Waves plugins - paying (again) to receive licenses?

[paul_5]

Back story - I've just replaced the motherboard in my MacBook Pro and was in the process of reinstalling all of my plugins when my system crashed and I had to reinstall the OS from scratch.

 

During the first bout of maintenance I'd recovered the licenses from Waves Central, as they'd disappeared from my system in the interim - don't know how or why.

When I tried to relicense them after the OS reinstall I was told that they were 'not recoverable', as I'd already recovered them once - to the HDD that crashed and was wiped. 

I emailed tech support and had this response:

"As you already used the License Recovery option once this year, and our company policy allows only one license recovery per year, I would like to forward a request to our higher management. 

Note that I will be able to forward the request only for the licenses that are covered by the Waves Update Plan coverage. 

To forward this, please provide me with the following:

1. The reason why the first License Recovery took place.
2. The reason why you need to use the License Recovery again. 
3. Any proof of purchase for the new Logic Board such as invoice/receipt.

 

As only your version 11 licenses are covered by the Waves Update Plan, once you will renew Waves Update Plan coverage for your version 9 and 10 licenses, you will be eligible for updating it to the latest version. 

This will register a new V11 license to your account with one license recovery option to the license. 

Once renewing the Waves Update Plan, please refer to our Install & Activate Products article and follow the steps provided to install your new version 11 plugins."

 

 

So basically it'll cost me $240 to update my licenses to the current version, and then I have to essentially beg for my licenses.

 

I'd be interested to know other BCers thoughts on this, as it feels like I'm having to buy them again, and it feels like customers who play by the rules, and purchase licenses are being punished for the actions of others who pirate software.

 

[Doctor J]

It’s the way of things now, they want their customers on an annual subscription and the latest version rather than with a permanent licence and several versions old software. It’s not just them, pretty much all plugin providers are the same, removing access to standalone installers and having you go through a portal to access the software you own so they can police it. I’ll be in the same boat at some stage. As long as my current version of ProTools works with the plugins I have, it stays disconnected from the internet as I’m happy with it as it is. Once it dies, however, I expect to go through the same dance you’re doing now. Then I go offline again and we repeat.

[SpondonBassed]

1 hour ago, paul_5 said:

I'd be interested to know other BCers thoughts on this, as it feels like I'm having to buy them again, and it feels like customers who play by the rules, and purchase licenses are being punished for the actions of others who pirate software.

 

Licencing is one of the reasons for me not subscribing to the Internet for anything crucial in my life.  Ts and Cs are another aspect of this.  I am not physically capable of reading all of them, much less understanding them clearly.

It might be "the way of things" but none of those sort of things are welcome in my life.  I manage fine doing things in the time proven manner that I was brought up with.

I still love analogue but then I don't have to deal with "The Industry".  If I was gigging, I'd have to get someone else to manage the fine print just to use social media.  BC is all the social media I need for now ta.

I've already spent enough of my life working with I.T. hardware and software to realise that it was not the best career move for me.  I understand the technicalities of digital media better than most but I find most of it shrouded in hyperbole and feature bloat.  I also have serious objections to having a well used piece of software made useless by its own updates as has happened on occasion.

Now that a great deal of Internet content is commercial, I spend little time on it.  Apart from this site there is only one other that I visit regularly and that's a search engine.

I've done with endless registrations, subscriptions (free or otherwise), third party scripts and ruddy COOKIES.  Thank you, good night.

On the other hand, I love my PC best when it is offline as I like to write and draw for my own pleasure.

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by SpondonBassed

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Its this kind of nonsense that has stopped me from buying music software. I use Logic pro X which cost less than £200 and I only use the included fx & instruments. Hardware is another thing that peed me off. I've had to shelve two interfaces, a tascam and a native instruments one as the companies wouldn't release drivers for an OS released after the product was discontinued. These two companies will never see another penny from me.