iLok – Software License Management

Some audio software companies, in order to run their software on your machine, require you to download and store your license on a special USB device (a physical iLok) that holds you licenses, and if you don’t have this USB device plugged into your computer, the software won’t run.

The good news is that these days, instead of needing the actual USB device, lots of companies allow you to have an online iLok account which takes the place of the physical device.

I have many different plugins that require an iLok account and thankfully all of them don’t require the physical device. All I need to do is register the plugin on my machine using my iLok account, and then the plugin is essentially “registered” with my machine so I don’t need the physical device.

And many plugin companies don’t use iLok at all, like Waves, Fabfilter, iZotope, etc.

From the iLok website:

How does it work and why do I need one?

The iLok is a special USB device that holds your licenses for iLok-enabled software. Software publishers use the iLok to provide secure protection for their software. When you run their iLok-enabled software, it looks for the software license on your attached iLok.

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