“You are allowed to install our products on multiple computers, but you can only activate a product on three computers at any one time. A single-user license is intended for a single person, so it is not permitted to use the software on more than one computer simultaneously.”
I am currently on Cubase Pro 13 . I intend to buy a new PC , buy an upgrade to Cubase Pro 14 and install the FULL VERSION of 14 from scratch on my new PC (I gathered from reading through several forums that I do NOT need to install 13 on the new PC first before being able to install the upgrade to 14 but can download and install the full version (despite having only bought an upgrade!). Is this correct ?)
Anyway, if not necessary (and out of sheer convenience / time issues) I don’t want to deactivate all my Steinberg software on my old computer. So the above wording leaves me confused (most likely because I am not a native English speaker)
BTW: I have already changed all currently owned Steingerg Software from ELicencer to the new licensing system already.
I am allowed to INSTALL all software on multiple computers. Understood!
I can ACTIVATE each software on up to 3 computers. Understood
I am only permitted to USE the software on only ONE computer simultaneously. ?!? Does that merely mean I am not allowed to open (i.e. “use” ?!) Cubase on both PC’S simultaneously? So as long as I use it only on ONE computer (i.e. with the old one turned off) I am good (i.e. no need to deactivate and reactivate any licences if I switch computers? - which in most likelyhood I won’t do anyway as the current one is now 10 years old )
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Sorry in case this topic has already been asked and answered somewhere here in the past. I unfortunately did not find any posts regarding this.
I’m not disputing the “simultaneously” part, but I am curious as to how Cubase would know, since it apparently does not phone home, even assuming the computer was connected to the web.
My presumption is that this is a EULA/ToS restriction, and not necessarily a “technical” restriction. I’m not speaking with authority on SB/Cubase’s methodology, but what I’ve seen in the past with Ableton is that there is a back-end tracking component to how many systems you’ve activated the software on - one where you don’t have the option of registering/deregistering yourself. If you install it “x too many times” through new system or nuke & pave operations, at some point you have to contact support. AFAIK, there is no technical method by which they will know if you have it running simultaneously (unlike products that use iLok, etc) and the provision is there so that if they make a back-end decision that you’re up to no good, they can take action based on the behavior they see.
I can’t really “test” this because I’m a “do the right thing” kinda guy, and believe the stated concurrent use restrictions are loosely coupled with technical registration-based mechanisms to “guide” people to not be dirtbags.
And I actually didn’t know that. I’m not sure if I just “stopped reading when I saw what I wanted to see” but I thought I could install C14P on 3 systems and use them how I wanted as long as “I” was the one using it (as opposed to, say, my wife using my license on her own, which I would never do). I was actually going to run the Intel version of both C14P and N14 on my iMac Pro and test stuff like “Live” and Blue Cat Hub and all that stuff.
I guess I’ll now be restricted (by way of “good faith”) to just running C14P on the iMac Pro and N14 on my main rig.
I think “simultaneously” implies more than one user. I can’t think of a use-case where you’d need to run it on more than one computer at the same time.
Laptop and desktop come to mind.
It would be where I have instruments/software packages only on the iMac Pro but want use Cubase as the host to send network-based midi/audio data from the concurrently running Cubase session on my iMac Pro to the Cubase session running on my MBP. So in that sense, it would be running on both systems simultaneously. I mean, sure, I COULD have everything loaded on my MBP, but I don’t want that.
I have no doubt the SB guys may say that outside licensing requirements that specific example is “no big deal,” and wouldn’t CHOOSE to make it big deal, but the “simultaneous access” restriction serves as a “global restriction” so that they don’t have to worry about case-by-case exceptions. I think this is where the “good faith” use cases apply. Another way to say it would be “though specific use-cases may technically violate explicit EULAs, this isn’t the use-case the language was intended to control.” But that’s subjective.
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