Ok, one worry is eliminated! I read this from a Steinberg employee so it is save:
“It will be soft-eLicneser based. No dongle will be required.”
Alright, if they would decide to offer to licenses per purchase or a small fee for a second license, there is nothing to complain about.
The only thing to watch is the soft licence is tied to one computer. If you want to move it you ave to go with the USB eLicenser.
DG
That wouldn’t be a problem to me, as long as I can move that license in between elicenser hard and software version back and forth as often as I want to. I have only used the hardware dongle, not the software version of licenser, so I am not sure, but I assume it should be possible.
You guys may want to shift to this thread to talk about possible alternative solutions in lieu of current eLc and soft-eLc: [Dongles] Not mean to Dorico team, but something serious. - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
Daniel has stated the moving the software license is not a quick and east thing to do.
I purchased Cubase Elements for my laptop since that’s all I would need there. Kind of a pain that I would have to but for a notation program I would need the full power of the program on my laptop.
Both of Dorico’s main competitors allow installation on two computers. As Dorico is a new player in the music notation market, I think it is a very poor decision not to be at least as flexible as their competition. As a working musician, I have my notation software installed on my desktop studio setup, but I absolutely have to be able to use the software on my laptop when I am on the road too. There are plenty of times when I may not have internet access on my laptop so some complicated transferring e-licence scheme is not terribly helpful either. Both other products simply allow product registration on two machines.
As a new player in the market, Dorico needs to be giving potential customers reasons to switch. The lack of chord symbols in the initial release will already eliminate much of the potential market, why unnecessarily eliminate more of it with a burdensome copy protection scheme?
Licensing is clearly an issue. Some things to consider:
Sibelius 8.3 and Finale 2014.5 allow 2 personal installations. Based on educational price, buying two Dorico licenses, even at a discount, is not cost effective at all. The problem I have (and it seems many other people have) with only one installation is that it is still only ONE person using the license. What difference does two machines make? On a side note, Pyware also allows two installations.
–Sibelius 8.3 Education Price $299.00
–Finale 2014.5 Education Price $350.00 Crossgrade Price $149.00
–Dorico Education Price $390.84 Crossgrade Price $334.84
A HUGE issue for me is AVID is requiring a fee of $89 each year to keep a perpetual license current. If it lapses, you can no longer update nor upgrade your software. I do not believe Finale is doing this. This is pretty much a deal breaker with me. When my perpetual license runs out next year, I WILL be switching to another program. Dorico looks promising. The higher price compared to Finale or Sibelius is understandable if it delivers AS INDICATED and without a ton of bugs. But there really is no reason not to allow two installations when it seems to be fairly common.
KG
I refer you back to my previous response in this thread here:
As and when there is more news to share concerning this issue, I will provide an update as soon as possible.
It is not possible to move a license from a Steinberg key to a sofelicenser. It is a one way route, if you move it to a usb key it will never come back to a softelicenser.
I’m also hoping that there’s movement on the licensing situation, as the large pieces of software I own all currently allow installation on two computers. I move freely between desktop and laptop use, and sometimes just grab the laptop and head out, but still need access to demonstrate scores or make changes when I’m with musicians.
I’d like to see either a second licence included, or a significant discount on second (and other?) licences when bought for the same account.
Dorico shall use the Soft-eLicenser, which is a virtual license container on the hard disk. Further details are available at following link:
It will be possible to use the same Dorico license on several Digital Audio Workstations by moving Dorico’s license from Soft-eLicenser to USB-eLicenser.
A transfer back in the opposite direction - from USB-eLicenser to Soft-eLicenser - is not possible. Once the license is stored on an USB-eLicenser, the USB-eLicenser must be connected whenever you use the software.
Further details:
https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/how-to-transfer-a-license-from-soft-elicenser-to-usb-elicenser
I know; that’s why I’m lending my voice to the calls for either a second licence or discounts on further licences. If I transfer my licence to a USB licenser, it’s instantly much more vulnerable to loss or breakage, and I need to have it with me at all times. I’d just like Steinberg to make it easy to use the software on the move and at home, which a lot of musicians will need.
Steinberg,
The most obvious solution is to give people multiple licenses. I gave up on Cubase this year for several reasons. I bought a DAW that I felt was better for my film scoring needs. It came with 5 soft licenses. It’s brilliant.
If Steinberg simply did the same thing, but with the e-Licenser, then you’d at least have less complaints. I still wouldn’t like having things tethered to a USB stick. But the UX would still be far far better.
I’m keeping a close eye on Dorico. I flipped out when Daniel said early on that the focus was engraving and midi playback wouldn’t get attention until later. However, a video of our English friend surfaced on Youtube showed me otherwise. While I understand the desire to keep things hush hush, it actually hurt my view of Dorico in a large way up until the point where I saw the video. All I’m saying is that Dorico has already seen a rocky start… and it didn’t need to.
If you want this software to succeed, look at what other companies are doing right. Then do better. Every time I’ve ever argued UX with people who don’t get it, I often feel like I’m arguing with 5 year olds having a tantrum. The fact is, people buy what they enjoy using and if it serves their needs well. It really isn’t complicated. The only thing complicating it is when people feel so insecure about sales that they start chaining up their loyal users.
Who here enjoys dongles? Anyone?
Now, there are defenders who don’t mind, and some might even make a preposterous claim that they enjoy the dongle somehow or it gives them a sense of security. But just ask yourselves if anyone… anyone at all ENJOYS a ball and chain. Soon enough we’ll look back at the companies that tried to impose restraints on their users and we’ll say “yeah, that didn’t work for long did it?” Steinberg isn’t just making a decision that affects it in this moment. It’s making decisions which I believe affect its reputation. While I’m a Spitfire user I still own VSL products because their legato is always worth coming back to and dry samples are sometimes very useful. But if someone made an equally good product without the dongle, I’d switch just out of convenience alone. I respect the VSL folks a great deal. But it has to serve my purpose first, otherwise why buy it?
In short, my biggest factor in UX is whether I can use Dorico at all. A test drive will help me know that. But after that, the dongle is very relevant to that same factor. And for all those disagreeing, I’m sorry but you are absolutely wrong. There isn’t even a debate here. It may work for you… fine. But it’s obviously causing poor UX for many others. So whether you like it or not, our views are just as valid. And that fact alone is enough to say that the dongle was a bad move. Even then, I knew a couple guys in college using Cubase without a dongle on their laptops, which I assume meant that they hacked it. Where there’s a will, there is a way. So what’s the point in protecting a vault that has a backdoor?
On every account, this is such a worn issue. It’s time to break the shackles! If not, then I won’t promise this will deter me. I’ll at least give Dorico a fair chance based on what it does. But it does affect me. It does leave a taste in my mouth. And even if I jumped on board, the moment someone else fills enough of the same needs without a dongle, I’d jump on their train.
I hope this post is seen as respectful. I tend to not hold back, but not to offend as much as to make it very clear what my positions are.
Thank you,
-Sean
Yes, I’m absolute with you guys on this one. I have a Sibelius copy in my studio at Naval Base Simon’s Town and a copy at my home PC to continue my work at home in the evening. Sibelius’ new Application Manager takes care of tracking the seats.
I also have a copy of Sibelius on my laptop, so IF I go on tour with the band, I only have to de-activate one of my 2 PC’s copies, which releases a seat. Then I activate the copy on my laptop…thereby constantly having only 2 seats activated. This works GREAT for me!
Steinberg could do the SAME! Instead of the Application Manager, the iLoc does the same thing in principle. You can have copies of Dorico on 10 PC, for all I care, but only ONE (but hopefully 2) can be activated at any given time. But, IF Steinberg decides to allow for only ONE PC at a time, that should be OK with the iLoc. When you activate your PC at work, Steinberg then automatically de-activates the other PC…activating the PC you are working on at THAT given time. Once back at work, inserting the iLoc, de-activates the home PC…simple as THAT!
So, it’s not really HOW MANY COPIES of Dorico is installed…they are ALL in Demo mode until activated by an iLoc. The ONLY drawback, I see, is if one do not have an active internet connection in order for Steinberg Licensing Server to handle the activations (and de-activations)…unless you first de-activate you home copy and the ILOC stores that de-activated seat. Then your work’s copy detects that open seat and activates your work’s PC. Then no internet connection is required.
And, lastly, don’t think for one moment Dorico is cheap (the same counts for Finale and Sibelius). There ARE countries where Software purchases in insanely high due to their bad exchange rates. $299 might be nothing for someone, but for ME, it is R6000+ (EDU pricing) and more than R10 000 (normal pricing). So please don’t talk for me when you say “Aw! Just purchase a second license”! That’s high hopes. I’m not being rude here, but Dorico is currently NOT running at it’s planned optimum potential…which will take a few more years. I don’t see why we cannot pay again, in a few years, for a MAJOR upgrade again. Or…if Steinberg does bring forth fantastic new features, why not offer it to purchase…so, at first…now this year, we purchase a core functional software, and purchase major (not 1.xx) upgrades. Bug fixes should be free because that is programmers’ “errors”/solutions for THEIR code to fix. I pay only for operational code. 
Do you agree?
Hi FredGUnn,
Daniel has made it clear, quite often, the “I don’t see it in the first release”…and words to that effect. By that, I understand that we cannot expect that we are going to get a notator that is pleasing to us all. It will be a “birth” of a new notator…but it will grow in time, and I’m KNOW it’s going to kick @ss. I also code (mostly in Visual Basic…although I understand C++ reasonably OK), and I KNOW the IMMENSE effort that is going into a project like this. There are so many things to keep track of, debugging, testing all scenarios, driver integrations, midi message database, font creations, designing a staff with spacing algorithms and much…MUCH more.
I guess we are going to purchase Dorico out of support for Daniel and his team and the “faith” we have in them that they are going (in time) provide us with something GREAT! So…we should just be patient and “hope” they hear us. You know, I have been asking only for ONE feature for YEARS…and AVID NEVER gave it a second thought. I imagine that I was one of the FEW guys who actually paid the first year’s $89 for updates/upgrades, so I hoped (by showing “thanks)”, they would scan for what I requested in the past and see if they could, perhaps, include it in an update…high hopes, i guess…they gave me coloured notes! I have asked Daniel the same thing here as well (Finale’s scrubbing feature)…so I guess I will just have to wait and see. (What’s the big deal? Well, you hear a wrong note during playback. In Finale you hover your mouse pointer over a beat and Finale plays the entire verticle note stack of all the staves (30 in my case). NOW, by moving horizontally beat by beat in THAT offending bar, you quickly discover which beat the wrong note occurs and by moving the mouse pointer up and down, you can quickly find the offending note. But in Sibelius…I must start at the Picollo, and audition all the notes in that offending bar, starting at the first beat and move down each stave on the first beat. If the fault is not there, I go BACK to the Picollo and start the same process on the second beat…and so on until I find the wrong note. This can take quite a while. Now, MY ears are very good, so I can normally easily find the offending note, but my students can’t. Like I said before (and Finale users will agree with me), ALL my Finale to Sibelius converts asked me how to do this…and I answer “Sibelius can’t do it”. So, I am sure you will get your chords way before I get my request. )
I think we should let Daniel know our wants and needs…BUT we must also give them the breathing space to work at it. As you might imagine, Daniel is answering questions to the ENTIRE WORLD! Quite a big undertaking, while he must still do HIS own work.
Hang in there buddy, it will come…I’m sure. All notators can handle chords!
No I vehemently disagree! I (and many if not most others) will never use a hardware dongle on a laptop. Mine would be lost, stolen or broken within a week. This is last century thinking. Just give me at least 2 usable installs.
I have to agree with you on this at least. My first iLoc (containing 11 licenses) popped…I don’t know…got damaged, probably by inserting and pulling out every day. WHAT A MISSION it was to get a new iLoc. I had to send my broken iLoc to the USA (from South Africa), pay postage and pay the folks to restore my licenses on new iLock. These software companies must think we users own Wallstreet or something! So, after 5 weeks of my work standing still (while waiting for my iLoc to return (normal post because iLok company has a priority package/service…as well as a subscribable “emergency” package where they get you up and running while you wait for your iLoc to return…which is NOT cheap as well). Now, you don’t only pay for Software, but also for getting support on using THEIR software AND you pay even for your serial numbers!! Pay,Pay,Pay!! So I agree with you vintagevibe! Either perfect the iLoc idea or get an Application Manager.
So, yes, I think AVID at least did something right about their Application Manager. It keeps track of everything. It’s sort of the “Ministry of Sibelius” that handles licensing, updates, news and demos.
The loss, damage and theft of a USB-eLicenser are usually covered by Steinberg Zero Downtime (SZDT), a service included in MySteinberg.
If you have registered the USB-eLicenser in question with your MySteinberg account, you can request a SZDT backup license there.
For details please have a look here:
ZERO DOWNTIME! That is the word I was trying to remember. EWQLSO “Play PlugIn” also requires an iLok. When mine broke, I had the opportunity to purchase Zero Downtime in order to continue my work while a new iLok is sent to me from the USA.
I cannot BELIEVE it that, spending so much purchasing the software, that I MUST PAY to be able to continue my work…or I must shut down until my new iLok arrives. One should not PAY for support giving me backdoor serial keys which is downloaded onto my hard drive until my new iLoc arrives with my serials saved on it…which will enable for me to continue my work. WHY Pay for support to keep my software activated, which was paid for to work flaulessly, if THEIR security activation method fails…so now I must suffer!