there is no pro12 activation on the dongle - that whole thing doesn’t exist yet - you’ll get a CB11 activation and when CB12 is released they’ll give you a code for that too.
Basically nothing to worry about 
I think most people were assuming the next major release would be out this month. It is hard to believe that the licensing system would add many months to a development cycle, considering it is probably mostly a drop-in of an existing solution. So it seems like an unexpected delay for both Cubase and Dorico.
I guarantee you it is not that simple and also, something you’d want to thoroughly test for many months.
I suppose nothing is ever as simple as it seems. But it seems to me this is the wort of feature that would be implemented as a “wrapper”. That is to say, nothing about licence management needs to involve any of the internals of Cubase or Dorico. I would think it is the sort f thing that wraps around the product and does its checks at launch time.
I’m sure there would be considerable work in the “back office” systems that keep track of the license base. Even using an off-the-shelf system, there wold still be some need to integrate with Steinberg’s other back office systems.
Nonetheless, I don’t see why this would be on the critical path of any release.
No, he said that your Pro 10.5 activation code will work as a Pro 12 activation code (due to the grace period), meaning that you will get a license for Pro 12 (with the new licensing system) and having a Pro 11 license on the dongle (version 12 will not use the dongle anyway). So you can still use Pro 11 with the dongle, even after you have updated to C12.
At least if you activate before C12 is released. If you activate after C12 is released, I’m not sure about the dongle.
I think it’s fair to be apprehensive of how something new will end up working long term, but until it’s been a year or two and I can definitively say if the new licensing works for me, I’m not going to shoot it down completely.
As I said before, BFD3 implemented this same exact licensing scheme some months ago, and it was a huge disaster, leading the devs to change it to 90 days with what sounds like a little bit of fuzziness in between for leeway, but I was already burned by the 30 day one, and my rule is that any software whose DRM actively disrupts my sessions gets a no second chance permanent boot from my systems, so it’s completely gone now and I do not play on going back to it. I sincerely hope Cubase doesn’t go the same way for me, but time will tell.
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Thanks Steinberg for adopting a modern licensing scheme, the dongle did feel pretty antiquated. 
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So if in 3 years my eLicencer dongle breaks, can I still use 10.5 without giving Steinberg anymore money?.
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I don’t like subscription models but I got roped into PT and MS Office with them. I use Cubase all the time so I’d pay for it. It’s just the sign of the way software development is going.
Looking forward to the next evolution of Cubase…I hope we don’t have to wait too long into 2022.
Thanks
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Unfortunately not. If your USB-eLicenser breaks after we shut down the license servers, you cannot use Cubase 10.5 anymore.
it would be good to get this in the FAQ
This is a hypothetical, but what happens if in 5 years Steinberg shuts down the servers for this new licensing system, because it wants to transition once more? Will every license of C12 expire after 30 days?
or SB sells to another company - it’s happened at least twice before - (also check out BFD that moved from fxpansion to inmusic - servers got switched off) - or SB goes bust or changes it’s mind.
yes, your C12 licence may be at risk at that point.
Regarding the yearly off-line authorization, could someone activate it, but at some point, let’s say 3 months in, decide to go online again in order to be able to use the 30 day scheme on two computers?
Or is it a different regime altogether, freezing a license in place with a one year authorization, no matter what?
Because in the first case, it is much more flexible I think.
The main thing about me (I’m online on my desktop all the time) is lack of maintenance and busywork. If the system works invisibly and infallibly behind the scenes, I’m set. If I have to mess with credentials every now and then, one time due to day light savings or system time, the other because my login credentials couldn’t get through to the server so I’d better enter them in the company’s browser, the other due to the evil eye, multiply this by the number of vendors using similar authorization methods… There’s a problem there.
I just bought Cubase Pro 11 and I don’t have the eLicenser. How can I register(activate?) the license without the dongle?
I bought it for the dongle free Cubase 12 (grace period) so I don’t want to buy the dongle.
All I want is getting the Cubase 12 update when it’s released. I don’t need to use Cubase 11 for now. For that, is there a way to activate my new Cubase 11 Pro license without the dongle now? I hope I don’t have to buy the dongle to get the dongle free Cubase 12 update.
I’m sure there are people like me, finally moving to Cubase from different DAW for the new dongle free licensing. But it’s confusing for people like us who don’t own the eLicenser, how we can purchase Cubase 11 Pro now, activate and get Cubase 12 upgrade!
I am not interpreting anything here as that being possible.
This is really very hypothetical and rather sounds like commercial suicide than anything else. This is not the first transition of a license management system (we even used iLok for some products in the distant past) and we have always made sure that our customers weren’t cut off by it.
Besides, there will be another option that goes well beyond the 30 days. It is mentioned in the FAQs under “Can I use Steinberg products on systems that are not connected to the internet at all?”.
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essentially you can’t - the new (V12) system hasn’t been rolled out - so to activate the V11 licence you will need an elicenser. You may be able to use the download code for V11 in the steinberg download assistant but that’s probably a bit of a waste of time at the moment
hang onto the various codes and you should be good to go by the time V12 comes out.
I agree it’s a little confusing if you are buying v11 now and expecting it to work without the dongle…but that was more of an announcement about what is going to happen…we’re not there yet
Yes, we have been bought twice and the products and licenses are still here after all these years.
But if you like these kinds of apocalyptic scenarios, there is not much we can do. To each their own.
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