What's your preferred copy protection scheme

[robewil]

Another thread contains a lot of opinions about how Newtek should place copy protection in SpeedEdit. Let's see if we can collate these opinions. I realize this is a bit late in the game but maybe we can change Newtek's policy at a later time.

[nevmoor]

Have you guys looked at what Avid/Digidesign did with the iLok folks?
It is a dongle, but they allow you to have an online "backup" that will allow you to work while you get another one.

[ted]

PLEASE no dongles! I have enough stuff I gotta carry in my laptop case! :D

[Matt]

Retina scan link direct to NewTek everytime you want to run it!

;)

Seriously though, my thoughts are:

First, you can never beat the pirates (maybe short term until some cracking group decides your software is "worthy" of a challenge) - if it has been made by man, it can be un-done by man.

Second, dongles can fail at the wrong time, I unplug mine everyday as I take it into work and back home again, all that action is surely asking for disaster.

I've only had ONE moment when FPrime didn't recognise my dongle, which scared the crap out of me, as it was the early hours before the render deadline! Fortunately a restart seemed to sort it out that time, I wonder how far away the day will be when it isn't.

Third, internet connections can go down anytime and if you've ever tried to reach your service provider's tech support when it has, you'll know how long it can be before a) you get through b) they tell you what's up and when it will be back online!

So, make it a simple one time serial registration (with 30 day demo mode if you aren't / can't get online).

This is all brought about my fear of being without LightWave if my dongle dies!

Matt

[Slapdash]

I think Matt's got it. Dongles are dead.

I voted network, but would expect internet verification if I wanted to change up between laptop and primary machine.

I'd guess at this time the best method will be waiting to hear how good the lightwave deal is. ;)

[robewil]

Matt,

You mention that you move your dongle from your office to your home. Isn't that the big advantage of going with the dongle? A registration requires you to use the software on the machine that you installed it.

[kleima]

I am very against any intermittant internet verification! I might agree to internet verification for switching to a different computer IF it is user initiated.
I don't need switching myself (unless I upgrade to a different computer - in which case it is nice if one can get up and running at 2am on the weekend without calling tech support), because I will have my free copy of SE on the laptop and VT[5] on the workstation.

[ScorpioProd]

As for me, my main edit machine has no plans to be networked.

[rbartlett]

Monitored single computer registration with a self-service swap would work for me.

One step better would be to monitor (reg/act frequency and stats-collecting-call-homes) what had been activated but to permit multiple activations. Depending on your perspective it can look like the first choice, but equally it can look like the last smiley face option of the user promise.

Even dongles need an activation process these days. So the physical dongle becomes somewhat redundant when you have a purchasing key/code anyway.

I'd suggest that folks buy a copy for the machine they expect it to be the most benefit to have it on and then review the situation after a period of productivity. If it'll pay to have an extra seat - perhaps for the rendering benefits - then go for that. If you just need it activated on more than one "seat" but with a concurrency of one - then request a new activation. With the latter - you'll be glad to not have the physical dongle. Also with the latter you might have a job if you wish to apply patches to more than one installed copy.

What is the worse thing that could happen? You buy a copy in the next short while and then have to wait 'til Dec2007 to use up your next year's tax-deduction budget. ;)

Perhaps we ought to be thinking about how to budget for XP64 or Vista on a big fat 32GB PC with the latest CPUs to really make our one and only copies of SE smoke along to help make us rich!

[rbartlett]

As for me, my main edit machine has no plans to be networked.


Yeah, the network option doesn't make any sense for the sole trader. For a team or educational campus it would, but for the desktop/s + laptop NLE consumer - the term network becomes redundant.

Running a license service (bound to 127.0.0.1 for the unconnected PC) is no different functionally to what SE would be doing for itself today. You'd need another license server on the laptop. License servers would probably be $1000 a pop!

Everything makes perfect sense if you have VT[x] and have paid for an early upgrade to VT[5] with a free seat of SE thrown in. It works also if you were late and would add SE to your VT[x+n].

The chosen scheme needs to be at least as embracing to the clients' and manufacturer's needs as the nearest competition. You can't please everybody - I'd imagine that is why NewTek chose $495 to go with it. If you can only afford one, you only need one - maybe a reasonable assumption? I'm wanting to push the positives of this deal. Believe me, $495 is a major investment for my pocket.

[robewil]

Even dongles need an activation process these days. So the physical dongle becomes somewhat redundant when you have a purchasing key/code anyway.In the case of Lightwave, the activation creates a license key file that is tied to your dongle. This license key file can be placed on any machine you want to run the software on. But it's not enough, you still need the dongle. This arrangement works very well for me. My Lightwave dongle, that I got in 1996, has been plugged into many machines over the years. I carry it in my briefcase all the time. Nothing has ever happened to it.

[Lightwolf]

I voted for the dongle (of course) since it is the least hassle.
No honestly, if you can't take care of a tiny dongle, don't carry a laptopt with you ;)

I wouldn't even mind having the LW special deal tied to the same dongle...

Cheers,
Mike

[Dodgy]

Yeah, tie it to my LW dongle if you have to :) Just don't tie me to a single machine :)

[Jim_C]

Dongle all the way. By far the most sensible.

here are my anti-anti-pro-dongle arguments.

"It will break" - ALL things break, Software crashes, hard drives fail, PSU's go poof. If we were anti-those things because 'they break'. We would be anti-everything. Out of all the hardware I have owned my various dongles have been the MOST reliable.

"I will lose it" - Well be responsible and don't. Put it on your keychain. You're not going many places without those.

"Software registration is better" - That requires you to buy a copy of SE to put on every machine you might edit on. What if Lightwave required you to do that?

anyway.. bla bla bla

Happy Ho Ho Ho

Jim

[cholo]

How about NewTek's current plan + if you feel you need dongle versatility you pay the extra premium and buy a dongle "upgrade". That way, those who don't need the dongle can skip the extra $$$ the dongle hardware would cost.

[Rich Deustachio]

What about single install per copy except you can buy additional copies for a discounted price, but registered to the same user only. Don't know how difficult this would be for NewTek to track.

[kleima]

That's a good idea Cholo!

[Captain Obvious]

Just do it like Luxology do it: Download a key code from their website, and it's registered. Once the file's downloaded, no internet access is required. The application can be installed on any number of computers at the same time. No real limits. Makes it a piece of cake to pirate, sure, but seeing how easy even things like Maya or Lightwave are to pirate despite their hefty protection, I don't quite see the point.

It's not like piracy can be stopped by technical barriers and such, so why even bother trying? Sure, one valid point is to defeat "lazy piracy" (ie, companies using the same license twice because it's too much of a hassle to buy another copy), but if the idea is to prevent internet filesharing piracy, you really shouldn't bother. You're not going to succeed anyway.

[Speedmonk42]

No honestly, if you can't take care of a tiny dongle, don't carry a laptopt with you
--------------

Yeah well if someone kicks there way through two security doors into the office where you happen to have your laptop, in a building that is not yours, and you can't get a @#$*&$%# ing police report cause you don't own the building well....

It makes buying the LW9 Upgrade and never using it really suck.

Hopefully by Febuary I will have enough money to buy a new copy of LW.

[Speedmonk42]

It is pretty hard to imagine anyone being away from email for any length of time.

Why not a verification system via email combined with some kind of periodic web check in?

If some &^% goes to all the trouble of breaking ANY copy protection, are they even customers in the first place?

[Rmarq]

I like adobes process. Register online and you are granted one license for your main computer and are permitted to have another copy on a laptop as long as the two aren't running at once (not that they know).
If you try and register the number again you get a message saying you have reached your allotment.

[Lightwolf]

I like adobes process. Register online and you are granted one license for your main computer and are permitted to have another copy on a laptop as long as the two aren't running at once (not that they know).
If you try and register the number again you get a message saying you have reached your allotment.
Having just dealt with that, and having lost my second license due to an OS crash + having been going through Adobe phone support... No way.
Actually, this is a reason for me not to buy Adobe software if there is an alternative out there (which currently means: we'll get PS upgrades and that's it).

One of my main points: It is not transparent, there is no license file you can shove around nor is there a customer portal to view current licenses and their use.

Cheers,
Mike

[rbartlett]

I like adobes process. Register online and you are granted one license for your main computer and are permitted to have another copy on a laptop as long as the two aren't running at once (not that they know).
If you try and register the number again you get a message saying you have reached your allotment.


I like the "main computer + [as many as you like - but we are watching you bucko]" policy. The "watching-you policemen" would need 10's of thousands of copies sold to justify their wages (if that is all they do when they come to work). However this is something that could be entered into later in the rollout of SE and folks wouldn't actually know when it had kicked in. Caveat emptor etc.

NewTek have said that porting to a new or replaced computer would be possible. They've not stated that if they spotted your old computer running SE up as to whether:

1. They'd send you an invoice / court-invite
2. You'd lose access to updates/mediapacks up until the point that your dual(+) usage had been settled.
3. Your forum and "My Account" identity would state "Cad and Bounder"
4. They'd hope that you enjoyed the use of two copies on one license and pray quite hard that you'd come to your senses and buy another copy ASAP. Sending in an order to deliver fresh coffee and krispy-kremes to San Antonio for good measure (I've heard they can make their own bourgois coffee on the premises).


I may be in cloud-cookoo-land but my feeling is the 98% of NewTek customers would be honorable enough to pay for what they use. If NewTek wants $500 per installation - all this 98% would pay for what they have installed. Perhaps not doing this all in one order if their business is growing at a steady pace.

It seems wise that folks understand what the LW deal is going to be and whether this opens things up. This might even suit folks that don't have a copy of LW or that don't have a copy of LW that isn't tied to their VT-card. We'll not know until more gets explained.

Oh, to work for a company where your software is so good that folks want more than one installed copy of it! (OK for the price of one, but the demand is still very impressive!)

[bbeanan]

Personally I have never had a problem with Adobe. I have a Alienware laptop which I have had to re-install everything about 8 times and every time I had to call Adobe and had no problem with them giving me a new activation card.

Having just dealt with that, and having lost my second license due to an OS crash + having been going through Adobe phone support... No way.
Actually, this is a reason for me not to buy Adobe software if there is an alternative out there (which currently means: we'll get PS upgrades and that's it).

One of my main points: It is not transparent, there is no license file you can shove around nor is there a customer portal to view current licenses and their use.

Cheers,
Mike

[Lightwolf]

Personally I have never had a problem with Adobe. I have a Alienware laptop which I have had to re-install everything about 8 times and every time I had to call Adobe and had no problem with them giving me a new activation card.
Which country? U.S.?
They do have offices here as well... but it took them an hour or so on the phone to actually send the first batch of keys... which still aren't complete (for a complete Video Prod. Suite or whatever it is called...) Not only that, but you have to license/activate each app separately as well....
Actually, the best phone support I've had so far was from Microsoft... they are grand.
I just see computers crashing (badly) more often than I see dongles break (i.e.: plenty vs. 0 in the past 10 years of running our studio).

Cheers,
Mike

[cholo]

Lightwolf...

Two words. Norton Ghost. :)

[shrox]

..."I will lose it" - Well be responsible and don't. Put it on your keychain. You're not going many places without those...

Ow! I was running and I fell on my dongle!

[Jim Capillo]

My vote goes to dongle.....

[Lightwolf]

Lightwolf...

Two words. Norton Ghost. :)
Norton? Over my dead body (unless I go back to running DOS, but then I'd rather switch back to the Amiga ;) ).
And it doesn't really help if the install is corrupt anyhow, does it?

Cheers,
Mike

[lwaddict]

Well...
for what it's worth, and I can't be the only one...
the current security scheme is keeping me from so much as playing with SpeedEdit until the weekend.

Only installed on my system at home...
with no dongle so I could bring it with me wherever I go...
there it sits collecting dust.

Here's hoping that the Lightwave owner deal offers dongle based security. Heck, I'll pay for that.

[bobakabob]

The Luxology registration process sounds like the best route. Modo users appear happy with a dongle free program.

[Matt]

Having just dealt with that, and having lost my second license due to an OS crash + having been going through Adobe phone support... No way.

I had to go through that too Mike, my bosses Mac was acting up, so after trying many things, we decided to sod it and re-format the drive, but I forgot to de-authorise CS2 first, then had to wrangle it out with Adobe over the phone!

What a pain in the *****, it would have been easier to find a keygen online than go through the LEGIT way of doing things!!!!!

[Lightwolf]

What a pain in the *****, it would have been easier to find a keygen online than go through the LEGIT way of doing things!!!!!
There was a survey in a magazine here a couple of months ago (amongst It-professionals and developers, mind you).
Most of the people surveyed that have bought software with this kind of activation scheme actually prefer to run a cracked version, even though they did actually pay for the software.
So it is not a question of wanting (to pay) - but wanting as little hassle as possible. Now for me that is the dongle, but ymmv as can be seen in this discussion.

Mind you, on the other hand I do see the point of protecting software, since even 49US$ plugins get cracked quickly (yeah - personal experience here... :cursin: ).

Cheers,
Mike

[bobakabob]

There was a survey in a magazine here a couple of months ago (amongst It-professionals and developers, mind you).
Most of the people surveyed that have bought software with this kind of activation scheme actually prefer to run a cracked version, even though they did actually pay for the software.
So it is not a question of wanting (to pay) - but wanting as little hassle as possible. Now for me that is the dongle, but ymmv as can be seen in this discussion.

Mind you, on the other hand I do see the point of protecting software, since even 49US$ plugins get cracked quickly (yeah - personal experience here... :cursin: ).

Cheers,
Mike

Of course copyright protection is vital from the company's perspective. But look at the number of posts the Newtek forum receives from annoyed users concerning dongle issues. There must be a better way.

[Lightwolf]

Of course copyright protection is vital from the company's perspective. But look at the number of posts the Newtek forum receives from annoyed users concerning dongle issues. There must be a better way.
Well, they screwed up with the red dongles, but they could have screwed up with coding any registration system, so those don't really count.
There are also a lot concerning Linux/Wine and the dongle.
If you compare the remaining ones with the ones concerning the SE activation scheme then it doesn't look to bad for the dongle any more.
Admtted, I'd love to see a multi-dongle where you can store numerous licenses for a variety of apps. These exist on the market but are unfortunately not in widespread use.

Cheers,
Mike

[Dodgy]

Yeah, I've just switched to a USB dongle for DFX+, but it would be handy if I could have used my LW one (though if I wanted to sell dfx+, separation would have been handy of course)

[rbartlett]

SpeedEDIT has, (see earlier and other threads) been declared as being a license that is within reason portable. It isn't a concurrency=1 product. The information on what your de-registration/re-registration requirements are don't get pushed at you at the point of installation - so it isn't overtly a transferrable license.

The rule remains, to paraphrase what I've surmised, that a single license is only ever on one machine for the duration of the arrangement. It is anticipated that the duration and the behavior of the custodian is acceptable when it runs for months at a time rather than days or hours. If you make a mistake and install SE on a machine that meets the minimum installation requirements (XP, SSE) but subsequently doesn't work out for you because you realise you must make new plans (especially valid for anything less than the latest gen of laptop) - then you can get this license off the less than stellar machine ASAP.

This way NewTek don't have to monitor our activation habits at any great depth and we can get on and order the number of SE seats for the number of machines we might want to use the application on. The price is set accordingly and it isn't as if NewTek are being inflexible. It could be taken that SE uses a software-dongle, but it isn't overtly portable.

The trial version may come in handy if the issue is with regard to showing folks what it can do or performing some aspects of your work that a trial version would be capable of doing at a clients' site. When/if that becomes a full version - downloadable we'll probably see all the same names complaining about not being able to re-install it after the trial period expires!

If you really need a hardware dongle version - you could find yourself a VT card on ebay and wait for the VT[5] to be released. That might not be very long to wait and you might get a deal. I'd expect a good number of folks with VT cards will be updating their outfits to VTPro with the confidence that SE brings. Gouge a hole in the mass of pages in the centre of a large hard back book and line it with a ESD foil bag, tag a clasp onto it, fix a small phillips screwdriver into the spine - then you'll have a portable SpeedEDIT-VT !