the dongle or change it to a 3month limited license or something to give the user time incase something is not working. I know people that will run Cubase 11 for years, no need to ever upgrade - The is definitely 10 years worth of recording left in Cubase 11. Easy. Since Windows 11 just came out - Cubase 11 is Support on Windows 11. No need to ever upgrade…
i am not sure i understand why you would be so concerned about the license remaining on the dongle. really the only legitimate concern i can imagine is the issue skijumptoes raised with regards to scammers trying to sell NFR cubase 11 licenses (and folks who, pretending they’ve been scammed, start demanding the right to upgrade at a massive discount). still, there are myriad reasons for allowing users to keep a license on the old system - while there are some who will try to take advantage, it is not all that different than those who game the grace period buy waiting to activate until a newer version is announced.
i personally would not upgrade if it meant i could no longer access earlier versions (which require the dongle). i think it’s bizarre that you are so bothered by this courtesy that you would advocate for removing the license from the dongle. i don’t see how it would affect you in any possible way.
Read my first comment - Please note I use" me" just as an example. I’m am very for LEGAL software. All my plugins and software are legal. I’m playing devil’s advocate. I just want to understand the processes.
Example: So My Cubase 12 will run - I will produce music. I give me dongle to my friend - He can produce music. Does Steinberg get Money for my friend producing music with a legal Cubase 11 license on a dongle? I don’t need it. Why would I keep my dongle. What can Steinberg do to prevent me from giving my dongle to my friend? Can Steinberg track the dongle? no. Because you don’t have to be connect to the internet to use the dongle. The license on the dongle is legal. Sure he would never be able to upgrade. And that is only me - Times by a few thousand of users with dongles around the house not being used. Steinberg will see the sales drop in the next year as users “try” Cubase from a friend.
If you ever needed to open an old project in a legacy version of Cubase, the new license will only support C12 onwards. As a Cubase owner you get all previous versions as part of your license, so you’ll lose that ability.
If you update to C12, Your current C11 is supplied back to yourself as NFR. This means that accepting the terms of the license you cant be distributing it to another person, as it’s tied to your C12 update and licensed to you as an individual.
You’re basically asking the question as to why someone wouldn’t adhere to software license terms? I mean, let’s be honest, if you’re talking about offline machines you could activate C12 on the new licensing, take the machine offline and then contact Steinberg to have the license deactivated as the machine had failed.
Likewise you could just activate a friends machine with the new C12 system too. There’s loopholes wherever you want to seek them out. If we want a flexible system then it falls on us to morally adhere to the terms - or such benefits will have to be removed, sadly.
People were cheating with the current dongle, as you can register one as stolen and then use it in an offline machine. So people will and always have made ‘copies’ of legal licenses in such manners, users who are desperate for offline use ‘for security reasons’ no doubt carries a percentage of who are bypassing licensing terms in such ways.
Seen it on this forum in the past week where people are wondering how the new licensing is going to work with their current method of ‘sharing’ the dongle between machines and users. Technically, they’ve been in violation of licensing previously.
So yes, this is quite a gamble for Steinberg - particularly the new change to only require a single activation for the life of a machine, and 3 machines under that banner. It’s a massive risk for them.
However, look around at other DAWs that are freely pirated so maybe they’re weighing up the pros and cons and thinking getting Cubase under as many people’s noses is for the better good as they can be transformed into paying customers?!
i.e. Is it all that bad if there’s a load more C11 users in the pipeline with newer products to sell them?
It’s not going to affect sales like you think, I’d expect things to go the other way as Cubase now becomes much more accessible for people to use across desktop and laptops, and demo the product without needing to buy hardware. That’s basically the desired upshoot.