In November 2021, we announced the details of the new Steinberg Licensing system that will be introduced in early 2022 with the release of Dorico 4, to be followed by Cubase 12 and then other Steinberg software products.
We received a great deal of feedback from our users around the world, and we would like to thank everybody for engaging in thoughtful and passionate discussion with us. We know that the way our software is licensed has a big impact on the experience of using our software, and we want Steinberg Licensing to provide the best possible user experience, while providing protection to both your and our investment in our software.
Although there were many themes among the feedback we received, two concerns emerged as being of particular importance, and it’s around those two issues that we would like to provide an update today.
Renewing activation every 30 days
In our original announcement, we described the process of activating your software online, which would provide you with a 30-day offline allowance period, so that you could disconnect your computer from the internet and use your Steinberg software for 30 days, with the requirement that you should allow the software to renew its activation once every 30 days.
Many users expressed concern about this approach, particularly on the grounds that software sold under a perpetual license should not have any kind of time limitation in its use.
We have decided to make significant changes in this area: for software purchased under a perpetual license, there will be no requirement for your computer to connect to our activation servers after initial activation. There will be no offline allowance period: instead, once your software has been activated on your computer, it never needs to contact our activation servers again for you to be able to keep using it.
If you eventually want to stop using the software on that computer and move it to another computer, you can run Steinberg Activation Manager to deactivate it, freeing up that activation for another computer.
As before, your perpetual license applies only to the current major version of the product: e.g., if you purchase a license for Dorico 4, your license will not apply to Dorico 5 or any later version.
Maximum number of activations
In our original announcement, we specified that it would be possible to activate a single-user license on up to two computers, for your own personal use.
We heard from some customers that increasing the maximum number of activations would be more convenient. To address this, we have decided to increase the maximum number of activations from two to three computers. Your single-user license for your Steinberg software may be activated on a maximum of three computers simultaneously.
Please note that a single-user license is still licensed to an individual person, so it is not permitted for multiple different people to use the software, either at the same or at different times. Each activated machine is for your own personal use.
If you are a business owner or are employed by an enterprise or educational institution that requires multi-user licensing, please stay tuned for further information about the new multi-user licensing options that will be coming in 2022. The above applies only to single-user perpetual licenses for Steinberg software using Steinberg Licensing.
More information
If you missed the original announcement about the introduction of Steinberg Licensing, read it here. We have collected answers to many of the questions we have received from our customers about the new licensing system, which you can find here. Both of these resources have been updated to take into account the changes announced here.
We are looking forward to the release of Dorico 4 early in 2022, which will provide your first opportunity to experience Steinberg Licensing for yourself. We hope that the changes we have announced today will help to make the transition to the new system as easy and as smooth as possible.
If you have any further queries or concerns about Steinberg Licensing, please let us know. The easiest way is to post on our user forums.
Thank you for your continued support of Steinberg products, and we wish you a very happy Christmas and a productive and prosperous start to 2022.