Lost iLok

Dude, that's horrible. I looked into that a while back out of curiosity. I think you're at the mercy of each vendor as to whether or not they choose to help you out. If it were me, I would contact Andre via PM. IMO, you've contributed a lot here, so you are probably not BSing. :)

As I understand it, even if you buy iLok insurance, they don't cover lost dongles. Something to keep in mind.

Best of luck, man.

From ilok.com:

"How do I get my replacement licenses?

If your iLok is broken, lost or stolen, the first step in getting replacement licenses is to place an Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) report for the iLok using the button below. If you need access to your licenses immediately, Zero Downtime™ (ZDT) coverage allows you to receive temporary licenses in your iLok.com account as part of the RMA process. You will need an iLok to download these temporary licenses.

While Zero Downtime™ works the same in both a Broken iLok RMA and a Lost/Stolen iLok RMA, the actual license replacement works differently. In either type of RMA, if the iLok is covered by ZDT, two-week temporary licenses are deposited in your account for all eligible licenses seen on the iLok as of its last update with your iLok.com account.

For a broken iLok RMA: we are authorized by the software companies to provide permanent replacement licenses for the licenses that we recover from your broken iLok. Once we receive your broken iLok, we recover the licenses from it and deposit permanent replacement licenses in your account.

For a Lost/Stolen iLok RMA: we are not authorized by the software companies to do the permanent license replacements. You will need to contact the software companies directly regarding replacements for the lost licenses.

If you have already placed your RMA report and have a question about it, please reply to the RMA confirmation email you received. Your reply email will go directly to our support team with all of your RMA information attached."

Link:

(https://www.ilok.com/broken-lost-stolen-iloks.html)

As etolia already pointed out, you should first carefully read the instructions on ilok.com:
(https://www.ilok.com/broken-lost-stolen-iloks.html)

Concerning the bare hardware, you can purchase a new iLok at their web store or get one from a local dealer. That would be quicker and less expensive than reimporting one from us.

Regarding the Synfire Pro license, please contact us directly. If you are not yet 100% sure you really lost the key, we can quickly provide you with a temporary replacement license, so you can use the software while you continue searching for the key.

Actually you are required to file a RMA with Pace to invalidate the lost key before the software vendors will provide you with new licenses. We'll make a one-off this time, because this is the first time we have to deal with it and we still need to think about it more thoroughly.

The general problem with lost keys is, if we were to officially announce a liberal replacement policy, quite a few people would insist on it and take it as "buy one, get one free" (or even two, or three, or four) and we could no more stop it. Therefore the official policy is: Do not lose your iLok, or your license is lost.

(EDIT: This strict wording is due to legal requirements and seems to have caused some irritation. Please read the detailed explanation in my follow up post below)

Fortunately all our current customers are very nice people, so we don't have much reason to be paranoid yet.

Ideas how to secure your iLok

We ship every iLok with a lanyard (neck strap) and strongly recommend that you use it. It's worth thinking about whether it makes sense to attach a mobile number or email address to it. Chances are high that a random finder will return it to you, if you offer a small reward.

Regarding the personal information you attach to it, you should be as careful as you would be with your home's door key. I would not attach a street address, full name, or traceable phone number, as that might lead questionable people to your studio, or make false assumptions with respect to the actual value of the key. Also don't use anything that could be used to lookup your address with Google (unfortunately, this is almost impossible today).

There might be services available in your area that supply you with a plate that you can attach to the key (or anything else). If someone finds it, he will call the service office and they will call you. That's the most safe thing you could get. Here in Hamburg, a local bank offers this service as a free incentive for their customers.

Incredible . . . . we all seem to be told to learn to live upside-down ...

When these James Bond toys get lost or broken, or just don't work easily, we, the consumer and user, are required to pay.

However, whenever a piece of software, or application throws out errors, bugs, crashes or, a user looses time during development on a project because the application is 'broken', or the application just turns out to be a piece of underdeveloped aspirations, I have never seem the software vendor or developer offer to return a portion of the cost of the software license back to the (good faith) user. ( the real winners are those who never loose)

good luck ... one more lesson to add into our bag ...

-- atonal

I'm with you Atonal.

Wonderful policy you have there Cognitone, very customer oriented :roll:

If this were to happen to me and I went through the process to invalidate the licenses on the lost iLok, and Cognitone refused to replace the license on my new iLok because I was unfortunate enough to have it stolen from me or accidentally lost, I would simply tell them where to shove it, and on top of that you can be sure I would tell quite a large number of people on KVR Audio and GearSlutz to not deal with this company in the future :punishment:

Remember, Andre, I actually purchased this software, and you know full well I did, and I have absolutely no intention whatsoever to play the silly victim game here.

Consider yourself forewarned. It is not the person's fault if their iLok is stolen and it is not your place to punish someone (which could amount to the tune of THOUSANDS of dollars in my case since I live in Australia with a fairly unstable currency that tends to lose so much of it's value from time to time) for such a simple and stupid mistake.

If I lose a car key, I am still allowed to drive my car. If I lose my iLok, it shouldn't be a problem for your to invalidate my existing license and simply reinstate a new license on my new iLok. The same case should also apply if for some reason the USB power supply circuits on my computer system decide to fail spectacularly and destroy my iLok in the process (this actually happened to one of my USB stick style Sony Walkmans).

As I said, take this into consideration. I reiterate it is not my fault if the above scenarios take place, and you have no right to penalize me for such scenarios.

Ben

If I lose a car key, I am still allowed to drive my car. If I lose my iLok, it shouldn't be a problem for your to invalidate my existing license and simply reinstate a new license on my new iLok.

From what I know of Andre, I'm confident he would take care of you. As he mentioned, he's reluctant to publish a policy about that because of the possibility for abuse. Personally, I agree with that position. Other vendors may not be so forgiving, however.

That brings up a related issue, which you brought up, which is no fault of Cognitone's.

I can't believe Pace (iLok) does not have a process in place for deactivating licenses when iLoks are lost or stolen. It seems like such a simple thing. They even sell you insurance, which does not even cover lost or stolen iLoks! Of course, if I remember correctly, its not clearly stated that your insurance does not cover lost or stolen iLoks. (I may be wrong there.)

If you lose an iLok, you should be able to purchase a new one, immediately deactivate the old licenses, and restore them to the new one. Period.

Again, that's no fault of Cognitone or Andre. I actually prefer the flexibility of iLok, and I would hate it of Cognitone chose to use challenge/response instead.

IMO, vendors should pressure Pace into working out such a system.

There is absolutely no reason to panic. You got me completely wrong. :-?

My point was that we can not formally guarantee (in the sense of written legal statements) the replacement of a lost iLok regardless of the circumstances, as that would leave us unprotected against organized fraud. Anyone could purchase a license once, "lose" it every other month and sell the "lost" dongles on eBay (in some countries they could probably make a living off that) and we have no means to legally prove they are fooling us. You might laugh, but stuff like this happens every day.

Rest assured that this has nothing to do with you, our valued customers. We simply need to reserve the right to decide at our own discretion whether we make a replacement in each individual case. If, for instance your iLok was stolen, we would ask for proper documentation that proves you reported the offense to the police. If we have indications that someone is fooling us, we must be able to stop it without being forced to go to court, possibly in offshore countries.

[quote]I can't believe Pace (iLok) does not have a process in place for deactivating licenses when iLoks are lost or stolen.

They can not easily invalidate a lost key, because it doesn't need to connect to the Internet in order to run the software. Telepathy does not yet work with USB devices ;-)

[quote]They even sell you insurance, which does not even cover lost or stolen iLoks

As the name implies, Zero Downtime (ZDT) is an insurance against temporary downtime that occurs while you are in the process of regaining your licenses from the individual software vendors. For commercial studios, downtime can be critical, especially when they are in the middle of a production.

Pace are doing a great job continously improving their services. Although they can't yet overpower the laws of physics, I am confident the overall user experience will benefit from their effort.

Again, we don't have the slightest motivation to "punish" any of our customers. Don't get irritated by the legal fine print that solely exists to protect against fraud. :-)

If you are still concerned or have any questions, feel free to contact me directly at any time.

I totally get there is the problem of physics that you mentioned. But I think that could be solved by forcing users to validate their keys every now and then or by some other means that's not too aggravating. Maybe an ilok would have to be reactivated if the machine Id changes? It's 2010! There must be a way.

Anyhow, I'm not upset with you guys or anything. I was just stating my thoughts on iLoks. :) I'm all for intellectual property protection too.

I totally get there is the problem of physics that you mentioned. But I think that could be solved by forcing users to validate their keys every now and then or by some other means that's not too aggravating. Maybe an ilok would have to be reactivated if the machine Id changes? It's 2010! There must be a way.

Anyhow, I'm not upset with you guys or anything. I was just stating my thoughts on iLoks. :) I'm all for intellectual property protection too.

You said it, :admire: