What are the rules around using plugins and instruments on multiple computers?

danthehitman

Hi, I am new to music making and I have just started getting into it with the kids. I am about to pull the trigger on Komplete 14 Ultimate during the sale but it occurred to me that I may have issues with using this as a family. I cant afford to buy 3 licenses even at the $600 sale price, but I dont want to buy it and only be able to use it myself. I have desktop and two laptops that we use in different ways around the house. One is by the electric piano and we use the midi to compose there, one is in my office where I do most of the learning and work on "finishing" pieces, and one is at our new mini studio area where we have some studio monitors, midi controller, mixing board, etc... Anyway, my question is, will we be able to use plugins and instruments at all three of these stations with 1 license? Are there rules around running the same plugin on different computers at the same time? If so, are they per plugin or across the entire suite of products? Most things so far have been flexible enough (Ableton Suite and other plugins) but this is a bigger purchase than most outside of Ableton so it makes me a little nervous without knowing the rules. Thanks in advance for your help.

Monochrome

NI's EULA explicitly states:

"3.3 Licensee may install and personally use the licensed software on three devices (e.g. one computer, one laptop, one workstation), provided that the said software is used only on one device regularly. Simultaneous use on more than one hardware device is not permitted. The Products may not be used on a network by multiple users, unless each user possesses a license."

JesterMgee

Should be fine on 3 devices in a home environment. NI aren't about to track you down because you use it on a few machines for private use in your5 own home. I have KK installed on 2 PCs and my macbook and use them all the time, have done for years without issue and often I have things open on 2 machines.

The EULA guidelines are mostly to dissuade larger organizations and production houses that can afford to carry multiple licenses from over-extending the leniency. As @Monochrome said, you will be hard pressed to find anything else that allows such a large amount of content to be used on more than 1 or 2 machines period.

LostInFoundation

You can install them on 3 computers. There are some rules about using them simultaneously (I mean exactly at the same time), but it’s doable

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/209559469-On-How-Many-Computers-Can-I-Activate-My-Native-Instruments-Product-

Monochrome

NI's EULA explicitly states:

"3.3 Licensee may install and personally use the licensed software on three devices (e.g. one computer, one laptop, one workstation), provided that the said software is used only on one device regularly. Simultaneous use on more than one hardware device is not permitted. The Products may not be used on a network by multiple users, unless each user possesses a license."

danthehitman

Ok, it sounds like maybe I need to look elsewhere then. Thank you.

Monochrome

I'm afraid you may be out of luck finding better conditions elsewhere. This "you can install our software on X devices, but you aren't allowed to use it on multiple devices simultaneously" is pretty much standard practice in this field.

Ableton does it, Arturia does it, Waves does it, ... the list could go on.

JesterMgee

Should be fine on 3 devices in a home environment. NI aren't about to track you down because you use it on a few machines for private use in your5 own home. I have KK installed on 2 PCs and my macbook and use them all the time, have done for years without issue and often I have things open on 2 machines.

The EULA guidelines are mostly to dissuade larger organizations and production houses that can afford to carry multiple licenses from over-extending the leniency. As @Monochrome said, you will be hard pressed to find anything else that allows such a large amount of content to be used on more than 1 or 2 machines period.

danthehitman

Thank you @JesterMgee. That is what I was looking for. I know I won’t find a EULA that says “use it wherever you want”, but sometimes the software limits the number of usages at a time so that it’s not even possible, and if that was the case I wanted to know if it was per plugin or for the entire suite. It sounds like it’s not so that’s what I needed to know. Thank you for the response.

JesterMgee

No problem, yep works fine as I have 2 machines with KK running at the moment so it doesn’t check how many are active, just limits the number of machines you can activate on to 3 which is generous enough I think.

schnubbi

Hi guys, a small addition to the above question. A friend and I have been working together a lot for a few months and are planning to start a very small commercial context. Now we have picked up some plugins. We both have a separate NI account and sometimes we use his or my plugins in a common project on the same PC. Now I have the following questions:

• If I understand it right, then it is not allowed for me to use his plugins in my project and vise versa but rather in shared projects right?
• Or is it also forbidden to use it in shared projects, and I have to buy his songs or something else?
• Do we have to mark our songs as a project we created together or how we can fulfill the EULA conditions?
• It is also often the case that I use the Komplete Kontrol and he uses the MASCHINE plugin, is there a way to split these licenses?

Thanks in advance for the answers.