"I sort of like how the dongle addresses the licensing for me..."
 
Until the dongle fails
 
I think I like Toontrack's business model better.
Just sayin'
T

bitflipper
A note regarding Spectrasonics...if you buy from a third party you'll get your library on a USB drive, but if you buy from Spectrasonics directly it'll be a download. Not only that, the third party's price will usually be $20 or so lower. Pay a little less and your backup's already done. 

Not (or at least wasn't - admittedly I haven't checked recently) possible to buy the Omni 2 upgrade on USB in UK - d/l + serial number only from re-sellers and then you had to buy the USB direct from SS for approx $75 (at time of release). The only way to get physical media from UK re-sellers was to buy the full version at full version price and not the upgrade price. That's what makes it even more ridiculous IMO. It's not that they didn't have any boxed USBs in UK, just that Spectrasonics wouldn't allow them to be sold at an upgrade price. I lost a lot of respect for them at that point which is a shame because I thought their service was excellent until then. 

cclarry
This is one of my (long list of) business practice complaints
and I've stated it MANY times.  You shouldn't be charged
to "re-download" something you've already purchased...EVER,
by ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME.  That's "extortion"...not
customer service....

Excellent point. About a month ago I had a HD crash and lost everything.  Luckily, I had it all backed up.  When I went to reinstall my ST3 libraries that I had made backup copies of  ST3 wouldn't find them, even though I put them in the exact folder as the originals.  So I ponyed up the $10 got new downloads which I had to install.  ST3 found those in the same folder as the copies!!  Now I've got to do the same thing with Miroslav 1 & 2 and Sampletron. 
 
IKM sloagan: "Musicians Eventually"

BobF
...IMO, this is a reasonable step on IKM's part to help alleviate their pipe costs.  If the fee was higher, I might go along with a money grab opinion.  Seems like it's just enough to get the majority to back up their stuff instead of relying on IKM to be the backup...

 
I don't like the idea of paying for downloads, but I can understand why IKM is doing this, i.e. to discourage unnecessary repeated downloading. There seems to be an increasing number of people who automatically associate installing with downloading. They don't see it as two separate processes and don't consider archiving installation files or libraries for later use. Any time they need to reinstall anything, instead of thinking "where did I save it?" they ask "where do I download it?".

jude77

cclarry
This is one of my (long list of) business practice complaints
and I've stated it MANY times.  You shouldn't be charged
to "re-download" something you've already purchased...EVER,
by ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME.  That's "extortion"...not
customer service....

Excellent point. About a month ago I had a HD crash and lost everything.  Luckily, I had it all backed up.  When I went to reinstall my ST3 libraries that I had made backup copies of  ST3 wouldn't find them, even though I put them in the exact folder as the originals.  So I ponyed up the $10 got new downloads which I had to install.  ST3 found those in the same folder as the copies!!  Now I've got to do the same thing with Miroslav 1 & 2 and Sampletron. 
 
IKM sloagan: "Musicians Eventually"

You can tell ST3 where to look for the samples

mudgel
You can tell ST3 where to look for the samples

Can I tell it to look for them on ikmultimedia.com?

bitflipper

mudgel
You can tell ST3 where to look for the samples

Can I tell it to look for them on ikmultimedia.com?

LOL!
 
Sorry, I know you're having trouble recovering from a really bad situation, but that was funny

mudgel

jude77

cclarry
This is one of my (long list of) business practice complaints
and I've stated it MANY times.  You shouldn't be charged
to "re-download" something you've already purchased...EVER,
by ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANYTIME.  That's "extortion"...not
customer service....

Excellent point. About a month ago I had a HD crash and lost everything.  Luckily, I had it all backed up.  When I went to reinstall my ST3 libraries that I had made backup copies of  ST3 wouldn't find them, even though I put them in the exact folder as the originals.  So I ponyed up the $10 got new downloads which I had to install.  ST3 found those in the same folder as the copies!!  Now I've got to do the same thing with Miroslav 1 & 2 and Sampletron. 
 
IKM sloagan: "Musicians Eventually"

You can tell ST3 where to look for the samples

I did!!  I pointed to the exact folder they were located in.  No go.  After I installed the new download in the exact same folder it found them.  Weird.

I can download all of my 50gb games from Steam, Ubisoft, and Origin anytime I want.

Thanks bitflipper!   That was the biggest laugh of the afternoon ...........  I do hope you find a way to regroup ST3
Michael