Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Posted by: JohnnyRoy

Date:4/8/2004 1:05:49 PM

I realize this post will start a raging battle but I have to agree with you. Copy protection only hurts paying customers because those who want to steal the software have cracked copies that don’t require the hassles. I didn’t know what PACE was before seeing this post but I did some searching and here is one thing I found interesting:

Prosoniq to drop the PACE copy protection from all products

Karlsruhe, Germany, Prosoniq today announce that they have plans to drop the PACE Anti-Piracy copy protection technology from their whole product line. Stephan M. Sprenger, CTO at Prosoniq: "We dropped PACE from our PC line of products about one year ago and did not see any decrease in sales. In fact, many customers are thanking us for taking that step, freeing them from the need to get response codes, the need for replacement diskettes and other hassle they had in the past. Products that use PACE inevitably depend on the customer support of the vendor at some point in time, which is a concern for both the legal customers and the vendor.”

BRAVO! Did you read that? No decrease in sales! I have a personal boycott on dongles. I had software with a dongle once and I can’t tell you how many times I left it at work and couldn’t get work done at home that night or vice versa. Those with the cracked copy had no such problem. I didn’t buy Cubase VST because it has a dongle. They LOST the sale because of their anti-pirate practices. (I bought ACID Pro instead!)

I have to tolerate this with Rational Rose because I need it for work. If I rebuild my PC (which I’ve done 3 times since I bought Rose), I have to remember to give the key back to the Rational web site before I format my hard drive. Then when I install it again, I have to go back to the Rational web site and get my key back. If I forget to do the first step and it’s a weekend, I can forget using Rose until Monday when I can call and get my key reassigned. It’s an outrageous hassle.

Funny, I got a phone call at work from my wife the other day because she turned on the computer and XP refused to work without activating it (it had already been activated) and when she selected the option to activate on-line it couldn’t make an internet connection because the OS was only half booted. She had to wait until I got home at night to figure out how to get it working again and lost a whole days work because of Microsoft’s stupid anti-piracy activation. I’ll bet the pirate’s wife has no such problems!!!

With regard to iZotope, I read on KVR that PACE is not used on their DX only plugin’s. Just the combination DX/VST/ProTools versions (at least for Ozone). That’s at least a little better. I also found a pretty scary PACE FAQ on how one plugin can deny you the use of using your computer system thanks to PACE. This is way above and beyond copy protection. It’s holding the customer hostage. Just like XP keeping my wife from being able to work on our computer for a whole day. If there was an alternative, XP would be off my computer in a heartbeat! But Linux just doesn’t have the application base.

So I’m with ya on this one. I despise pirated software because it robs the developer of their income, but copy protection isn’t the answer. I know some will argue that it’s a small price to pay but I disagree when I’m loosing productivity. We need a better solution because all it amounts to now is lost time and hassle for the paying customer. So buy Prosoniq. ;-)

~jr

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: David_Kuznicki

Date:4/8/2004 1:24:22 PM

I find myself on the other side of the arguement-- I understand that companies need to take whatever stopgap measures are available to protect their property. However...

I have never, EVER heard anything good about PACE, and would avoid buying anything protected with it. There are far too many horror stories for me to give PACE a chance.

David.

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:4/8/2004 1:45:48 PM

> I understand that companies need to take whatever stopgap measures are available to protect their property.

Oh I understand too. Hey, I lock my front door. Not because it would keep a burglar out but it keeps people from just walking in. But the measures have to fit the situation. I’d bet if I put an electric fence around my property the neighbors might complain about if frying a few of their pets. (gives a whole new meaning to the word hotdog) How far is too far? I think we all agree PACE is too far.

I can tolerate Sony’s copy protection scheme because it hasn’t failed yet, even when I had to reinstall XP 3 times in a week on my PC before I got it stabilized, Vegas activated each and every time. But the day it doesn’t activate on a Friday evening, and I have to wait until Monday morning to use Vegas means I lost a whole weekend of editing. I think the Sony protection has a grace period so it would still work until Monday when I could call to reactivate my key. I think that’s reasonable.

So I think companies should take reasonable methods to protect their products and give the user the benefit of the doubt like Sony does in letting the software work for a while until you can contact the company.

This does not address what happens when the company goes out of business however. In that case, copy protection that requires activation just doesn’t work.

~jr

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: MacMoney

Date:4/8/2004 6:00:20 PM

I understand how you feel.
But I run about 20-30 different plugins and apps on five different systems that use Pace with no problems.
Including Izotope and Sony Oxford all on my iLoks.
How many of you have had problems with Pace? If so what happen?
Please don't get me wrong I'm not Pro-Pace.
I had a guy come in to track and bitched a hour away about Pace and when I looked at his system he had shit loads of cracks including (Waves) and one legal (Auto-Tune3) and he was pissed because Auto-Tune didn't work!

George Ware

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: PAW

Date:4/9/2004 12:31:08 AM

I have a problem with pace in Vegas. if my PAL project is set to progressive and I render a progressive file I choose custom settings and the video tab..

Boom the blue halt creen and the error has occured in tpkd.sys (pace file).

You may have helped me here because I have just ipgraded Ozone to 3.03 DX/VST

I thought it was a Vegas issue but perhaps it is linked to this change as I have never seen it before.

Other than this issue my system is rock solid.

Regards, Paul

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: billybk

Date:4/9/2004 4:39:41 AM

"Boom the blue halt creen and the error has occured in tpkd.sys (pace file).

You may have helped me here because I have just ipgraded Ozone to 3.03 DX/VST"

If you installed the VST/RTAS versions, in addition to the DX, the PACE install will occur as well. According, to iZoptope, if you just install the DX update, you will avoid being PACE'd, for the time being. I am sure the next major point DX release (4.0?), will also have PACE :(

Here is a great PACE FAQ with steps on how to properly get rid of it. Just uninstalling and re-booting will not rid PACE from your system. It needs to be manually detected & deleted:

http://www.pfarrell.com/prc/pace.html

Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: MacMoney

Date:4/9/2004 5:43:28 AM

Thanks billybk

George Ware

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: pwppch

Date:4/9/2004 8:07:17 AM

This is a PACE issue. Vegas cannot cause a blue screen, only a driver or service can cause this.

Peter

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: PAW

Date:4/9/2004 8:26:25 AM

Thanks Peter,

I upgraded to the latest PACE drivers and it still occurs.

I think I will deinstall ozone VST and just use DX and see if ti still happens.

Regards, Paul

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: billybk

Date:4/9/2004 10:01:23 AM

Paul,
Be sure to follow the procedure outlined in the PACE FAQ link from my previous post. Simply un-installing the software will not get rid of the PACE driver. It needs to be manually deleted by the user. FWIW, a SONAR user just posted a reply, on the SONAR forum, from iZotope support, indicating they are now exploring other alternatives and would have an official statement later in the week. It looks like iZotope may have come to their senses after all :) We can all hope!

Billy Buck

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: StyleSupportMIDI

Date:4/9/2004 11:08:31 AM

Billy Buck
I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to post your link and give you credit at some other forums.

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: RikTheRik

Date:4/9/2004 2:37:27 PM

What about writing to PACE tech support ?
Wouldn't you be doing that with any other application ?

Erik.

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: jtxx000

Date:4/11/2004 9:52:17 AM

The guys at izotope aren't stupid, I don't think they're going to have PACE for long.

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: PAW

Date:4/20/2004 11:10:17 AM

I changed Ozone to the directx only version and no more blue halt screens

:-)

Paul

Subject:RE: Kill PACE - iZotope

Reply by: jtxx000

Date:4/20/2004 2:35:25 PM

From the iZotope site---

As requested by our Pro Tools users, the Pro Tools versions of iZotope plug-ins will support iLok authorization, and the DirectX and VST versions of iZotope plug-ins will employ no Pace or iLok authorization.

The Pace iLok drivers will only be installed if the Pro Tools versions of the plug-ins are installed. If the user selects to install the Pro Tools versions but Pro Tools is not installed, the installer will warn about the installation of Pace iLok drivers. Note that all Pro Tools users already have Pace drivers installed on their system, since Pro Tools installs the drivers, many systems ship with iLoks, and the majority of Pro Tools plug-ins support iLok authorization.