My question is why should I pay a thrid party to back-up and retrieve my licenses, I own them and I don't think it's right. I would rather pay the licensing company.

I'm curious to know if I'm the last person on the planet who absolutely refuses to spend an additional $35 just to be able to run my software.

You are definitely not alone. 


Fortunately, as long as the industry remains healthy enough to support many competing vendors you'll always have alternatives. I can't think of a single iLok-protected product that doesn't have at least one suitable dongle-less competitor. 

Only good thing with Ilok is you are protected and don't got type serial number every time.

Once upon a time I bought into the iLok. After several bad experiences, for me, iLok just became another four letter word...

I reluctantly sucummbed to the iLok so that I could use Pro Tools in addition to Sonar, which I now happily do. I know also now have a few Antares licences on it too. 

I'm totally against the Zero Downtime idea and won't pay for this. As a customer of the said products, I should have Zero Downtime as an intrinsic right, having bought the product licences. To have to do without access to these programs while a broken iLok is sent away is, in my opinion, unacceptable but obviously something I'm now prepared to grudgingly endure given that I have chosen to use an iLok.

Whilst I understand that piracy is a big issue, a paying customer should not be penalised for a company's anti-piracy measures. If there's a way to ensure a customer can remain up and running in the midst of an iLok failure, which Zero Downtime appears to be, then it should be free. Charging for this is a con in my opinion. Pace's decision to offer customers an opportunity to insure 'their' product against failure is dubious at best. It appears that it's bascially 'their way or the highway'. However, the highway need not be too baron.

Like Bitflipper says, there are plenty of alternatives out there.

Unlike some others who earn their living from recording, I'm fortunate enough to be able to endure a little downtime. However, my biggest fear, should I happen to have a broken iLok, is that it goes missing enroute in the mail despite sending it recorded and insured (additional cost alert!!). What then? Do I lose everything I bought? What is Pace's actual policy on this? Anyone know?

My understanding is that Waves enable you to recover licences of a broken USB stick? If so, why can't iLok do the same?

In short, I guess it depends on customers' preparedness to endure anti-piracy measures, up to a point, in order to ensure that companies continue to find it financially viable to develop and sell the software customers wish to use. There does, however, appear to be a fine line of unacceptability which prevents some people joining the party and I tip my hat to them for maintaining their stance on this.   

Regarding broken iLoks. I came across this. However, I'm unsure if the instances of broken iLoks you generally hear about are due to physical trauma. Any thoughts?
http://www.roklocker.com/Roklocker/Roklocker.html

I've had one iLok fry itself.

I had ZDT and an additional iLok so I was down about and hour. I sent the bad iLok in, they determined it was under warranty, sent me a new iLok and reloaded my permanent licenses.

No biggie.

jma


I'm curious to know if I'm the last person on the planet who absolutely refuses to spend an additional $35 just to be able to run my software. (Never mind that the gizmo probably costs 10 cents to make.) I was all set to buy the Antares Mutator Evo until I saw it required an ilok. Call me hard-headed, but I'm not gonna do it. Not now, not ever.

Nope not the last. I shall never do the iLok dance for any reason whatsoever

Yup...one of my iLoks just quit working.  No damage.  No warning.  Just quit working.  I sent it in and they replaced it and reloaded my licenses.  Took about four days (I sent FedEx overnight).  But it's my understanding that were you to lose your iLok...unless each individual software company whose licenses resided on that iLok will ship new licenses to iLok you are SOL.  Period.

Q: Why doesn't iLok (and the companies they protect) allow you to have one iLok backup?


Because iLok sucks! Just the name refers to Macs---> i-stop, i-can't, i-crash, i-tune, i-plague, i-phones with no flash... i-sucks

Yeah I hate the one iLok I need for Symphonic Orchestra Gold, I'm always dreading the day it craps out on me. The second an alternative is available it's gone.