Hi all,

Just want to rant. There is a small handful of commercial programs out there which limit you to install on one or at best two machines.

Two cases in point that I know of : Wolfram Mathematica and Pixologic z-Brush.

I also have an e-book for Maplesoft Maple which is single machine only.

They become a royal pain in the a*s  when you have to transfer to another machine - and even worse if you have been having technical problems with your computers and you have to chop and change between machines - each time requiring you to ask the manufacturers of these software products for a fresh activation. It looks suspicious when you have to ask three or four times within a short period, as I have had to do recently.

Anyone who knows a legal way to get around this problem, I'd sure be glad to hear it .

regards,
Andrew

Mathematica -> GNU Octave

zBrush -> 3D Coat (if 3 computers is enough) or Blender

You miss the point, I'm not looking for alternative software. I'm just ranting about the way they do business in terms of their tight licensing regulations.

You have to blame the dishonesty of those who pirate for your plight. As a Zbrush user I feel your pain.

Sue the pirates out there.

Run such software in a virtual machine. The VM can then be launched from any PC. With a sufficiently well resourced computer you'll not notice any difference in performance.

Quote - You have to blame the dishonesty of those who pirate for your plight. As a Zbrush user I feel your pain.

Yeah, but it has zero effect on those people it is only detrimental to the honest purchaser.

Do a quick google search for any high end software and you'll see a lot of XYZ+keygen, XYZ+Cracked, etc., showing that the licensing restrictions aren't doing much at all on that front.

The whole thing is nuts, I heard about the Vred render software in a blog comment so I googled it to give it a look....3 pages of crap in I found the actual website instead of torrent this, download free that, get low priced OEM there....ARRRRGH! But I get  hassle if I do a major equipment upgrade and contact a company for a license transfer?

I can feel pain posted about, been there.

download the keygen. LOL I have not seen one for Zbrush and most are droppers for a virus anyway.

Not suggesting that at all, my point is the super restrictive licensing hurts the purchaser not the the pirates.

Add to it, I maintain a stand alone workstation. It is never connected to the internet. I have too much invested in it to gamble on dodging all the a'holes that write malicious code every single time I connect.

But try working through customer support with that one. LOL

The deciding point for me was a while back when I clicked on a Youtube video for an old band I hadn't heard in a few years and there was a virus embedded in the video. It required a format and reinstall to completely kill. Minor annoyance on the web machine but would have been a major catastrophe had it been the workstation.

I simply will not buy Zbrush because of this. I've given up on them. -_-

Quote - You miss the point, I'm not looking for alternative software. I'm just ranting about the way they do business in terms of their tight licensing regulations.

Try calling the company. I did that with Microsoft for Front Page when I got my laptop.  They gave me a second license key at no cost.

When a software company finds there are 20 or 200 copies of the same serial number out there (and they know because a lot of software is programmed to report home these days), it's hard to blame them for trying to fight the piirates.

Why someone would want to give away copies of software they paid good money for, has never been clear to me. The pirating has to start with a paying customer somewhere.

"Why someone would want to give away copies of software they paid good money for, has never been clear to me. The pirating has to start with a paying customer somewhere."

Hi This is a repost of some info I posted on another forum:

WHY "GIVE" IT AWAY???

to understand "WHY??"You need to know how software/ Content piracy truly works.
last year year one of my buyers at renderosity informed that one of my older (now retired )BVH
products for M2/V2 was being "shared"
and gave me a link to the site where it was posted
having no silly delusions about actually stopping it
I went to the site out of curiousity and traveled deep into the "Rabbit hole" of the Digital content piracy Culture
and here is the reality:
the people responsible for sharing our products are initially are always "Legal buyers"

1)They buy your product from DAZ/rosity etc
for Say $15-30 dollars.

1. They Submit it to their warez forum admins for "validation"
   where it is checked for viruses,Missing files. and in the case of software programs for a serial or a "KRAK instructions"

2. the post gets "Published" in the Forums with your actual product description and promo pics and the feeding frenzy begins
   every downloader is forced to go offsite to various Ad laden File hosting sites that pay members for generating page views like "ShareCG"
   used to do in the past.

3. once you start generating income from your page view hosting sites your "business" becomes self funded
   and you have money to go buy MORE popular DAZ content as soon as it released and the sharing process repeats.

Of course you have second tier "reuploaders" who only download other peoples shares an rehost/reshare them at other sites to milk what little page view income they can get before everyone already has their copy.
and that also takes care of replacing the rare files that actually get pulled
from a Copyright Complaint

Now because of the GLUT in the DAZ /poser content market our products have the Shelf life of a shrimp Salad on the fourth of July
and the quicker DAZ Floods the Market with this repetitive stuff
the faster it get purchased ( at "platinum Club" prices)
and Shared.
Sadly some of the very customers who praise your work here & the DAZ forums ("Awesome release Dude!!! Im off to buy right now!!"),

are the main ones Sharing them to get page view revenue

People like SanctumArt Know this which might account for some of his  Apparent Disdain for these forum "communities"

These File sharing people have "request" forums "legacy" content sections.,
Mac only sections,Full, movie DVD BlueRay Rips, Website templates, high end Stock images and of course.. Music ,

you can even subscribe to a daily newsletter informing you of new uploads and there are thousands of such file hosting services all over the planet.

so there is no point in even Embarking on some noble "Campaign" to get the "pirates" IP addreses etc for such Endeavours are most certainly Folly.

Cheers

Attached Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CKAuVyiceQ

Pirating for page views, huh? I suspect the few dollars they get from that doesn't matter as much as the puffed-up ego thing from the views, like the silly "Friends" thing on Facebook.

The thing that doesn't ring true is the idea that Daz (and I suppose you also mean Rendo and others) spurs this on by releasing "repetitive" stuff.  IMO, Daz doesn't release as much skimpwear and hair color variations as others do (in fact their release frequency is lower across the board), but I think that's irrelevant. If everything offered by a legit 3D site was fresh and innovative, every day, it would still be pushed out onto the torrents. I don't think repetitiveness has anything to do with it.

Actually with zbrush they do allow you to install on multiple computers, they just make you log off on one before you can log on on another. but you can litterally have it installed on a dozen computers if you want.

Quote - Why someone would want to give away copies of software they paid good money for, has never been clear to me. The pirating has to start with a paying customer somewhere.

Not especially, there are a lot of people in the chain from final production CD to "going to silver" for distribution.

I recall instance of a manager who would say "get one of the file monkeys to take this to the duper".

In tracking down leak later, it seemed that ones delivered by a certain "file monkey" always hit boards sooner (if not prior to release).

There is no assurance than the people at the duplicator won't take a copy or load one on to a thumbnail drive.  The houses do have certain security measures, but nothing is perfect.

The idiocy of licencing or activation is only punishing honest consumers. Any hacker can crack within minutes any activation scheme and any illegal user can download a full working version online for free or buy in the street for few $$$, and what is "illegal" also depend on the local definition of "illegal".

Quote - The idiocy of licencing or activation is only punishing honest consumers. Any hacker can crack within minutes any activation scheme and any illegal user can download a full working version online for free or buy in the street for few $$$, and what is "illegal" also depend on the local definition of "illegal".

I've heard that logic before but I think its bogus, first off for the most part how hard is it for a legal customer to activate a piece of software? though Im sure there are a few that are problematic, generally not hard at all. so for the most part it doesnt punish honest customers. And my second response to that arguement is that such security schemes are not always so simple as to assure complete security as much as to be able to prove that a company is trying to assure that a product is a legally purchased version, if they take someone to court who is using or distributing pirated software it is much easier to prove that is the case if the person is in posession of hacked software and are not under the impression that they own legal software.

Quote - I've heard that logic before but I think its bogus, first off for the most part how hard is it for a legal customer to activate a piece of software? though Im sure there are a few that are problematic, generally not hard at all.

If you have an internet conection that always is working, your computer always work without any problem, you never are infected with a virus, your hard disk never has gone into space and is always large enough, your motherboard never burned, you have the right drivers installed and never crash, you don't know what is disk formating, you never have to re-install Windows, your computer never gets obsolette and each problem is solved with a minute long phone call, then of course, product activation is a piecve of cake that you have to do only once in your life.

If not the gates of Hell are opened and you have only three alternatives:

A- Never use this software

B- Use a pírate version

C- Use a free or open source equivalent.

I got rid of McAffe and Norton anti-virus, I never want to hear anything about these companies, I use Avira antivirus that is free, works perfectly and produce 0% overhead on my computer so I can have it active all the time.

your arguement makes no sense, you list off a lot of computer problems and think that invalidates my point? Sorry it really doesn't.

Hummm I activated my MS Office 3 times and it still comes up with a notice that it is not a legal version. I have called and they tell me not to worry about it it will continue to work, and it does. I still have the packaging from Frys and MS assures me the program is legal, but for some reason my new computer doesn't like the activation thing so I'm stuck with a dialog that opens EVERY time I use the program. Activation sucks.

modo allows installion on multiple machines,  though only one instance can be opened at any given time.  This is great for folks like me who have accumulated several computers.  The only complaint I have is [begin rant] their insistence on installing Apple's Bon Jour, when in fact it is only needed if you want to render in network.  Apple rigged Bon Jour with locked permissions and hidden files, making it difficult for the average user to uninstall, if you happen to dislike Bon Jour's insistence on running at startup and sucking up CPU cycles and LAN bandwidth unnecessarilly .  I consider it "stalkerware", and it would be wonderful if Luxology gave the modo user the option of whether they want to install it. [/ rant]

Vue will allow installation on one desktop and one laptop, with only one instance running at any time.

Silo allows for installation on any three machines.

LightWave allows installation on multiple machines, with only one instance running at any time.

 I can install Lightwave on as many computers as I want...All I have to do is make sure the dongle is present on the machine I'm currently using.

Hardware dongles are actually an elegant solution to the problem of multi machine installations.

This "Problem" with Pixologic has been going on since version 0...and has turned even legitimate purchasers to run a cracked version even though they have a legitimate "Paid For" License....It's just easier.

"Hardware" dongles are the way to go to give the legitimate user a more problem free (for the most part) user experience.

No sending away for updated licenses. Just plug in the dongle and away you go.

There is nothing more frustrating for a legitimate user to have to jump through hoops to use a program, and wait for a new license...By that time...the creative moment has turned to resentment and frustration.

 Tom

Hardware dongles are a nightmare for office where many people work, you never know where is the dongle or you have a lot of dongles stacked one over another and then, some disaster happens...

Yeah...I suppose...although one would think an office environment would likely have multiple licenses anyway...
...I was reffering to mainly a single user with multple machines.

How ya been kawecki?

Tom

In my old days it was only one IBM PC with two floppy disks for 20 guys, no problem, almost only I used it, but when was the turn to play pinball it was a large queue.

I replaced the 12¨green monitor by a 26" color tv, so the pinball was in big screen with four colors.

Quote - You have to blame the dishonesty of those who pirate for your plight. As a Zbrush user I feel your pain.

The irony is that this measures don't stop piracy. Pirated copies can be installed on any machine any number of times. If people pirating the software get less hassle and more value then honest paying customers, it is a problem. The key to combat piracy isn't enganing in meaningless arms race which is a losing battle for any kind of software but AAA games, but to add value to the paying customers.