Forgot the dongle - what are my options?

Nuendo
#21

The classical example of “complication by progress”, in my book. I leave studio A with my dongles in their little hard case, switch to Studio B, go back to A next day … and all I have to do is to plug in the USB hub. I don’t have to open a browser/activate/deactivate/wait for the WiFi/etc. … everything simply works. Next month I’ll sit on the remote island, equipped with my notebook and do a few hours of work every now and then - and I don’t have to bother with roaming, pre-paid SIM cards and so on, just to open Nuendo (or other stuff).

… and so on.

#22

Sunday I had a session as a player in a small recording studio, far from home. When I arrived things were already in progress. The producer was on a creative roll, so to speak, and the engineer was tightly focused on what he was saying– things were kind of tense. I had stems on my laptop that I needed to bounce to a usb drive they gave me. In that situation, at that moment, if I had a auth problem and had to ask for a wifi password it definitely would not have helped the situation. I just quietly plugged in the dongle, and did my stuff, passed the usb stick to the engineer and came out smelling like a Zen garden.

10 years ago, I hated the usb key, and now I have good habits for remembering to bring it along, and I love it. I also have a spare with a 25 hour license on it (I sacrificed a Cubase SX 1 dongle to get a zdt license).

SB will come out with a soft license for the big programs, just as they have for Dorico and Halion, and everybody will be able to screw things up exactly as they wish, with dongle, or without. :wink: :stuck_out_tongue:

#23

With the words of the mighty Meat Loaf: you took the words right out of my mouth… :wink:

Btw., my main machine is only temporarily hooked up to the net when I want to install or register something.
I certainly would not allow a customer or an external engineer to freely install and register any softwares which
can amount to a frightenly high number. Who’ll clean the box up, afterwards? Nty…
Hey, has anybody ever been brutally stalled when Microsoft decides to run an update on Win 10…for s e v e r a l minutes,
when da customer is waiting in yar neck?

Apropos “Einsame Insel… Dietz…” some time ago I co-produced a short movie about Namibien Wildlife… Large cats with long teeth, a.s.f.
No Internet in the Namib Desert…I can tee ya…LOL … Dongles are my friends…all the way.
Sure, one could always drag an (old) NAGRA and a cutting set for tape into the sandy dunes…
Rofl…-

Servus, Big K

#24

I’ve never had to do that with any of my non-dongle software outside of the initial install.

Instead I can take my laptop to where Im working and everything just works, apart from Nuendo and my ilok plugins where if my dongle broke, got lost, or was simply forgotten, I’d be absolutely fucked.

#25

But to add to that … I wonder if we really need any kind of security anyway?

Again, how long was Cubase/Nuendo ‘uncrackable’? Weren’t they completely unpirated from versions 5 to 8 or something? Did it make a significant difference to income?

#26

I consider that standpoint as slightly starry-eyed…
Of course, there would be piracy and loss of revenue…and that would make Nuendo not any cheaper, I suppose.
As well as that, a load more of the bedroom setup competitors would come up which give you headache and
might make u think about the investments you’ve made in your studio and your further existence.
What makes the case for dropping a long year successful protection scheme against piracy and cracks ?
Just the enormous problem to carry a little dongle in a hard case with you when working out of studio?
Well, this is wailing on a very high level.
Peace, everybody should work the way he wants…

Servus, Big K

#27

Enormity is relative. The little dongle doesn’t stay in the hard case when working out of the studio. The hassle of dealing with dongle-related issues, be they breakage or loss or damage to a mobile computer, is potentially enormous.

Over the past five years I’m not proud of having lost at least one dongle (thank goodness I had developed a relationship with a Yamaha/Steinberg rep at NAMM who sped my license reassignment through); I’ve had three break on me while in service, and two laptops have lost USB ports (ok, they were getting old anyway, but that’s beside the point) by dongles getting whacked by situationally unaware crew members. I do work with redundant systems, and have backup software in case of emergency. But that does not diminish the extreme (in the moment, enormous, even) hassle of having to deal with dongle-related issues when they occur in the field. There are plenty of prophylactic measures one can take to minimize the potential for these things to happen, but they still do. I’m pretty sure that the state of the art includes more versatile and less inconvenient means of piracy protection. I’d like to see something happen sooner than later. The idea is to enhance workflow, not complicate it. If you don’t do a lot of remote work, then this may not be an issue for you. For those of us who do, it is a big deal.

Chewy

#28

Anyway, no one is saying a software license shouldn’t be implemented.

#29

Like I wrote above: I’m a well-booked freelancing engineer. I bring software to the studios I work in like I brought in two huge 19"-racks filled with gear back in the days. I install my software on plenty of different machines, but just once: I bring in the installer on a USB-drive and my dongles, and then I’m fine.

Without dongles, I would have to do the silly install/authorise/de-authorise/de-install dance every_single_time.

#30

And what works for you is great for you. But we don’t all work in environments as apparently safe as yours. Existing technologies support both working with and without dongles, making it potentially possible for all of us to be as comfortable with our working situations as you are. Nobody’s suggesting walking backwards on piracy protection. Forward and better, yes. There are clearly enough of us who find the present system problematic to warrant working toward an improved set of options.

Chewy

#31

This is what I was trying to explain to the poster I replied to. :slight_smile:

#32

Or that the USB key should be discontinued…

#33

Or disconplemented imtinuesly.

#34

:laughing: