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Just now, ATP said:

Steam will never require an internet check if you set it to remember login details. You can even move the install to a different computer and it'll still work.

Perhaps they changed it, but I never got it to work for me (as I found out when on holiday with no internet and it wouldn't start any of my games... which might have filled the time we couldn't spend watching netflix). The general point about the Affinity implementation being fairly light stands though, even if I don't particularly like it.

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5 hours ago, beeka said:

CS3 is fifteen years old and you still seem to be bitter about it: are you saying that if you can't install Affinity V2 in 2037 after spending £90 today that you will feel hard done by?

I paid good money for CS3 and I can no longer use it. It was not my daily driver nowadays, but check my previous posts, I had to use a software from CS3 which is NOT available in Creative Cloud. If I ever need a software that I bought and the company shuts it down without workarounds  for licence owners I will be bitter about it. I say workaround because Im good with computers, make a registry edit or move files is nothing for me, but plenty of people would prefer an offline activation and not a written how to guide.

I dont think it is smart to think online or offline (hell, even always online like Denuvo for games) activation will protect any software for long time. Im 100% agains piracy but in my case with Adobe CS3 I have strange feelings. Years ago I made a financial decision to pay a LOT of money to own a licence. Today I feel like if I would have pirated it 1) that money would be in my pocket 2) the pirated copy would still work because it does not need activation.

Again please DO NOT pirate software!

Also please make a promise as a company, when V3 launch and V2 is no longer sold in any stores, you make it work 100% offline. We dont want to stuck with V2 if you provide major upgrades, but I still might need to use V2 if I have a project in it... I dont care about backward compatibility, if you only adding features to files (need to store data in that file) the file size will just keep growing, at some point you will be cutting "unnecesary" data from that file which may or may not ruin it for backward compatibility...

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10 hours ago, dcr said:

It doesn't even have to be a major calamity.  Imagine the Internet is down for a week or weekend (power outage due to weather, cable severed by hapless construction crews, etc.) and you still need to complete a project.  If you have the software installed on a desktop but now need it on a laptop because it has a battery and the desktop doesn't, you wouldn't be able to activate the software to use it.

Yes, this!

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9 hours ago, beeka said:

I prefer the previous key-based activation, and imagine the new approach won't stop the protection being cracked for very long, but it does feel like people are making more of this than is needed. CS3 is fifteen years old and you still seem to be bitter about it: are you saying that if you can't install Affinity V2 in 2037 after spending £90 today that you will feel hard done by?

CS3 is perfectly usable so why should it be taken away? The value doesn't matter, we bought a perpetual license so we should get perpetual access. Software shouldn't be different than hardware, imagine if Samsung or whoever makes your fridge wouldn't allow you to install it in a new house because their service guy won't let it unlock once moved as that model isn't serviced anymore. It's obscene.

It's the reason I'd never use my iPad for anything long term cause I know Apple will take away my ability to use it some day as they've already done multiple times.

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9 hours ago, Peccavi said:

I paid good money for CS3 and I can no longer use it.

Ditto.  Well, some I can still use but others I cannot.

This thread has gotten me thinking about Right to Repair laws (or proposed laws) and that maybe such laws should be extended to software and not just hardware so that, for example, if software requires activation and the company no longer provides a means to activate it, it would be legal for those with a license to use the software to create/use/share methods/patches to re-activate it and continue using it.

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22 hours ago, Fred5738 said:

I wouldn't mind to pay more for a version with offline activation.

I was thinking last night that maybe they could offer platform specific releases (as they did for V1) with offline serial number activation (as they did with V1).  May not work for iPad, but should work for Mac and Windows.  And offer these at the same price as the Universal License versions.  The difference is that you'd have to buy a copy for each platform if you use Mac and Windows.  If not, you just buy for the platform you need.

Alternatively, maybe it could be an add-on where you have to buy V2 with the Universal License, but for $xx more per platform desired, you would also get access to non-activation versions.  And maybe you can't buy and/or download the add-on until you're past the refund period on the UL versions so that you don't have people trying to use this as a way of getting the software for free.

Bottom line is that, yes, I'd be willing to pay a little more for the assurance that years and years from now, I would still be able to activate and run the program(s) should the need arise (and I had a functional machine capable of running it).

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Another reason for offline activation for Publisher especially is that you can't export a Publisher file to a format that can be opened and edited in anything else.  That's less of a problem so long as you can open and use Publisher to open the file but if, at some point in the future, you become unable to re-active Publisher, then your files are stuck.  And, if say, Publisher V5 drops the ability to open V2 files, you're stuck even if you have Publisher V5.

And, even if you can export to another file format, sometimes you forget, especially if something was a work-in-progress and you got sidetracked into other things and, before you know it, ten years have passed and now you can't open the file again.

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  • 2 months later...

I've owned and used Photo v1 for many years now.

When I purchased the upgrade to v2 and discovered that it now requires online license activation I uninstalled it and had the purchase refunded.

I've been down this road with multiple software companies over the years.  Never ends well, and I'm getting off this train before it goes off the rails.

Software piracy has been a horrible mess for the last 40 years.  I have seen a multitude of schemes that tried to prevent it come and go.  What they all had in common was that they failed to prevent piracy and they negatively impacted the legitimate paying customers.

The question is: How many additional copies will you sell because of this online activation vs how many paying customers will walk away because of it?

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16 hours ago, Tom_v1 said:

The question is: How many additional copies will you sell because of this online activation vs how many paying customers will walk away because of it?

Piracy prevention is not the primary purpose of the registration.

The primary purpose is for purchases made on one store/OS to create a licence the software download from another store, turning it from a trial to a perpetual license.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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On 2/3/2023 at 11:20 AM, Tom_v1 said:

I've been down this road with multiple software companies over the years.  Never ends well, and I'm getting off this train before it goes off the rails.

Software piracy has been a horrible mess for the last 40 years.  I have seen a multitude of schemes that tried to prevent it come and go.  What they all had in common was that they failed to prevent piracy and they negatively impacted the legitimate paying customers.

I know how you feel.  I have no intention of being Adobe'd a second time.  No subscription and no Internet activation is why I switched to Affinity v1 in the first place.

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  • 2 weeks later...
5 hours ago, Seon Jae, Jeon said:

I feel bad because I can't use it even though I bought a new product.

If you purchased directly from Serif, within the past 14 days, you can email affinityreturns@serif.com to return the product for a refund.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 3 months later...
On 2/4/2023 at 4:13 AM, Patrick Connor said:

Piracy prevention is not the primary purpose of the registration.

The primary purpose is for purchases made on one store/OS to create a licence the software download from another store, turning it from a trial to a perpetual license.

I just received the email notifying me that v2.1 is now available, and stopped by here to see if anything had changed on the activation front.  It appears not.

I didn't buy my license from the Microsoft Store.  I don't care if your licensing scheme is compatible with the Microsoft Store, the Apple Store or any other hardware vendor's "store".

This is the same path that Adobe travelled: 1. You can buy a perpetual license for Photoshop.  2. You can buy a perpetual license for Photoshop, but that license requires online activation.  3. Photoshop is only available on a subscription.  And that old "perpetual" license?  Well, we shut down the activation servers, so your "perpetual" license only continues so long as your current hardware and operating system install continue to function.

I purchased Affinity Photo specifically because I wanted to get off the Adobe Creative Cloud merry-go-round.  I was constantly being force-updated to new builds that introduced unpredictable new bugs.  And I still have a couple of Photoshop projects that were created in CS4 that cannot be opened in the Creative Cloud versions.  Fortunately, I still have a working CS4 install, so I can open those files.

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Offline activation from my days using a PowerPC Mac.

A floppy disc which was needed to write a file to the hard drive and occasionally needed to be inserted and read from.

A CD-Rom which needed to be (sometimes only occasionally) in the CD drive when starting the application. 

These were in conjunction with the serial number from inside the sealed package purchased from an actual honest to gosh bricks and mortar store. Which usually didn't have the software I wanted.

And don't get me started on updates being distributed on physical discs which were included in Computer Magazines which may not be carried by your local stores.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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On 2/4/2023 at 10:13 AM, Patrick Connor said:

Piracy prevention is not the primary purpose of the registration.

The primary purpose is for purchases made on one store/OS to create a licence the software download from another store, turning it from a trial to a perpetual license.

It's pretty awesome that the staff is listening and discussing here. I'm wondering. Could this not be solved by a way to add your license to your affinity account after purchasing. And when you have it registered in you account you get a serial and  you could use the this serial for any activation?

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At least Serif is not Ableton, at least not yet. 
 

After spending my teenage years learning how to use Ableton Live with… ehm… shared copies of their program, one of the first things I bought with my first paychecks was the, at the time, brand new Ableton Live 9 Suite and an Ableton Push 2, which is a MIDI interface/instrument that REQUIRES Ableton Live to work. 

Everything was all laughter and rainbows until I activated the software and I saw a pop-up saying something like "Congratulations for activating Ableton Live! You can use this license: 2 more times." And I was like: OK? I might have no issues since this thing is probably linked to my hardware ID.

Oh boy, it wasn’t. I format my PC every 6 months or after shipping a big project. It’s therapeutic for me, but Ableton isn’t too fond of formatting  

The software that cost me $449 which was necessary to use the physical instrument, was no longer usable, and by extension, neither the instrument. I went back to having no license in less than a year. And yeah, Ableton might just help you with a new code after a nice, intrusive interview and a friendly warning that you shouldn’t format again if you want to keep using their software. Guess who went back to the shady old websites. 🥷

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was able to discover that by making a copy of your v2 directory, you can restore activation to all your programs.

You could then copy that folder to another one of your computers (if it has the same OS), and activate the affinity suite offline 😀

Keep in mind, you have to have already purchased the affinity programs, and activated them on the OS of your choice.

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Have you actually tested this? Cause I'm certain the V2 activation process ties the activation to your specific computer (probably checks hardware, OS version). I don't believe this is enough, it will not guarantee that V2 will usable in 10-20 years. People still use PSP versions from 20+ years ago, I'd like to believe the same could be possible with Affinity (Not that I'm planing to stay on V2 when future versions release 😀).

Proper support for offline activation is still needed, but I understand if it isn't an urgent thing for Serif to change.

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11 hours ago, SoCuul said:

I was able to discover that by making a copy of your v2 directory, you can restore activation to all your programs.

You could then copy that folder to another one of your computers (if it has the same OS), and activate the affinity suite offline 😀

As ATP asked, have you tested this by actually moving it to another computer?

And, did you do this on a Mac or Windows PC?

 

2 hours ago, ATP said:

Cause I'm certain the V2 activation process ties the activation to your specific computer (probably checks hardware, OS version).

That's how Adobe does it.  At least as far as hardware.  I don't think it went by OS version.  At least CS3 didn't.  If I remember right, when I upgraded from Mac OS X 10.4.x to Mac OS 10.6.x, I didn't have any problems with the Adobe activations.  When the logic board had to be replaced, then I had to reactivate them.  (And some I didn't reactivate because I forgot they weren't part of the Creative Suite and required separate activations so I effectively lost those apps.)  So, logic board for sure.  RAM?  No idea.  Hard drive?  No idea.

I don't know how Affinity does theirs.  I thought the reasoning behind requiring Internet activation now was the iPad apps.  If that's the case, their activation scheme might not be as restrictive as Adobe's.  Still, some confirmation either way would be appreciated.

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At the moment, I have not tried to move it to another computer. I'm still discovering the inner-workings of the activation system, so I haven't had much time to test my theories on other computers.

So far, I've been doing all my tests on a Mac running macOS Ventura.

I monitored some of the external requests, and the system seems much less complex than for example Adobe's. But I'm sure there's a lot I've yet to find.

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  • 5 months later...

Has there been any further discussion on this topic within Serif? I'm planning to gift two universal licenses to my parents for Christmas, but if offline activation stays as a business exclusive feature, I might just buy them the licenses as a business user instead.

It'd be most optimal with offline licensing for personal individuals though... then they could manage their account themselves, and we'd all be sure of never losing access to V2.

Would some compromise work? Like having to email the sales team as an extra step for the offline license? I understand from earlier comments that the activation isn't meant to be intrusive or act as DRM, but at some point in the future it will become that, an obstacle for honest customers.

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9 hours ago, ATP said:

Has there been any further discussion on this topic within Serif?

The position has not changed on online activation since 2 was launched. You only need to be online one time to activate and then never again.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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12 hours ago, ATP said:

I'm planning to gift two universal licenses to my parents for Christmas,

If you purchase individual licenses, they will be tied to your email address and Affinity Store account. You can't really gift licenses any more; they need to be purchased by the person receiving the license.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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