It's a good question and no, generally speaking the background software in itself is causing me no hassle.
It's partly a principle thing, because Crow Hill should be open about the software and the process.
It's also partly a principle thing because as mentioned, if I'm going to be running their licensing software, then they can ensure it only works for legal owners - so they can in theory offer licence transfers, but don't.
I'm guessing, but I may have spent £10-15k on Spitfire products in the last 4 years and can't sell any of them. A few of their libs I didn't like from the start, a few I have found other products to replace over time, but I can't sell anything I've bought from Spitfire. The hardware in my room/studio also costs about £15k and I have sold synths and other hardware when they fall out of use. I could probably sell all my hardware for about £10-12k. While frustrating, I understand the policy of no licence transfers on software with no proper licencing (ie, Spitfire), but it should be available on any products using a licensing system. As far as I'm aware just about every dev using ilok (that I use) offers licence transfers so I can sell their software on if no longer needed.
And it's partly actual hassle. This software is using system resources when I'm not even running a DAW, let alone using Small String Gestures. SSG isn't going to get that much use, but the program will be running constantly. It's not a check on startup thing, it's an always on thing. I checked for other programs running and I also have something from Native instruments. I have no idea what that's doing, but I have dozens and dozens of Kontact libs so at least that is related to a lot of libs. I also have a Steinberg licensing prog running, which I guess is letting me run Cubase without a dongle, so that's the entire DAW and worth it to me. And then I have iLok, which I have dozens and dozens of plugins running off, and they pretty much all allow me to sell my licence, and were all up-front about requiring iLok to run, unlike Crow Hill.
And finally, what if every plugin/sample dev had their own licensing software and we had hundreds of these things running in the background? I'd rather know before I install and try to keep to plugins which use the same licensing where possible to minimise the amount running in the background.
I'm not trying to spread discontent about this. The people who don't care are quite right to not care and I've personally never cared about iLok for the reasons given above. I'm posting here because I saw a forum post mentioning CodeMeter and found that just as I'd found it on my system.
TLDR: If Crow Hill are going to use CodeMeter, they should offer licence transfers and should at the very least be open about it's use on the product page.
