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Most versions of Cubase use dongles for copy protection, which allow license transfer between host machines, although current OEM variants use software based protection. The Atari versions of Cubase used the cartridge port for this purpose, while Parallel port dongles were used up until Cubase VST5.1 on the PC and Mac.

Cubase SX V1.0 introduced the use of cross-platform USB dongles combined with a system of code encryption licensed from Syncrosoft.


The Syncrosoft protection process allows software developers to insert what are known as 'Dongle Calls' in the software to enable the program to check the dongle and the relevant license is in place before the user can use various functions. In Cubase SX1.0 the employment of dongle calls was limited to the movement of MIDI notes in the Key Editor. Users of cracked copies of SX1.0 could be identified when they complained of a bug when they moved these MIDI notes.


The dongle calls, however, were applied to many more functions with the release of Cubase SX2.0 including re-routing audio channels, inserting/removing plugins, changing ASIO buffer size and many other functions regarding the Audio Engine. Many users began to complain about the program being unresponsive as after initiating these functions as they had to wait some time before the program was released back to them. This 'lockup' increased exponentially in proportion to the size and complexity of the project. On windows systems when Cubase is temporarily locked up due to the copy protection system, clicking in the GUI could cause a phenomenon known as WWNRS (White Window Not Responding Syndrome). Basically random windows would lose their contents, go white and the Windows taskbar and titlebar will show 'Not Responding'.


Further the original USB Dongles (supplied with SX1.0) which were physically longer than the newer versions were shown by a user to take longer to process the copy protection code and thus cause the program to be even more unresponsive. Subsequently Steinberg placed a page on their site explaining this for the benefit of the users.