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Steinberg plans to shut down their eLicenser servers in "early 2025". If you are sticking to an older version of their software, internet-activated licenses wil

Steinberg plans to shut down their eLicenser servers in "early 2025". If you are sticking to an older version of their software, internet-activated licenses will continue to work but only until you have to register them again (e.g. you cannot install them on a new PC anymore) , and dongle-based licenses continue to work until you lose or break the eLicenser dongle. Steinberg is not going out of business - they have just introduced a new licensing service that older software is not compatible with, and apparently they cannot be bothered to keep running the servers for this old service. This move is quite hostile to customers who do not or cannot upgrade to the very latest versions of their software.

fuzzfactor 2y ago
IOW their software was worth a lot less than you were led to believe to begin with, and not designed to be trusted nearly as much as you thought, but it could have been worse. And now it's worse :\
RicoElectrico 2y ago
Maybe we need to have a "stop killing DAWs" initiative along with the "stop killing games"...
- TonyTrapp 2y ago
  I was thinking of exactly that, and am hoping that if any legislation comes out of that, it will be formulated in a generic enough way that it doesn't matter if it's a game's server or a music software's license server that is turned off.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    If that's the way you really feel, I would expect there is more than one jurisdiction where you are entitled to a full refund by notifying the seller within a year or more of being deceived, and if the seller does not rapidly comply, you are then entitled to file a legal claim for 3X the amount, from which there is supposed to be little defense. You would have to check with an attorney experienced at handling Deceptive Trade Practice cases. This is not nearly as serious a violation as actual fraud, and intended to be much easier to substantiate a claim, provided all the rules and deadlines are adhered to. You would probably want to ask for a refund as soon as you could after finding out you had been deceived, and make sure you had an impeccable paper trail. It may not be easy to find a lawyer who would take action with only a 3X upside of what you paid, maybe that's what class-action is supposed to be for?
    - TonyTrapp 2y ago
      I have described the situation to the German consumer protection authorities (as I am in Germany, and conveniently Steinberg is as well). I would recommend all German residents reading this doing the same, to raise the priority of them looking into it. You can probably do something similarly in other countries without having to hire an attorney. As for a refund - I directly purchased my software from Steinberg, more than ten years ago, and it wasn't particularly expensive. So there's not much in for me personally, but I would like to see the situation to be addressed at a higher level.

fuzzfactor 2y ago

IOW their software was worth a lot less than you were led to believe to begin with, and not designed to be trusted nearly as much as you thought, but it could have been worse. And now it's worse :\

RicoElectrico 2y ago

Maybe we need to have a "stop killing DAWs" initiative along with the "stop killing games"...

TonyTrapp 2y ago
I was thinking of exactly that, and am hoping that if any legislation comes out of that, it will be formulated in a generic enough way that it doesn't matter if it's a game's server or a music software's license server that is turned off.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  If that's the way you really feel, I would expect there is more than one jurisdiction where you are entitled to a full refund by notifying the seller within a year or more of being deceived, and if the seller does not rapidly comply, you are then entitled to file a legal claim for 3X the amount, from which there is supposed to be little defense. You would have to check with an attorney experienced at handling Deceptive Trade Practice cases. This is not nearly as serious a violation as actual fraud, and intended to be much easier to substantiate a claim, provided all the rules and deadlines are adhered to. You would probably want to ask for a refund as soon as you could after finding out you had been deceived, and make sure you had an impeccable paper trail. It may not be easy to find a lawyer who would take action with only a 3X upside of what you paid, maybe that's what class-action is supposed to be for?
  - TonyTrapp 2y ago
    I have described the situation to the German consumer protection authorities (as I am in Germany, and conveniently Steinberg is as well). I would recommend all German residents reading this doing the same, to raise the priority of them looking into it. You can probably do something similarly in other countries without having to hire an attorney. As for a refund - I directly purchased my software from Steinberg, more than ten years ago, and it wasn't particularly expensive. So there's not much in for me personally, but I would like to see the situation to be addressed at a higher level.