Very sadly I will never purchase Dorico

You know something, What I don’t understand about Steinberg is that it seems to me they are missing out on an opportunity to maximize the income from their user base!!! Most people are NOT going to pay full price for a second license, just so they can carry Steinberg products on their 2nd computer ( a laptop for example ) . But I imagine a substantial amount of users MIGHT consider paying extra for a reduced price on some sort of secondary or extended license that would allow them to use a second computer without having to carry the stupid dongle around!!! I for one am just too paranoid of losing the damn thing! I don’t have a laptop at this point, but I split my time between two locations, one with my PC and one with my Mac. I want to be able to use both PC’s without carrying around that dongle!!! Every other music software product I own allows for this! (Ableton, Native Instrument, Reason are 3 for example. ) … I think I would consider paying a little extra for the privilege ! It’s weird that Steinberg is so slow moving on this point! It could mean some extra income if they were just a little more creative and flexible!

The other thing in my case is that sometimes I just want to use some of my Steinberg VST products (I have the Grand3, Padshop Pro and GA4) which I sometimes like to use with my other DAW’s. So I find it frusterating when II am on one of my computers and I don’t happen to have the USB key because I left it at my house! Arrrggggh!

That occurred to me also while (re)reading this thread. I have willingly paid for multi-computer licenses. Admittedly, that has been for software I use simultaneously on multiple PCs (like antivirus software), but I would pay for the ability to run Dorico on multiple devices. I would not buy multiple full-price licenses, but a 2nd at half price - maybe.

Alternatively, I would pay a little to be able to move the registration - deactivate it on one computer and activate it on another. (And if that required a dongle to aid in the transfer, I could cope as long as the dongle was no longer needed after the transfer was complete.) I got the impression that that possibility had been ruled out by Steinberg, but it might have misread.

You can place your dongle in a secure place if you are using a print-server (USB over Ethernet).

Stick the dongles into the USB over ethernet hub and connect from everywhere to that dongle if latency is short enough. For inhouse it should work. Over internet latency will be too long. You connect through a driver to the little USB-case and get rid of mechanical damage to your USB-dongles.

One dongle can only be accessed by one PC at one time, but you can switch.

Seriously, f**k dongles.User-hostile outdated technology. The technology industry is (finally) moving toward serving the customer - Steinberg needs to suss this out quickly. The usage case of a notation program is so different to a DAW like Cubase (my main DAW, which I love), although the USB port is definitely on the endangered list, so they should be thinking hard about this. I’ve just fired up my laptop as I had a few spare hours killing time in between meetings, thought I’d give Dorico a whirl, and…

…Boom! Game over, no dongle. I have enough things to remember in my life, how presumptious is it of you to add to my cognitive workload? As for all this nonsense about sticky tape and hubs? Seriously? No. Just no. Your software should be helping me with my work, not making me place your copy-protection at the centre of my mind. I don’t always plan my day, I just need my scoring tool in the same way I need my word-processor. Can you imagine if MS Word asked you to carry round a dongle!!!

It’s a non-starter for me unti this issue is resolved. Everything else I could handle (the new program learning curve etc) but this is a terrible decision which (at this point) still shows no signs of being changed.

Btw, buy a second license? Again, just No. I’m a 10+ year user of Sibelius, a mature programme which (despite its many flaws) enables two permanently available copies, one on my desktop, one on my laptop. 90% of the composers I work with feel pretty much the same as me. Why would I switch from one program which I know really well, to one which I don’t know so well, and also makes me carry round a fragile, losable, forgettable, drop-in-the-toiletable bit of plastic?

My annoyance about this comes from the fact that everything I’ve seen from Dorico so far looks great.

I know the Dorico team have to try to get this through the heads of the mothership at Steinberg (arrogant, out of touch and almost entirely disengaged with their user-base from years and years of having Cubase as my main DAW ), but they need to keep banging the drum, harder and louder. I’m currently recommending that nobody touches this software with a barge-pole until their copy-protection policy changes, which is such a shame - I’ve got genuine affection (not to mention huge amounts of respect) for the Dorico development team. That won’t happen without user-pressure, so consider this my user-pressure.

TL:DR version? - I dislike dongles more than I dislike Phil Collins. And I really, really dislike Phil Collins…

My God, it is such a difficult thing to plug in a USB device! (Obvious sarcasm!) I say get on with life. It can be an enjoyable ride if you let it!

Oh goodness me, this again.

Hey, I don’t like dongles either, but I noticed a few things this morning:

  1. I have a house
  2. Both my boys are healthy
  3. Christmas is around the corner
  4. I use Dorico very day
  5. EVERY DAY!
  6. Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen

So you’re ticked over that one thing; I can understand to a degree, but you’re missing one hell of a party here.

Presumably Steinberg has the experience to know that a hardware protection device like this (the size of a key on a keyring and smaller than a handkerchief: so extremely easy to accommodate with all the other things we carry around with is day in day out - and surely less than 100th the size of a laptop) prevents software theft.

Which in turn presumably keeps prices where they are.

If the potential for higher prices outweighs the many advantages of Dorico, I am surprised at the OP’s priorities and find them - with respect - hard to agree with.

To your point (and others) - what if Steinberg provided two price-point options?

  • For those (like me) who don’t mind the eLicenser dongle, the prices continue as-is and we continue to use the dongle.
  • For those who absolutely do not want to use a dongle, there would be a higher-price-point option which would allow for no-hardware activation and transfer between systems. The elevated price would offset the cost of anti-piracy measures needed to offer the option.

I view the use of the USB Dongle as an incredible thing that allows total freedom. I can use Dorico on whatever computer I am in front of, laptop, work machine #1, work machine #2, desktop computer at home, etc. I view the use of the software on only 2 machines (without the dongle) as a restriction!

Provided it were (still) not possible to copy/clone the s/w and use it illicitly :slight_smile:

I too am a long-time Sibelius user (actually on and off since the 1980s with the Finns on Acorn); and am still very aware of its many strengths (features, plug-ins, huge user community); and weaknesses (App Manager, support, robustness): it appears as though there is a lot of scope for Avid to change with its many loyal customers’ needs…

Dorico is a game-changer, though, and sets new standards. It’s the future. So I’d be sorry to see anyone turn away from it because the protection system is not 100% convenient for them.

This is already offered for free. You can already transfer the software version of the license to another computer by just reactivating the license using your MySteinberg.

The USB-eLicenser dongle just makes this easier, and doesn’t require an internet connection.

That’s almost the full picture. The challenge is that the user cannot reactivate the soft-eLicense on various computers at-will; after a certain number of reactivations, it requires getting in touch with Steinberg tech support when that’s needed. (I just went through this issue with a colleague of mine.) So it’s not like the iLok scenario, where the user is free to transfer licenses back and forth as needed. (At least, that’s been my experience.) With soft-eLicenser, if you’re in a hurry and run out of activations, you’re in trouble because you have to wait for Steinberg to unlock activation. With iLok, you’re free to maneuver licenses back and forth at will, per the licensed software’s restrictions on location.

And the Steinberg eLicenser software/hardware licenses are not interchangeable repeatedly. Once a license is transferred to USB-eLicenser for portability, it cannot be transferred back to soft-eLicenser.

From https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/206626710:

A license transfer into the opposite direction - from USB-eLicenser to Soft-eLicenser - is not possible. As soon as a license has been transferred to a USB-eLicenser, there is no way back onto the hard disk. That means the USB-eLicenser holding the transferred license has to be connected when running the corresponding program.

Sadly, the copy of Dorico I bought now sits unused because of its antiquated copy-protection scheme; I have returned to the ethically-challenged Sibelius and paid for updates to 8.5. Every so often I return to the Dorico forum to see if there’s movement on changing to a modern form of copy protection, leave a post like this urging the developers to consider it, and then sign off for another four months. I won’t re-post my arguments why carrying a physical USB stick that can be damaged has hurt me in the past, or why I need my software to work on both my travel laptop and work desktop - if the developers care I posted it here: “software protection/registration/license - Dorico - Steinberg Forums”. I honestly don’t care if non-developers agree with me or not; only the developers can fix this problem. Now, back to making music with a system whose copy protection works from my standpoint, even if it is technically a far less elegant solution than Dorico.

I’m another person who has been very excited about Dorico for years (since Daniel first started talking about it) and still hasn’t bought it because of the licensing system. I say this not so much to complain (OK, maybe a little), but more so Steinberg folks are aware that there are people like me out there.