Tobias Rosenberger

http://vvvv.org/blog/wanted-dongle-testers

while i am a big fan of sharing and open source, i really think that sometimes it would be really great to have such as possibility for max patches as well! Please!

dongle-for-patches

I am not a fan of open source --- I'm quite happy to pay for good products that improve my own work --- people are entitled to be compensated for their efforts if they so choose. However, as a performing musician, there is absolutely no way I will get up on stage with a system that has the potential to fail due to a poor copy protection scheme.

In particular, regarding dongles (from a blog entry I wrote once) - "And no, don’t bother to suggest dongles (iLok or whatever) as options. Those are just as bad. They can break, get lost, they take up valuable USB ports and/or you have to schlep around with a USB hub which sometimes doesn’t even work properly with dongles."

I've talked to quite a few well known musicians on this topic --- none of them will use dongles. Interestingly, some of the more well known musicians have been able to persuade vendors to create special builds that don't require a dongle or indeed any other copy protection.

I am not a fan of open source --- I'm quite happy to pay for good products that improve my own work --- people are entitled to be compensated for their efforts if they so choose. However, as a performing musician, there is absolutely no way I will get up on stage with a system that has the potential to fail due to a poor copy protection scheme. 

I've talked to quite a few well known musicians on this topic --- none of them will use dongles. Interestingly, some of the more well known musicians have been able to persuade vendors to create special builds that don't require a dongle or indeed any other copy protection.


Some people hate dongles, some love 'em. C74 has probably provided the best solution (if you're going to have copy protection): you get to choose your poison.

But to the question at hand: is there any point at all in copy-protecting a Max patch? People have been trying to protect patchers for decades. Literally. But at the end of the day, the patcher contains a plain-text description of the patch in a well-defined location. Read and savor that.

No matter how much you CP your patch, there's always going to be the text description of it, sitting there, waiting for someone to Copy-Paste it into a text file saved with the .maxpat suffix.

The only way to effectively copy-protect your patch is by encapsulating some essential processing in an external written in C, and include some copy-protection code in there, as well. It can be done, but it's not a rose garden.

If you're willing to pay, you have options:

Mac and Windows copy-protection for any .exe and .app (not just Max apps) = $495 ($295 for one or the other by itself)

Windows Max apps need the Max 5 encryptor add-on: $150

I've been in touch with the company and they claim all is well for Max 6 apps too.

If and when I build something I want to sell, this is what I'm planning to use. I haven't tried it as of now, but knowing a special module was designed specifically to encrypt Max apps is encouraging. You can also use their service to automate licensing and payment for your apps. And of course it can be used for other .exe files, like Unity apps, Flash standalones, etc.

I imagine there are other options as well, but the peculiarity of Max is the openness of the .mxf. So whatever option you use, there needs to be a way to encrypt at least that part, then you need the copy-protect for the overall app.

Mac and Windows copy-protection for any .exe and .app (not just Max apps) = $495 ($295 for one or the other by itself)
Windows Max apps need the Max 5 encryptor add-on: $150
Mac Max apps do not need the encryptor

I imagine there are other options as well, but the peculiarity of Max is the openness of the .mxf. So whatever option you use, there needs to be a way to encrypt at least that part, then you need the copy-protect for the overall app.


You may want to clarify with Excel Software whether their encryption for Windows now allows your app to run from the the applications folder. When I used their CP, this was an issue. It's quite a while ago and I don't remember all the details, but it turned out to be a critical issue for the project I was working on.

If you're looking at any CP system, I would recommend asking for a sample protected application to test, over and above demos of the CP workflow (also important, but you see lots of the latter; not so much of the former).

You may want to clarify with Excel Software whether their encryption for Windows now allows your app to run from the the applications folder. When I used their CP, this was an issue. It's quite a while ago and I don't remember all the details, but it turned out to be a critical issue for the project I was working on. 

If you're looking at any CP system, I would recommend asking for a sample protected application to test, over and above demos of the CP workflow (also important, but you see lots of the latter; not so much of the former).


Dongle is a big deal breaker. I've never used one, and never will, for both practical and philosophical reasons.

This kind of thing always bums me out though. Imagine how much better everything would be if people put their creative/engineering energies towards producing something amazing, rather than protecting people from it. But that's a whole other can-o-worms.

AppProtect and QuickLicense now support MAX 7 or earlier, can encrypt your source and apply computer specific activation (online or offline) with various license types. Both also support USB dongle protection when used with MakeDongle. Your application can be delivered as a single EXE or APP with your own icon that runs from any disk location on the customer computer. Visit www.excelsoftware.com.

AppProtect and QuickLicense now support MAX 7 or earlier, can encrypt your source and apply computer specific activation (online or offline) with various license types.  Both also support USB dongle protection when used with MakeDongle.  Your application can be delivered as a single EXE or APP with your own icon that runs from any disk location on the customer computer.  Visit www.excelsoftware.com.


Hi, I am also looking for an offline license protection feature for app builded fro max, and a dongle would do exactly what I want. I am building sound processors with embedded computers, but I want to prenvent the users to be able to copy paste the app to another computer. Does anyone has a compiled object to recognize and validate dongles ?

For online license validation, I rely on some url requests with an online server, but as the processors are running on shows with no connection, I want to provide a way to authorize the software offline.

If you don't have the abillity to implement this by yourself, how could you build an app that is worth being dongle protected? No offense

In the words of Arthur Hailey,  "Mistrust the obvious!"

Someone can be an expert in developing an application and still not be knowledgeable about license protection - a whole area by itself.

I see similar comments made about websites --- somehow there's an assumption that if a website is not very good, then the application being presented must not be very good (and vice versa).

But an application designer may be useless at graphics and layout and/or know very little or nothing about HTML, CSS, web frameworks, etc., and/or not have the time to learn it.

 an already compiled object, to then take it to lock down the application to prevent loosing income because someone is 

the application. I've just noticed this attitude too often in people who ask about CP. My apologies if that's not the case here.

I don’t see the problem. Many developers share code to help other developers….if someone is 

That said, it still has nothing to do with the ability to write high quality applications. Heck, we sell a application and we totally depend on third party tools for licensing. Does that mean our application couldn’t possibly be high quality?

Clearly, I am not a developper and have no skill to code in C an external for that purpose. And that is exactly why I use Max / MSP to build audio applications and not JUCE. You can check it here: 

, and it is free. I am curious about people facing the same problem, and I already know that some max/MSP based softwares are protected by dongles, but got no answer from their developpers. Of course if someone have a solution, I does not mean that it would be free !

Uhm, if it is free, why do you need to protect it?

unless one has  some part of it coded in custom

external, library or framework that needs deeper knowledge than just taking max patch

apart to remove any need for authorisation.

cracked versions pop up all over the space.

Why would you expect a dongle to offer any

apart from a bunch of opinions one could have about this and that, to my knowledge there is no dongle protection available atm which can work completely offline.

if you for some reason want to pay a fee for "protecting" your free app, choose ilok, since that stuff at least works and many users are used to it i.e. already own such a dongle.

dongle for patches