I'm an idiot and lost my iLok. What are my options?

[Tims96]

I think I left my iLok on my flight back to LA, and have a deadline for a project this week. Can anyone recommend the quickest way to get back up and running? I'd also be interested in the cheapest, which will probably take much longer but I may be able to borrow a rig in the meantime.

I've seen the Zero Downtime service, but can't figure out if it will work AFTER I've already lost the iLok, or if there's some sort of authorization that would have been done while I still had it.

Any advice would be very appreciated.

(I'm aware that this is a Pro-Tools only problem. I never thought twice about the whole iLok system until today, when I realized how incredibly frustrating it is to lose a $50 dongle and have your software become completely unusable. GAH!)

[Nick Sevilla]

I think I left my iLok on my flight back to LA, and have a deadline for a project this week. Can anyone recommend the quickest way to get back up and running? I'd also be interested in the cheapest, which will probably take much longer but I may be able to borrow a rig in the meantime.

I've seen the Zero Downtime service, but can't figure out if it will work AFTER I've already lost the iLok, or if there's some sort of authorization that would have been done while I still had it.

Any advice would be very appreciated.

(I'm aware that this is a Pro-Tools only problem. I never thought twice about the whole iLok system until today, when I realized how incredibly frustrating it is to lose a $50 dongle and have your software become completely unusable. GAH!)

Hi,

I have three iLoks. All insured with their yearly 30 insurance.

Insurance, as far as I can tell, only works when you buy it. not after.

However, you can always contact iLok and see if they will help you.

And, if you have ANY Waves plugins, they will help you anyways. No other company will though, as Waves is one of the very few who chose NOT to be included in their insurance thing, they have their own situation. Call them.

As to the ProTools licence, call them and find out if they will give you another temporary licence.

Do you have a spare iLok? You will need one now... to get any replacement licences.

I feel for you.

Now, please next iLok, register AND insure it. 30 bucks a year is nothing compared with the situation you are now in.

Cheers

[Tims96]

Thanks so much. I peeled out to Guitar Center to get an extra iLok last night, but when I discovered that in order to get my licenses immediately I'd need to pay a $100 "expediency fee" in addition to the Zero Downtime fee, I decided to just suck it up and try and finish this on another rig.

Good idea contacting Avid. I'd try that except I'm so pressed for time and I'm worried about not getting a reply quickly.

I realize this is no one's fault but my own and that this could have been prevented by me taking better care of my stuff, but I find it a bit shameful that just to get a set of temporary licenses to get back up and running, I would need to pay $170 (new iLok + ZDT fee + "expediency fee").

Oh well, it is what it is. Thanks again for the quick reply. I'm definitely getting the insurance from now on. Hopefully my old one turns up and I have a spare!

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi,

It's good to read that you got it resolved.

Yes, please get the insurance.

With respect, I do not understand your complaint about having to pay 170 to correct your mistake.

Look at this the following way : if you cannot complete your work, how much money would you be out?

Cheers

[kslight]

That seems a tad ridiculous don't you think? I mean I could lock myself out of my house and both cars for cheaper than that, and be back to normal in two hours or less. I personally haven't had any ilok issues but I'd be a little perturbed if I had to go through the same hassle for plugins I've already paid for. Sad fact is that the ilok does more to inconvenience the user than to circumvent piracy.

[tateeskew]

stories like this is why i will never use anything that requires iLok. i barely use any software that isn't open source. the stuff i do use that isn't open source i have access to the developers.

what a huge pain in the ass. people need to just stop buying stuff that requires a dongle/iLok and that attitude of treating you like a second rate customer would stop.

[kingmetal]

Are they really providing you with new permanent licenses? That's good if it's true, since PACE claims they will not provide permanent licenses for lost or stolen iLoks.

And while I'm not a proponent of the iLok system, since it is an offline authorization system that is designed to "just work" in any studio that has the PACE infrastructure in place there isn't really a way to do a proper de-auth of a device so you could theoretically just report iLoks stolen left and right and dupe your licenses. It's important to note that the expediency fee is only applicable in a case like the OPs since it waives the 7-day 'cooling off' period that is imitated when you first sign up for ZDT. The fact that you can get ZDT after the damage is done is pretty cool, it's not like your car insurance will do that.

The best license systems I've seen so far are Ableton's and Native Instruments -- they seem to do a reasonably good job of stopping piracy without getting in my way and without me carrying around additional hardware. Yes it would be better to have no protection at all for the consumer, but lets face it: people will steal software if given the chance.

[Nick Sevilla]

[SNIP]
The best license systems I've seen so far are Ableton's and Native Instruments -- they seem to do a reasonably good job of stopping piracy without getting in my way and without me carrying around additional hardware. Yes it would be better to have no protection at all for the consumer, but lets face it: people will steal software if given the chance.

Hi,

The last time I saw the NI stuff, their protection consisted of having to insert their install CD into the computer every three months.

THAT is a complete PITFA.

What protection are they using now?

Oh, and they , NI, as far as I can remember from my assistants, were easily available hacked. Are the new versions harder to hack?

Cheers

[kingmetal]

[SNIP]
The best license systems I've seen so far are Ableton's and Native Instruments -- they seem to do a reasonably good job of stopping piracy without getting in my way and without me carrying around additional hardware. Yes it would be better to have no protection at all for the consumer, but lets face it: people will steal software if given the chance.

Hi,

The last time I saw the NI stuff, their protection consisted of having to insert their install CD into the computer every three months.

THAT is a complete PITFA.

What protection are they using now?

Oh, and they , NI, as far as I can remember from my assistants, were easily available hacked. Are the new versions harder to hack?

Cheers

Native Instruments uses a unified 'Service Center' application to license all their applications / plugins. It's a single activation and then the app works offline without any need to re-activate unless it is re-installed. The Service Center also handles application updates and even upgrades in some cases.

Not sure if it's easy to crack. I imagine someone found their way around it, the scene is very crafty and software is easy to circumvent. I remember back in my more nefarious days that H2O, one of the big audio software crack groups, claimed that writing the crack for Cubase 3 was so hard that they weren't going to bother doing it for 4. No idea if that is the case still, but it was pretty insane that they wrote an entire virtual USB dongle driver at the time. Hardware is tough.

I just buy stuff now. Easier to deal with, supports the industry, no federal agents to talk to and paying money for tools means I'm sure I need something before I buy it. In my piracy days I had every plugin imaginable and no idea what to use when.

[niccolo gallio]

I remember back in my more nefarious days that H2O, one of the big audio software crack groups, claimed that writing the crack for Cubase 3 was so hard that they weren't going to bother doing it for 4. No idea if that is the case still, but it was pretty insane that they wrote an entire virtual USB dongle driver at the time. Hardware is tough.

I just buy stuff now. Easier to deal with, supports the industry, no federal agents to talk to and paying money for tools means I'm sure I need something before I buy it. In my piracy days I had every plugin imaginable and no idea what to use when.

F'ing honest, man..

[Tims96]

With respect, I do not understand your complaint about having to pay 170 to correct your mistake.

Look at this the following way : if you cannot complete your work, how much money would you be out?

Cheers

Well, I just think the cost associated with getting my licenses back is not proportional to the ease with which one can lose an iLok.

This is getting slightly off-topic since my initial problem is resolved (finished the project at another studio, got a new iLok and will transfer licenses, no fees paid), but I just don't see why they even need to charge to get your licenses back. I mean, I paid for the software and the dongle, right? I understand that their a company and need to do whatever they can to make money, so they charge a fee for insurance, but it just seems excessive to me.

This doesn't change anything about me screwing up bigtime, of course. I have no idea where that thing ended up.

Thanks again for the help.

[jhharvest]

Yes it would be better to have no protection at all for the consumer, but lets face it: people will steal software if given the chance.

As long as there are cracked versions of the software existing, any copy protection measures will only server to frustrate the customer who bought it legally instead of downloaded a cracked copy.

It's the same as those "You wouldn't steal a car" ads at the start of store-bought DVDs. I already bought the damn thing, now just let me watch it FFS. Microsoft's Darknet paper had this whole thing bang on ten years ago. I don't understand why no-one learned from that.

[kingmetal]

Yes it would be better to have no protection at all for the consumer, but lets face it: people will steal software if given the chance.

As long as there are cracked versions of the software existing, any copy protection measures will only server to frustrate the customer who bought it legally instead of downloaded a cracked copy.

It's the same as those "You wouldn't steal a car" ads at the start of store-bought DVDs. I already bought the damn thing, now just let me watch it FFS. Microsoft's Darknet paper had this whole thing bang on ten years ago. I don't understand why no-one learned from that.

I've heard this reason cited a million times over the years and in my personal experience, I stopped pirating software primarily because copy protection bypasses became more inconvenient and less reliable and I started making enough money to actually afford the software I wanted to use. If software cracks were as easy and reliable as they were back in the old days, I'd probably be running a hundred cracked plugins and would have really nice hardware at my disposal -- but technology like the Steinberg Key (can't remember the underlying technology), iLoks (PACE) and other copy protection methods made cracking audio software unstable at best, if not outright impossible in some cases. This drove me to go legit, as it did for a lot of my peers, and I'm glad I did. I never made any money off cracked software, I just used it to learn, but I still think of it as 'the dark time'. This was years and years ago.

I really don't buy that copy protection only harms the consumers. Most people don't seem to consider stealing an intangible object (software, album, whatever) on the same playing field as stealing an apple or a stereo. I can count 10 times this year alone where people have asked me if I can get them a copy of such-and-such software -- I always reply "no, it's too hard to crack" and in half of those instances that caused that person to go out and buy whatever software they were asking me for.

This is not to say that I agree with the RIAA or the MPAA, or copy-protection schemes like Starforce or the Sony Rootkit. The RIAA and the MPAA are utilizing draconian enforcement methods and are actively punishing consumers to line their pockets, and protection schemes like Starforce and the Sony Rootkit do harm consumers -- but I really don't think an iLok is that unreasonable. I wish that there was a hard-ware free, internet based solution for those times where I don't bring an iLok in, but it's a pretty good system. Yes replacing the licenses should be free, but $30 a year isn't much and the people at iLok seem flexible enough.

[Galen Ulrich Elfert]

I like the copy protection scheme employed by Massey, Audio Damage, and several other plug-in authors: selling your software at a reasonable price point.

[kingmetal]

I like the copy protection scheme employed by Massey, Audio Damage, and several other plug-in authors: selling your software at a reasonable price point.

Agreed, although I have the same thing to say about Native Instruments (which I recognize is debatable).