It's a great move. Steiny is in for it for the long run. They might as well test market it. I am very sure sales will increase on all their products.

 

They might have dipped their toe in when the made Halion and the Grand soft elicencer instead of dongle and see how it affected their sales. They knew that Halion and the Grand would be cracked, but it is of course a business decision!

 

These are my thoughts:

-- Steinberg has lost its privileged leader position. There are strong, useful and/or cheaper new kids on the block (Studio One, Ableton Live, FL Studio and MANY more) that are getting more and more addicts. And all of these are far more than suitable and offer what 99% of producers want from a DAW. Also, some are more modern, with a better workflow and GUI.

-- Most or many of these new kids share one common feature in their legit versions: they are cheaper.

-- All of these new kids share one common feature in their non-legit versions: there are working warez versions than perform very well. These warez versions, are mostly used by new young producers that can't aford to pay a legit one, and they GET USED to a DAW that is NOT Cubase. Once they end working at a higher level, professionally, they are already used to, say, Studio One, and this is what they want, but then with a legit version. Steinberg's strong hardware dongle protection stops piracy, but forces many new producers NOT to use Cubase (and they won't use it never ever in the future). THIS, on a long term, makes Steinberg lose market share. After all, History has proven than a good % of warez makes a product become THE standard (anyone remembers WordPerfect for DOS?).

-- Steinberg has the disadvantatge of paying out for a hardware dongle, because that makes the final street price higher. This is why they dropped the dongle it recently. I guess they think they will stand the piracy, because after all it's also a way of promotion.

-- Steinberg KNEW that dropping the dongle would mean Cubase would be cracked FAST. This can't be unexpected for them. A software-only protection can be defeated much easily that a hardware-based one. And they KNOW it.

 

Producer : Using their DAW like usual
Cubase : remove dongle
Magazine :

 

That 14 year old kid in Montego Bay, Jaimaca who's mom cleans hotel rooms for foreign guests not visiting the island these last two years who has downloaded Cubase from the sister site is for sure not a lost sale but will be a customer in a few years at 20 when her unique brand of Reggae-Punk is a huge success and she can finally afford it. She'll be their customer instead of perhaps Studio One or FL Studio.

 

Last edited: Mar 8, 2022

Another thing that impresses me is that the DMCA does not remove it from the site.

 

Time has demonstrated that; The absolute best way of handling warez is to ignore it and spend any energy on caring for your paid customers. Steinberg is doing the right thing, and have simultaneously created a 'demo cubase' system that the rest of the manufacturers benefitted from over the last 10 years

 

I believe they honestly think they had a great system, no conspiracy for testing what would happen, I think. I rather suspect they underestimated the skills of software coders these days... it could be of course that a crack version is less stable, somehow, I read people complaining about crashes. I own it, and it's very stable for me, compared to 11 pro. Of course when you like it, the cracked version crashes, you are more inclined to buy it, I could imagine that. Oh well, for those new, have fun with it. I have been using it for years and like it, tried many other daws, but could find my flow with it, like I can with Cubase.

 

I'm wondering if thousands of people start using the cracks, and in a few months or so, just when they've settled on it, up comes a nag screen saying "Hey, liking Cubase? Please purchase it now..." and everyone realises it was never actually cracked...

 

that would be funny aahahaha

 

On a poll on cubase forum 66% is stable and happy, rest minor to terrible issues.
Worse performance, crashes, won't start at all (no way to authorize too)

 

I thing so, today all its about Ableton and FL Studio.

The revenge of USB-Elicenser programmers??

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 10, 2022

Is that official from Steinberg? Where did you read that?

 

if it's not them, then comes either studio one or logic pro (or even reaper)

 

..like u-he products! ^^

 

+ Bitwig!

 

Dongle phantom pain?

 

Here's Steinberg's update to the new licensing policy:

December 15, 2021: Updated licensing terms on “Online Activation”:
Based on the feedback we received from our customers, we have decided to make changes to our initial concept. First, instead of reconnecting to the internet within 30 days, once your software has been activated on your computer, it won’t need to contact our Steinberg Licensing server again for the purposes of activation. Second, we have decided to increase the maximum number of activations from two to three computers per single-user license.

https://www.steinberg.net/licensing/

 

Yes, it's official, from Steinberg.

 

I agree with you, I think this is the same move that the REASON STUDIO team tried and it gave them good results bringing back old and new users.