Users of PACE’s iLok anti-piracy system left locked out of their plugins as introduction of new License Manager software has disastrous consequences.
“iLok License Manager is a new application for Mac and PC that allows you to more easily manage your licenses. iLok License Manager will fully replace iLok.com for managing your licenses. iLok License Manager introduces terrific new features based on user feedback.” At least that’s what anti-piracy protection company PACE promised. Unfortunately, a hidden feature of iLok License Manager has also become apparent: that updating may unauthorise users’ software licences seemingly at random when they attempt to synchronise.
iLok‘s previous browser-based licence management system was flawed for a number of reasons, not least that it was incompatible with a number of popular web browsers. Unfortunately for PACE, rather than improving the licence management system, their solution proved to have unexpected and catastrophic effects following its launch last week: some product licences were automatically and incorrectly unauthorised when users attempted to update.
It’s unclear why the issue only affected some users – and even then only some of their licences – but the problem was widespread and significant, affecting products by developers including Waves, Avid, Sonnox and Slate Digital. Affected users are effectively locked out of their software until PACE work out a solution. (In case you hadn’t guessed, our obvious advice to users who haven’t updated since the launch is to avoid updating until the issue’s been solved, or run the risk of losing licences.) (UPDATE: For the latest status on whether it’s safe to synchronise, we recommend the Gearslutz thread on this issue.)
The iLok protection system already had its critics. The fundamental fact that it requires users to buy a third-party dongle in order to use products they’ve already paid for (or, even worse, demos they don’t even know if they’ll like) was never going to be a popular idea, but most users seemed willing to accept that developers now have to go to even greater lengths than ever before to protect their software from piracy.
However, that was only the start of the complaints. The first generation iLok USB key was irritatingly oversized and cumbersome; then came the second generation key required by certain software updates, meaning a lot of existing users had to fork out all over again. Dropped connections, random failures and reports of poor customer service exacerbated the problems. But, despite all these gripes, most users accepted that iLok was the price they had to pay for effective piracy protection.
The latest fiasco may be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
PACE president Allen Cronce took to the Gearslutz forum this morning to issue an official statement, admitting that the company’s customer relations skills have been “severely lacking” and promising to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Bizarrely, Cronce also defended the new iLok License Manager, claiming to be “very proud” of it.
While the long-term implications for PACE could be catastrophic if developers jump ship to an alternative protection platform, the fiasco will also harm a lot of other individuals and small businesses: artists, engineers and producers who rely on iLok-protected software in order to make a living; developers whose iLok-protected products consumers may now avoid for fear of another similar incident; studios which have been put out of action for over a week.
Bizarrely, PACE president Allen Cronce claimed to be 'very proud' of the new iLok License Manager.
We asked Gregory Scott of Kush Audio (who use iLok protection for their plugins) for a developer’s perspective on the events of the last week:
Attack: Are you worried about whether this’ll affect your business?
Gregory Scott: I try not to worry in general, it just gives me stomach acid. Am I keeping a close eye on things right now? Of course… but that’s what I already do every day!
Do you think it’ll put consumers off iLok-protected products?
I have zero doubts it will do that; a lot of people have good reason to be upset, and emotions are running high right now. But in my experience, emotionally charged moments are the worst time to make any kind of major decisions, so my responsibility to Kush is to stay calm, focused, and take it all in. I’m a huge fan of waiting for the dust to settle, getting the lay of the land, and adjusting course as needed… if needed. This may be a speed bump, it may be a sea-change, but whatever it is I have faith it’s taking us all somewhere better.
Will you continue using iLok or does it make you have second thoughts?
Yes, and yes… I’d be a fool to not be aware of the current climate and ask questions, and I do my best to always be open to all possibilities. But changing copy protection schemes is a massive endeavor for any company, let alone one as small as Kush, so it’s not a decision to be taken lightly or to be made hastily. My concerns are the health of my company and the happiness of my customers. If I sense that either or both of those become compromised, I will do everything in my power to make it better.
The good news is things have definitely stabilised at this point; now we wait and we watch and we do whatever needs to be done, both in the short term and in the long run.
Have you been affected by the introduction of the iLok License Manager? Will you continue to buy and use iLok-protected software in future? Let us know below.
11.07 PM
Long before i had already problems with licenses, 1 year my ilok its just a simple key chain decoration : – ) I don’t care anymore how amazing plugin is if its exclusively on ilok = not buy.
12.34 AM
I had a long standing policy not to purchase ilok software just due to the cumbersome nature of having to use a dongle. I finally purchased a plugin on a whim thinking it wouldn’t be so bad and was proven wrong. The mere fact that a track is essentially corrupt and unloadable if you don’t have your dongle was enough for me to stop using the plugin after being frustrated over and over. and that was without these licensing woes. There is more than one piece of software that I have considered purchasing, but then didn’t simply because it was ilok.
02.18 AM
I have been using steiberg elisencer and ilok for years, iloks blew up, got corrupted, disturbed my work, NEVER ONCE i had a problem with the e-licenser, pace sucks.
06.35 AM
Calm, thoughtful words from Greg Scott in the iLok maelstrom – more strings to your bow, Greg.
07.25 AM
Yep, as Basharar wrote: e-licenser works absolutely smooth. Never got any issue with it, while iLok didn’t work in my browsers at all. Had to use an old windows laptop with an ancient internet explorer to add my licenses. Besides this iLok worked well.
07.38 AM
I lost 202 licences for a couple of days and whilst it was a serious issue for me in terms of not being able to work (earn money), iLok/PACE were amazing as they helped me to sort it out.
I would not confuse the amount of comments in forums with the real size of this problem – iLok handle tens of millions of licences and this affected a small number of those licences and their owners. Forums are a place where it’s hard to find answers and easy to find misinformation, if you look through threads you’ll see the same people continuing to comment, so 2000 comments don’t equal 2000 broken iLok accounts. I challenged several people who joined in the debate about “how terrible the new software was and how awful PACE are ” and none of them had even had issues – oddly enough the calm and collected guys were the ones with real problems struggling to get work done.
The problem for iLok is that their was already a lot of hate towards them, some fuelled by those who think all copy protection is a bad idea.
Greg was a good guy to talk to, in fact all the vendors that have gone on record such as Micheal Carnes and Steven Slate are being very calm and professional about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this went bad and iLok’s initial communication on the issues was poor, however they saw a problem and have been working hard ever since to put matters right.
I’m sorry, this guy (who was affected seriously for a while) is not willing to join in the hate fest – I’d rather help to find solutions so it doesn’t happen again.
If I may also say your headline is also incorrect – no licences have been deleted at any point – they were still in my account but just not syncing with my iLok.
07.57 AM
Russ – we’ve amended the title for the sake of clarity.
04.21 PM
I think some of the dislike of iLok is their pricing structure and weak customer service. If you’re going to have a heavy handed copy protection system like this (which a lot of us serious producers accept) we also want serious customer service.
06.34 PM
Been using iLok for over a decade. Never had a problem. It’s been one of the most stable parts of my system. More so than Pro Tools, Windows or the Mac OS, that’s for sure.
11.08 PM
The whole iLok scheme is a shakedown that punishes honest users. The recent fiasco (from which some users HAVE NOT recovered from) adds insult to injury. Vote with your wallets. And make sure you when you buy a non-iLok product, you send an email to the iLok-ed product you MIGHT have purchased had it not been ankle-bracleted.
09.05 PM
Let me tell you how it is from the developer side, and why this company is a problem.
Developers cannot use alternative solutions because it’s a de facto monopoly. New software has to use this specific key in order to be acceptable. The users do not want another dongle to carry around. The government should do something about it. This company limits the options of companies and the consumer is forced into using it. Way too much concentrated power in the audio licensing market. They are the Microsoft of audio plugin licensing.
They are exploiting the monopoly by asking for way too much money for every single product a developer wants to protect with big annual licensing costs per platform and also per plugin, even if there are no sales. This cost is passed to the consumer. This makes programs with a small market impossible to market because the cost through the life of the product is thousands of dollars per plugin and even per different plugin configuration. A small manufacturer with a few plugins can easily pay over $10,000 a year in licensing costs just to have the OPTION to sell, even if there are NO sales. Any small difference in a plugin is considered a new plugin. This is also a barrier to entry to the audio processing market. This money is nothing for a large company that can afford to put large money into advertising, but very significant for small developers.
This company asks for UNPROTECTED versions of all software that will be protected by their solution. When we looked into the solution. They mentioned it in their materials. Why would they need an unprotected version? We give nobody unprotected version of expensive products (and for free!) because it might end up in piracy sites. No other dongle manufacturer asked for something like that. Psychologically, it’s VERY interesting that they ask for your precious intellectual property in unprotected form. If they collected audio software for fun, I bet they could crack their own protection lol. Unprotected software is a no no. It would be sad if after I switch to another solution I find my product in piracy sites because the unprotected version leaked. That’s the first thing that crossed my mind. Computers get hacked and people share unprotected software.
The recent licensing problem showed the world how dangerous a monopoly is for consumers. Google goes down, 40% of the internet stops moving. This company releases something with bugs, a lot of problems for professionals in the audio business. Lots of money and time lost. The additional cost for switching to another solution is high, so the developers are more or less locked into the monopoly, and customers have also no option.
And finally, my experience from communicating with them. They are TERRIBLE people. Terrible in the way people become when they get too much power and other have no real option but to work with them. People you want to punch in the face for arrogance alone. They think they have the bull by the balls, if that expression translates to your mother tongue. Any company that thinks you need them, should not get any deals. And this is what the company I used to work for did. We used a German dongle manufacturer instead. Great product, wonderful people, still 100% safe, no annual licensing fees. A little more expensive for the consumer, but not important for expensive software. Plus, our software never got pirated, unlike any iLok plugin. Visit any torrent site, and you will find your iLok software if it’s popular. The only thing ILok protection does is create problems for the paying customer. Only very inexperienced developers would use it for its safety. The main reason is it’s a monopoly.
I’m not surprised that something like this happened. They simply don’t care. Does Adobe care Acrobat can only use 1 core from the 8 cores on your machine? No, they don’t have to improve, they are a monopoly. Does Microsoft care when word does the same> No. You are stuck with them. They also don’t care when it crashes 20 times a day or takes 12 hours to do something and then crashes wasting your work. That would be unacceptable for a company that had something to lose, a real company competing with others. But iLok is a monopoly. It’s hard to enforce proper engineering in a monopoly. They are laughing because they know they will not loose customers. They love their monopoly cash cow, they are proud of it. The developer is stuck with them, and the consumer is in too deep.
They might not like this information, but good luck with going after me like a big company does when they don’t like the little guy that tells it how it is. I’m Russian, I live in 3 different countries, and this comes through a random wireless connection I got from my car. But, truth is, I would love such a case to hit the news in my country. It would be my 15 minutes of fame. If I’m not accurate about their practices and the way they handle developers, they can correct me. They world has found out how dangerous concentrated power is, even is insignificant things like audio licensing. Everything about this company SCREAMS monopoly. Attitude, pricing, pricing scheme, structure of payment, market share in audio software, etc.
09.20 PM
SergA – please leave us a comment with a real email address or send a contact address through our contact page. We’d love to talk to you about this. Your anonymity is guaranteed.
04.26 PM
Anti-piracy is always the hot-potato of subjects on the internet, and while I too think that iLok is far from perfect:
Its a memory stick, so obviously its easy to break/loose and also expensive but you’re also locked to one company. However, theres one big thing people seem to forget here, and its not that music companies need to protect their products but that iLok actually makes your plugins worth something.
04.09 PM
I was really into making music …it was all i wanted to do since i was young. I had made some money and decided to put it into the things i loved doing. I am what could be described as a hobby’st but i did spend a sh*t load of money and i was flying along…i was in the flow and all my energy was being put into the music. i bought loads but have been hardly able to use it… AND HAVE STOPPED BUYING…anything ilok related. I spent 20,000 in one year 2009 to 2010. The first ilok i got with thousands of euros worth of “sounds on line” did not connect properly after a sort time i was forever trying to reopen pro tools and all the other stuff…I have some electronics experience and it could have only been rated as a toy. I THOUGHT IT WAS PROTECTING MY LICENCES it was not. When after a few months of usb non connection I contacted Ilok and they told me to send it in. I still did not really understand what the system was but was starting to …disassembled the toy and BOUGHT 2 new Iloks 2 so i could put my licences on both and not be fuked again…fixed the usb and transferred my licences to my new ilok and then realised that that was it…all my money was again on one shitty little flash drive. Not long after I think it was stolen by a kid thinking it WAS a flash drive…fuked again. I have pro tools with loads of avid and third party pluggins..mac dsp bundle even upgraded to see could i get a new licence…slate digital…melodine stiudio about 600 euro..ew …all they had at the time they really inspired me but also stopped me buying when failures started happening because i had invested so much with them.ew ok to deal,… ilok was what was causing my problems…but i blame the developer too. Rob Papin…thank you sir.. I have always had access to what i have bought from you..sugar bytes awkward but you too…i use logic x now though i was doing a masters degree in music production with protools …no pro tools no degree…fek it i do not have any more money or time to waste ..i have to stick with reliable…sorry for the way this is written but it is a sensitive subject with me and i do not talk about it…i do not have time to waste if something is not good i do not go back…i would have payed 1000 euros not to have gone through all the messing and continued working with something that was there to protect MY licences… surely being in use all the time and could charge through usb a device could be made that could be tracked by us and whatever company makes it so it can also be disabled and protects us as much as the developer and is worth holding 20.000 euros worth of licences…or an item that would protect MY licences …not holding …but confirming who i am and allowing me to get new licences…enough now …taking about this makes me feel bad
05.47 PM
I am totally against ilok now. I have had a few legitimate license issues the past few years, and ALL (not some, but all) of them were related to Pace ilok protection. One of my plugins was from Kush audio, and it was out of action for more than 6 months, i.e the Kush Audio plugin failed to load. It used Pace ilok protection. Another plugin I have at the moment that I bought also fails to load, giving me a “Bad Machine Binding” error. This is also Pace ilok protected. I have zero issues with Steinberg’s elicenser, or any other method of protection, only ilok-protected licenses. Why should we keep paying for products that often do not even run, and have to do without software that we paid for for extended periods of time, because a audio software company wants to protect it with ilok?
Sorry, but I am sick and tired of non-functioning plugins and countless hours emailing support back and forth over a long period of time because of ilok. I am drawing the line: if you want to use ilok, good luck with that. I won’t be buying your product. And good luck, as I know many others like me, who feel the same.
08.25 PM
Here’s the deal. If Ilok (Pace) whatever they want to call themselves, are going to do this protection over an internet connection. They shouldn’t have a program crash and have to be uninstalled and reinstalled to get it working again when a user tries to run his/her DAW software when not online. That’s Effed Up! Fine your protecting software rights I get that. But to have your program so poorly thought out for the above scenario shame on you. You just want to sale those Effing Dongles. My apologies about all the effing effing. I just went through 2 hours of software repair and I am pissed.
05.32 PM
An addendum to my last post. I now find out that even if I do not use their protected software while my computer is offline their software still resets itself or something. It has to be uninstalled and reinstalled every time after I power up my computer without internet access. Talk about annoying. I refuse to buy their effing I-Lok (up your computer) usb device. I am going to the FTC with this.
07.36 PM
All ILOK is doing is preventing me from buying the software I want to buy. Any time I see an awesome piece of software I want to get or a plugin, and I see “ILOK” it becomes an instant no-buy. I will never buy any software that uses this ILOK garbage. If companies want to prevent piracy, then they should look into license managers like what Waves currently is doing. ILOK is so silly that people like me (and so many more just check forums) who want to actually buy these plugins are taking their money elsewhere because of ILOK. So while companies chose to go with ILOK to help prevent piracy, not only did it NOT prevent piracy, but it’s preventing people who actually WANT to buy their stuff from doing so. Literally further reducing their revenue streams.