Please stop using iLok

[Ragism]

Hello, Eventide team,

I would love to buy Split EQ. I was able to try it a bit at my friend’s studio, and he gave me a quick rundown of what it can do.

When I googled, I found out you are using the iLok “security” for your plugins. This is an instant “There is no way I am ever going through that sh*t again” for me.

For a while, I bought plugins with iLok, then immediately pirated them to save me all the trouble and money. Yes, it was technically illegal, but at least I felt I supported the developers and had a useable, easily installable, offline plugin.

I would really like know know what the thought processs behind this decision is. We all know it doesn’t protect your plugins. After a few days or weeks, they are available on all the piracy websites, with or without iLok. So it mainly punishes your customers. As you can see, many are having trouble with your plugins. And I am definitely not the only potential customer for whom this is a no-go.

I don’t want to stay connected to the internet on my main music production PC. The risk is too high for me. It is only online for a short time when I have to activate a license, so I can use a VST offline. I am also definitely not paying a ridiculous amount of cash for a tiny USB dongle I could lose easier than a hard drive. And of course I won’t pay 30€ a year just to use plugins I have already bought.

Yes, you might say I am cheap. But I say: This definitely punishes your paying customers. As far as I see, there are absolutely no benefits for your company or your customers. Only drawbacks.

I would love to be your customer, and would appreciate a response. I am sorry if this has already been asked. So why did you decide to use iLok? What am I missing here? Why do the honest people have to feel pestered to be able to enjoy your products?

Best regards,

Raphael

[tbskoglund]

Hello,

You can create a free iLok account to use our plug-ins, there is no annual fee. An internet connections or physical dongle is not required to run our plug-ins, you can connect to the internet activate the license to your computer and then you can use the license offline.

[Puppeteer]

Most iLok plugins allow you to directly put the license on your machine, so you don’t need a physical iLok or an internet connection to use it.  You have the choice to use an iLok, iLok cloud (which requires an internet connection), machine authorization and even network authorizations. iLok is a much more mature copy protection model than what it was with generation 1 iLok’s.

As a software developer, I use iLok because there is a requirement for copy protection. Unfortunately the majority of people won’t pay for a product if given a choice. iLok provide a pretty good product which means I don’t need to develop my own encryption methods and run my own challenge and response server to manage activations.

If you lose an iLok or your computer dies and you can’t recover your licenses, you can contact your software developers who can cancel your old license and issue a new one.  It’s fairly easy for developers to do this. If uptime is critical, you can use Zero Down Time. Overall it is a very flexible copy protections scheme, and while I’d prefer to not need one, this to me is the best of the options, given that something is required.

[Ragism]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hello,</p>
Thank you for the replies!

I stand corrected, and am sorry for my tone. I thought a one-time activation was not an option. I just read how some users here have problems, and got confused when I was saw many modern plugins requiring a dongle or a constant internet connection. I am going to buy Split:EQ, then.

I still don’t think it is a good idea to require iLok, but can see that license management seems to be a lot easier for developers!

Once again, thanks for the quick replies and the info!

[tbskoglund]

You’re welcome, happy to help! You can try downloading a free 30 day trial of SplitEQ and that will essentially show you the process of creating an iLok account and activating the license. When you purchase the full license, you’ll just need to activate that and you can continue to use SplitEQ. If you have any issues with the licensing you can email support@eventide.com and we will get you sorted there.

[ejf2161]

Yeah, but what happens if my macbook hardrive dies after activating to the hard drive. Thousands of dollars can go poof! And, maybe there is an extra activation, but then there is the stress of what if it happens again. And, you can’t insure ilok activations to a hard drive. Only dongles. And, then you have to pay $30 a year for insurance. It’s all a bit crazy considering I have zero stress with my non-ilok plugins. Also, anything ilok requires a $25 fee to transfer. Also, very annoying.

Do you offer cloud activations? That’s probably the safest bet from hard drive or USB storage failure. So many ilok plugins don’t allow that option and that’s just terrible.

[tbskoglund]

Yes, we offer machine activation resets. It is very fast and simple; you can either request the reset yourself using the iLok License Manager application, or you can email support@eventide.com and provide your iLok information.

[ejf2161]

Oh wow. Thanks! 🙂 That solves a huge problem.

[Author]

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