Im a fan of ableton live and plan to buy it one day but..

[sorath]

Im scared about their licensing and not having to be able to De-activate a license. You need to beg for your license privileges to be re-activate your product. I kind of understand why the limit and all that. I just don't want to lose a 500 dollar which is Canadian for live 9 standard edition. To be just cast aside with no way to re-activate the license on a different computer in case of :A I sell it, B: there is a problem with the computer and needs to be changed. I think a lot of people might have this fear. I have no problem in paying the price for a live license. Just want it to last as long as possible. As of yet I'm not a live standard user. But would like to purchase it one day. And just am afraid of having to purchase the same version again cause the license was lost. So far ableton live costumer support has been good to me. But I don't know how good it will be when I get my standard license. I read some bad things about licensing issues with people that bought their license and didn't get a second chance. I'm hoping the live crew will read this and at least acknowledge my fears. I don't have a big budget for making music so my choices are pretty slim. Anyways just wanted to say I enjoy ableton live and hopefully these fears of licensing will be addressed in the future or recently.

Thanks

[Tarekith]

You have nothing to worry about, Ableton is EXTREMELY generous and easy going about getting you sorted with authorizations. Usually within a day or two if not faster.

[McAnix]

No need to worry about that at all. Ableton support will sort you out in no time if you have any problems.

Not sure where you heard about these license issues, never heard of that happening with Live, my experience with Live is the opposite. I once had to return a Push bundle (came with an extra copy of Suite). Long story short my original license was deactivated but was reactivated immediately after emailing them and I got my new Push, at no extra cost of course.

I've also transferred licenses for 2 friends and had no problems at all.

[chrk]

So far ableton live costumer support has been good to me. But I don't know how good it will be when I get my standard license.

I gather you're now licensed to either Live Lite or Intro, what do you think might change once you've upgraded? The authorization mechanisms are just the same.

I read some bad things about licensing issues with people that bought their license and didn't get a second chance.

Of course you to get read only their side of the story. Maybe they have done something stupid like trying to run three out of the two allowed installations or other violations of the license. Or they've run into a problem over a weekend or German/Berlin public holliday, complained in some or other forum and never reported back after they'd been sorted out the next workday.

Personally I'd be more afraid of running into problems with Pace/iLok or Steinberg's eLicenser, where shipment of the dongle and reportedly unresponsive support is involved. A lost or stolen iLok, for example, is a guarantee for ALL the licenses on the device being lost, because neither Pace nor the software vendors will revoke those licenses and restore them to you. And the loss may easily add up to a couple of thousands $/€/£/¥.

[timday]

I've had extra unlocks due to laptop upgrades/having to reinstall OS/my own stupidity. There has *never* been a problem getting an extra unlock. Even on a Sunday on one occasion.

[102455]

What they said. Just do it!

[Nokatus]

If you don't do anything shady with your license, there will be absolutely no problems with this, Ableton handles these things extremely well. And with shady I mean something really stupid like installing it on a friend's system, or clearly using it on too many systems yourself.

Through the years, I've had licenses for Live 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and now 10, and have gone through system updates and HD crashes and all such usual stuff that happens in such a long time period. Ableton has always responded very fast, to the point, and never left me hanging.

[H20nly]

+ 1 for them taking care of it quickly. i was terrified the first time it happened to me. they gave me 0 (zero) grief about it and took care of it in short order. you pretty much just wait for a reply to the email.