Offline authorization will be discontinued for R11 and earlier - This is serious

[Jackjackdaw]

I have no shame in making light of some trivial consumer affairs nonsense. It’s not like they are contaminating the water supply or anything. And I dont even care about toeing the line. I do think the dongle is the best option. But times change and corporations gonna corporation. Of course they want your money and of course they will aggressively protect their IP above consumer convenience. As consumers we spend money all the time on stuff that becomes obsolete. I agree this should be the cause of some soul searching, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you want to truly own something you need to buy that thing, not a license to a thing.

[electrofux]

Followed most of the discussion here and want to give my 2 cents. The change is definitly not a completely minor thing. Of course logging in once a year to authorize shouldnt technically be a big deal.
But everyone who uses Reason as a production system that he has invested alot into and maybe even makes a living of it needs to think about what happens when the running of the system becomes dependant on a third party when it wasnt before. What happens when the authorization systems stops because third parties take that decision?

Call me paranoid but i instantly digged out my old ignition key and wrote all licenses on it. And it kinda feels good to have it. If i hadnt one, i would buy one.

[Jackjackdaw]

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx43QgD1hmy ... US3-wvMs0Y

Steve Albini on digital obsolescence.

[EpiGenetik]

It is baffling to see some customers blindly supporting this decision, without considering the long-term implications.

So, if you support this decision then you are blind and inconsiderate?

[bernardh]

It is baffling to see some customers blindly supporting this decision, without considering the long-term implications.

So, if you support this decision then you are blind and inconsiderate?

Blind to the genuine impact this move actually causes and inconsiderate in so much that they're showing a lack of consideration for how much this move will change the Reason landscape forever.

The fact this new copy protection was originally built for Reason+ and is now being steam-rolled out over perpetual Reason customers who now have no choice on the matter of being able to continue to use a genuine perpetual offline option, should tell you all you need to know.

[bernardh]

I have no shame in making light of some trivial consumer affairs nonsense. It’s not like they are contaminating the water supply or anything. And I dont even care about toeing the line. I do think the dongle is the best option. But times change and corporations gonna corporation. Of course they want your money and of course they will aggressively protect their IP above consumer convenience. As consumers we spend money all the time on stuff that becomes obsolete. I agree this should be the cause of some soul searching, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you want to truly own something you need to buy that thing, not a license to a thing.

All very valid points. The main issue with your last one though is that there is no way to truly own Reason, I guess apart from illegally 'owning' a pirate copy which has had the copy protection nullified and you can then freely install on any device you choose at any time forever, unencumbered. With Reason Studios' removing Codemeter support, the closest feeling as license holders that we could get to securely owning something tangible is now being taken away. I guess to some people that hits much harder than to others.

[selig]

Followed most of the discussion here and want to give my 2 cents. The change is definitly not a completely minor thing. Of course logging in once a year to authorize shouldnt technically be a big deal.
But everyone who uses Reason as a production system that he has invested alot into and maybe even makes a living of it needs to think about what happens when the running of the system becomes dependant on a third party when it wasnt before. What happens when the authorization systems stops because third parties take that decision?

Call me paranoid but i instantly digged out my old ignition key and wrote all licenses on it. And it kinda feels good to have it. If i hadnt one, i would buy one.

To clarify, the old system relied on a third party, and this change eliminates that third party as I understand it. If that’s your concern (hopefully I’ve understood you correctly) then this change is a good thing for you, right? Or am I missing something?

[selig]

I have no shame in making light of some trivial consumer affairs nonsense. It’s not like they are contaminating the water supply or anything. And I dont even care about toeing the line. I do think the dongle is the best option. But times change and corporations gonna corporation. Of course they want your money and of course they will aggressively protect their IP above consumer convenience. As consumers we spend money all the time on stuff that becomes obsolete. I agree this should be the cause of some soul searching, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you want to truly own something you need to buy that thing, not a license to a thing.

All very valid points. The main issue with your last one though is that there is no way to truly own Reason, I guess apart from illegally 'owning' a pirate copy which has had the copy protection nullified and you can then freely install on any device you choose at any time forever, unencumbered. With Reason Studios' removing Codemeter support, the closest feeling as license holders that we could get to securely owning something tangible is now being taken away. I guess to some people that hits much harder than to others.

Forever? Software doesn’t work that way, as at some point your hardware or system software will no longer allow you to install an older version of software. TBH, I was surprised that they decided to allow users to go a whole year without logging in, but I understand that’s still NOT the same as it was before.

IMO the biggest concern here is the timing, the lack of warning which while not a super important issue for everyone COULD have been totally mitigated by erring on the opposite side of the timing issue. This is in the category of an ‘own goal’ IMO.

[bernardh]

All very valid points. The main issue with your last one though is that there is no way to truly own Reason, I guess apart from illegally 'owning' a pirate copy which has had the copy protection nullified and you can then freely install on any device you choose at any time forever, unencumbered. With Reason Studios' removing Codemeter support, the closest feeling as license holders that we could get to securely owning something tangible is now being taken away. I guess to some people that hits much harder than to others.

Forever? Software doesn’t work that way, as at some point your hardware or system software will no longer allow you to install an older version of software. TBH, I was surprised that they decided to allow users to go a whole year without logging in, but I understand that’s still NOT the same as it was before.

IMO the biggest concern here is the timing, the lack of warning which while not a super important issue for everyone COULD have been totally mitigated by erring on the opposite side of the timing issue. This is in the category of an ‘own goal’ IMO.

OK, eventually things get left behind but as CPUs get faster, there'll be emulation and Virtual Machines to allow you to keep things alive that the vendor was otherwise happy to let die. What I meant was, it is the pirating part which theoretically means it could live forever because those versions are unencumbered by some old broken legacy copy-protection which is even harder to keep running. For example, I have an old friend who still swears by a cracked version of Cubase SX2 from 2003. He has it running on Windows 11! You'd probably be hard pressed to do that with a legitimate version using a real eLicenser

I agree the main issue here is comms. This should have been announced publicly ages ago; I'm sure they knew they weren't going to renew their contract with Wibu much earlier than they've told us about it. In fact, I've just looked at Wibu's site and it states that their fee is required to be payed annually: https://www.wibu.com/uk/magazine/keynot ... meter.html - this means Reason Studios should have been able to give us at least 12 months notice, not the poor 3 months they've managed.

[electrofux]

Followed most of the discussion here and want to give my 2 cents. The change is definitly not a completely minor thing. Of course logging in once a year to authorize shouldnt technically be a big deal.
But everyone who uses Reason as a production system that he has invested alot into and maybe even makes a living of it needs to think about what happens when the running of the system becomes dependant on a third party when it wasnt before. What happens when the authorization systems stops because third parties take that decision?

Call me paranoid but i instantly digged out my old ignition key and wrote all licenses on it. And it kinda feels good to have it. If i hadnt one, i would buy one.

To clarify, the old system relied on a third party, and this change eliminates that third party as I understand it. If that’s your concern (hopefully I’ve understood you correctly) then this change is a good thing for you, right? Or am I missing something?

For owners of an ignition key this is not really something good because from that date on i cant write any more purchases on the ingition key. And thus cannot independantly of anyone install Reason on a Computer of my liking. Or am i missing something with the ignition key.

[bernardh]

To clarify, the old system relied on a third party, and this change eliminates that third party as I understand it. If that’s your concern (hopefully I’ve understood you correctly) then this change is a good thing for you, right? Or am I missing something?

For owners of an ignition key this is not really something good because from that date on i cant write any more purchases on the ingition key. And thus cannot independantly of anyone install Reason on a Computer of my liking. Or am i missing something with the ignition key.

You can install Reason 6 - 12.5 on any machine you want. Install the Codemeter dependency and insert the Ignition key and it will be authorised if you have the Reason license on the key, even after September 25th.

However, if you try and buy a new Rack Extension from the shop after September 25th, you will not be able to add the license for that RE to your Ignition key. That RE will only be available when you authenticate online.

Also, after September 25th, if you lose or break your Ignition key you will not be able to load an empty replacement key with your Reason or RE licenses ever again.

[WaxTrax]

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx43QgD1hmy ... US3-wvMs0Y

Steve Albini on digital obsolescence.

As a complete aside from everything else in this thread, I want to thank you for posting this. I just watched the entire 2-hour session and I loved everything he had to say. Very well-spoken guy.

[ljekio]

it would be possible to accept the new system unconditionally if instead of three computers that are authorized for a year under one license, it would be possible to activate one, but permanently.

[bernardh]

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx43QgD1hmy ... US3-wvMs0Y

Steve Albini on digital obsolescence.

As a complete aside from everything else in this thread, I want to thank you for posting this. I just watched the entire 2-hour session and I loved everything he had to say. Very well-spoken guy.

I went and listened to the original raw and messy Albini mix of Heart Shaped Box:

[selig]

To clarify, the old system relied on a third party, and this change eliminates that third party as I understand it. If that’s your concern (hopefully I’ve understood you correctly) then this change is a good thing for you, right? Or am I missing something?

For owners of an ignition key this is not really something good because from that date on i cant write any more purchases on the ingition key. And thus cannot independantly of anyone install Reason on a Computer of my liking. Or am i missing something with the ignition key.

That's how I understand it, and THAT was the bit I was missing!

And I sympathize with folks in your position even though this doesn't affect me directly, because bad press and bad feelings for RS means my favorite software is more at risk than ever of disappearing!

And as I said before, this announcement could have been timed WAY better, but I'm just "arm chair quarterbacking" now.

For me, I'm staying present with Reason 12.x and upgrading more than once a year, so even if I unplugged the internet every other time I used Reason I'd still need to DL the latest version regularly which of course restarts the count on my 365 days. Meaning, since I work this way I'll never even notice any difference at all, even if internet totally goes out. Hopefully I'm NOT missing something here….

[bernardh]

For owners of an ignition key this is not really something good because from that date on i cant write any more purchases on the ingition key. And thus cannot independantly of anyone install Reason on a Computer of my liking. Or am i missing something with the ignition key.

That's how I understand it, and THAT was the bit I was missing!

And I sympathize with folks in your position even though this doesn't affect me directly, because bad press and bad feelings for RS means my favorite software is more at risk than ever of disappearing!

And as I said before, this announcement could have been timed WAY better, but I'm just "arm chair quarterbacking" now.

For me, I'm staying present with Reason 12.x and upgrading more than once a year, so even if I unplugged the internet every other time I used Reason I'd still need to DL the latest version regularly which of course restarts the count on my 365 days. Meaning, since I work this way I'll never even notice any difference at all, even if internet totally goes out. Hopefully I'm NOT missing something here….

For Reason 12.x users, the new system isn't too bad. You can get away with being offline for 12 months and then reconnect your machine to phone home and reestablish itself. It's still not as good as the old authorise once and it will stay authorised indefinitely.

For Reason 6-11 users, there is no new system and the main old system is going. There's not going to be a Codemeter server available at authorization.propellerheads.se for your system to talk to anymore, or a way to add new licenses to an existing CmContainer. It's either use a pre-September 25th made CmContainer that becomes frozen in time after that date, or use the internet sign-in every time. If you can't use a pre-September 25th CmContainer or get on the internet on that machine, you're bust and will never be able to authorise your old version of Reason again.

[Iapetus 9]

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx43QgD1hmy ... US3-wvMs0Y

Steve Albini on digital obsolescence.

I formatted all my old Big Black cassettes into MP3's and Steve came over and threw frozen chickens at me.

That said, I'm on Reason 10, use the Codemeter, and see no reason to upgrade until the next version. Buncha doomers screaming that they'll "jump ship" is nothing new around here.

[plaamook]

Might be easier for all the folks (not me of course…) that kept forgetting to deauthorise their rig before making system changes.

[EnochLight]

Reason will be online only soon and you can not not own it anymore, even if you buy it. Thy activation cycle is yearly instead daily/monthly. It's online-subscription only ... but wrapped in nice sounding words like "yearly"...

To be fair, even with the old offline authorization model - did you ever really "own" it? You've always had to go online and authorize if you ever need to re-install on a new hard drive or computer (or other critical software issue). But I realise making you do it once every 12 months is a hassle.

[Jackjackdaw]

I just checked out Steinberg’s new dongleless system. I am still using their dongle for Cbp 11.They also let you use 3 computers at once but don’t require a yearly re-up, just one ping on install. It’s probably the same system , I expect RS could forgo the yearly thing with a simple tweak to the code.

[jam-s]

This is serious and those saying it isn't or making fun of those who've taken umbrage at it, shame on you.

Well, sure it sucks that there won't be a real 100% off-line solution (but I doubt that the current one would also work in all foreseeable future given how OS updates might break the codemeter support).

Dedicated pirates will always find a way to circumvent any online protection, and the inconvenience this imposes on legitimate customers far outweighs any benefits gained. Moreover, trying to force updates by removing technology many are dependant on without a like-for-like replacement is simply frustrating.

So problem solved, right? At least in case of when RS would happen to fold and no update which removes the on-line shackles is released before shutting down the authentication servers.

I agree the main issue here is comms. This should have been announced publicly ages ago; I'm sure they knew they weren't going to renew their contract with Wibu much earlier than they've told us about it. In fact, I've just looked at Wibu's site and it states that their fee is required to be payed annually: https://www.wibu.com/uk/magazine/keynot ... meter.html - this means Reason Studios should have been able to give us at least 12 months notice, not the poor 3 months they've managed.

My suspicion is that they were not sure how well the roll-out of their own implementation would go, so they only recently (after the successful beta and release of 12.6) could now make the announcement. But for anyone reading the room it has been clear that they are planning on dropping the ignition key and thus codemeter runtime rather sooner than later. So I'm not surprised at this finally happening.

[BRIGGS]

Well... I've given it lots of thought. Here is what I think, in one word:

[joeyluck]

Well to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong, but (for perpetual licenses) it is constantly updated to be 1 year from the last time you had Reason online, right?

So if you enable long-term authorization today on your computer, it will show it's authorized for 1 year from now. But if you have Reason online tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month from now, to update to a new version, to update your RE license, or to just disable long-term authorization and re-enable it, it will then be 1 year from that date. Is that correct?

[EnochLight]

Well to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong, but (for perpetual licenses) it is constantly updated to be 1 year from the last time you had Reason online, right?

So if you enable long-term authorization today on your computer, it will show it's authorized for 1 year from now. But if you have Reason online tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month from now, to update to a new version, to update your RE license, or to just disable long-term authorization and re-enable it, it will then be 1 year from that date. Is that correct?

That's correct. But - it does mean you're essentially on a "long-term (12 month) loan" program.

[jam-s]

And I suppose people are afraid that RS might reduce the 1 year to less once they feel like slowly shafting perpetuals more into the direction of the subscription and there would be little people could do against this as disconnecting would only be an option for 12 months at maximum even with R12. Thus this is seen as opening the floodgates by some.