Selling VST2 after October 2018: Steinberg agreement

[SampleScience]

From the JUCE forums:

Concerning the VST2 License, we will include it again for last time into the next update of the VST3 SDK coming very soon.
If you are not sure that you have signed or not the license, it will be the last change to do it. This concerns plugins or host developers/companies.
You have to fill it, sign it and send it back to Steinberg, we will send you it back again signed by us (for VST2 until October 1th 2018).

Source: https://forum.juce.com/t/steinberg-clos ... d/27722/42

It seems that if you haven't signed with Steinberg you won't be able to sell VST2 plugins after October 2018.

By doing this, Steinberg is trying to force devs to switch to VST3 even some popular DAWs doesn't support it at all (Ableton Live, Renoise).

I know that there's already a thread about the end of VST2. But I think it's important for devs to know that they won't be able to sell VST2 after October 2018 if they haven't signed the agreement with Steinberg (unless I'm missing something).

[Aleksey Vaneev]

This is not quite correct. E.g. I use VST2 SDK from 2006, at that time I had a license to use it which had no explicit expiration time. Steinberg simply can't force anyone to stop using older SDKs, as it was a done deal at the time. The new rules may apply to latest SDK version, but who cares about it... They can stop supporting VST2 plugins in their hosts if they have balls to do it.

[budweiser]

Gosh. They'd better put some gargantuous new feature on the table when they'll stop supporting vst 2 in cubase !

[SampleScience]

This is not quite correct. E.g. I use VST2 SDK from 2006, at that time I had a license to use it which had no explicit expiration time. Steinberg simply can't force anyone to stop using older SDKs, as it was a done deal at the time. The new rules may apply to latest SDK version, but who cares about it... They can stop supporting VST2 plugins in their hosts if they have balls to do it.

I hope you are correct. Personally, I'm going to sign and send both VST2 and VST3 agreement just to make sure I don't get in trouble. Steinberg closed 300 open source projects, which shows that they are serious about getting rid of VST2. If they took the time to shut those 300 open source projects, I wouldn't be surprised that they'd took the time to send cease and desist emails to 300 indie devs. As crazy as it would be.

[quikquak]

Remember kids, more code == better software...

[No_Use]

Steinberg closed 300 open source projects, which shows that they are serious about getting rid of VST2. If they took the time to shut those 300 open source projects, I wouldn't be surprised that they'd took the time to send cease and desist emails to 300 indie devs.

Do you have a source (no pun intended) / link for this for further reading ?
Googling for "Steinberg closed 300 open source projects" yields your post at the top and then nothing related (afaics).

[EvilDragon]

It's not like googling that would have turned any results, it wasn't in the news.


But recently, they shut down Ctrlr, for example...

[cnt]

It's not like googling that would have turned any results, it wasn't in the news.


But recently, they shut down Ctrlr, for example...

No they didnt? ctrlr seems up and running...
http://ctrlr.org/

[No_Use]

But meanwhile they removed the VST SDK which was the cause of the DMCA take down (as I gather).

https://github.com/RomanKubiak/ctrlr

edit:
Found the take down list
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/mas ... einberg.md

I hope this all helps popularizing LV2 (or some other non-proprietary plugin standard).

[SampleScience]

I hope this all helps popularizing LV2 (or some other non-proprietary plugin standard).

I hope too! I got the information about the 300 closedowns of open source projects via the link in my post (the JUCE forum thread) and also via the Flowstone and Synthedit Facebook groups.

[pottering]

I think people can just use a "publisher" that has a license to release their VST 2.4 plugins.

Some people could fill out that form solely for that, to front for others (freeware devs, for example).

[Aleksey Vaneev]

But meanwhile they removed the VST SDK which was the cause of the DMCA take down (as I gather).

https://github.com/RomanKubiak/ctrlr

edit:
Found the take down list
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/mas ... einberg.md

I hope this all helps popularizing LV2 (or some other non-proprietary plugin standard).

That's understandable, because VST2 SDK was never allowed to be redistributed. LV2 is a mess in my book, not much enthusiasm to learn it.

[signalsmith]

By doing this, Steinberg is trying to force devs to switch to VST3 even some popular DAWs doesn't support it at all (Ableton Live, Renoise).

Has anyone had good/bad experiences with the VST 2.4 wrapper that's part of the VST3 SDK?

Steinberg surely understands that not all DAWs support VST3s, but they'd clearly much rather you programmed things as VST3 and then released 2.4 versions using the compatibility wrapper. If that works, it does make sense in terms of taking advantage of new VST3 features while still having a graceful fallback for other DAWs.

The docs make it seem like you can just add it as an extra build target, and get a different version of the same effect (same as AU/AAX/etc.), but I haven't tried it myself yet.

[S0lo]

"October 1th"

[S0lo]

I am 100% sure that the SDK version we are using (2013) does not have that signable license agreement inside it. Can some lawyer here or some one well versed in that matter confirm to us that Steinberg can not force us to sign their new agreement as long as we are using those old versions of the SDK?