KVR Audio

Mushy Mushy · Post by **Mushy Mushy** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:42 am

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/printview ... 929&page=1

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:16 pm

Yeah, a credit card isn't exactly the same thing. You do get monthly payments but if for some reason you are dissatisfied you can't just cut your losses (like my dad did when I decided I didn't want to play sax any longer when I was 12). If I could it would cost the developer for whatever time I used the plugin. With a rental the developer would still have whatever rental payments you had made, so it wouldn't be like they suffer so much from a 'return'. You could even get metrics for how many people actually bought after renting, which could help you understand to a degree user satisfaction of the plugin.

I like this better than the idea of 'software as a service' where you continually would have to make some regular payments, I like to own the license outright, but have some flexibility on how I get them. I don't want this just for financial reasons, I think it might be good for developers and good for users both. Maybe some third party could 'host' a service like this, where they handle all the rentals or various cooperating developers. Reason's rack system seems like it would be a good platform for this sort of thing actually. Of course that 30 day demo period is pretty sweet by itself, but I know that even in 30 days I may not know if I'm willing to shell out a couple bills for a certain product yet, especially if I haven't had the time to really get into it. And if someone only needed a $200 synth for 2 months of work on some project they could just pay $50 or whatever.

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 7:08 pm

The way this sort of thing is handled for the professional engineering and scientific software licenses that I use is either with an annual license fee and a dongle that is possibly accessible using a network or an annual maintenance fee that buys continual support and upgrades.

For example, programs like Matlab (and its various toolbox plugins), Tecplot, Image Pro Plus, Intel Parallel Studio XE, and IMSL have annual maintenance fees. I can use whatever license I own now, but the maintenance fee buys access to continued upgrades and excellent online and phone support as needed. Optical ray tracing programs like TracePro and LightTools have an annual license fee that includes the upgrades and support, but AFAIK access to the program goes away if we don't pay the license renewal fee. Both of these programs have dongles, but they reside on our laboratory IT servers (multiple user, network licenses). In all of these cases there is an initial charge to buy into the license; since they are specialized codes the original fee and annual maintenance fee is very large. The various mechanical and electrical engineering CAD/CAM packages of which I am aware work similarly.

I would not mind the annual maintenance fee at all for audio software. However it is a model that would probably not work for everyone. Also it would probably cut back on my stable of software to just the ones that I really use frequently. I am not sure whether this would ultimately be good for the health of the audio software development community. In the end though it really is up to the market. Someone has to try the model and succeed in order for it to be adopted by others.

Jake Jackson · Post by **Jake Jackson** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:44 pm

Well, instead of a dongle or licensing arrangement, developers could offer versions with different lives at staggered prices: a version that worked for a week before going dead would be one price. A version lasting a month would be more expensive, etc, with a full version that never expired costing the full price.

rifftrax · Post by **rifftrax** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:13 am

I'd be so down with paying $20 a month to rent a bad-ass piece of software until I owned it. Hell yeah. I can't afford big lump-sum shit but you bet you're ass I can budget for an extra $20 a month! I think it'd be legit if I could just setup an automatic payment every month to a developer that would then email me a timed key that would "enable" the plugin for another month! That'd be awesome! Then once I've paid the full amount it would just send a permanent enable key that I could use to authorize the full software indefinitely.

Show me a dev that does that and i'll show you money put down immediately for software that looks good.

If I could do that and get omnisphere or mach3 (+ whatever amount they want to charge for the actual physical discs, booklet and shipping) I'd plunk down cash in an instant.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:44 am

they already have that. it's called a savings account.

you just have to remember this all amounts to "here developers, i've got a great idea! you see all you need to do is all this work i know nothing about and i assume is trivial because heck, i don't need to care about that shit. once that's done, you give me the same product you're now selling for a fixed price at a much lower price. what say ye!"

you can tell this is a good idea because, well, a guy with a hat like that couldn't be wrong.

risome · Post by **risome** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 4:36 am

I find VST/Au quite cheap compared to hardware hell my Akai S1000 cost me $5000 now it sits in my studio silent.developers would have to write alot of code to implement this idea , not worth it in my opinion.Demo the stuff , if your not sure in a couple of days i think you will know if you want it or not
Cheers

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:16 am

I don't want to see developers have to waste time with this whole elaborate scheme cause people cannot manage to save their money.

braj · Post by **braj** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:31 am

pdxindy wrote:I don't want to see developers have to waste time with this whole elaborate scheme cause people cannot manage to save their money.

I know, neither do I. That's why I mentioned reason as a good example of how it could be implemented, it would need some sort of infrastructure and something like Reason's store could easily implement that sort of option without ever having the developers have to manage it. But I do think you are missing my point, it isn't necessarily because you can't save money, maybe you don't need some relatively expensive kit like Omnisphere for example except for a couple weeks or months, if you could rent it, use it for a project, and save $300 by not buying it outright it would give the end user more options. Or you could rent it to try it out and if it doesn't work out 'return it' without owning the whole cost. Anyhow, I didn't say it was a great idea, just something I would welcome if done well

braj · Post by **braj** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:32 am

Trumpet makers aren't the ones that rent the trumpets, it is the music store that does. Again, Reason racks is the sort of system I am imagining.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:53 am

systems like that, you know, "app stores" just appear miraculously of course complete with their C&R copy protection schemes.

my experience has shown this: if faced with a choice between offering an affordable product to a user who doesn't want to pay the full price and saying "up yours", the typical developer will say "up yours".

rifftrax · Post by **rifftrax** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:50 am

aciddose wrote: you just have to remember this all amounts to "here developers, i've got a great idea! you see all you need to do is all this work i know nothing about and i assume is trivial because heck, i don't need to care about that shit. once that's done, you give me the same product you're now selling for a fixed price at a much lower price. what say ye!"

Well, gee it's sure a good thing that you know everything about everything. I guess every sensical thing in existence has already been done and has aciddose's seal of approval or simply will never change. Good thing the universe is so static and unvarying or else it might prove you're totally full of shit.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 6:55 am

do you have a point? you managed to say a whole lot about how you don't like the point i made, but you were so worked up you forgot to make your own.

do you have any idea what the implications of such a rental system would have on the naics classification for the corporation or the liabilities involved? it may all be a wee bit more complex than you might assume.

in the end what is the developer going to get out of it? they get a steady revenue stream perhaps, but what if the buyer decides to end the contract at an arbitrary point? with a full sale that couldn't have happened.

would you rather make a full sale at some point in the future, or start making part of a sale now?

it seems to me in many cases, especially for audio software or other very low cost products this would be a bad decision long term.

a good decision would be a support contract including upgrades, although the complexities exist for that too at least you're going to be supplementing your usual income with a stream of revenue and providing not just a product but a service - something that isn't influenced by piracy for example.

braj · Post by **braj** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 7:04 am

I have just learned it is better to just ignore certain people. 'mute' is my friend, I don't even read some people's posts. 'Dont feed the trolls.'

jonahs · Post by **jonahs** » Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:12 am

The biggest problem with rentals is tech support. More users isn't always a good thing, especially because new users often need the most assistance.

The other problem is that with a lot of plugins you are paying for the samples and presets and if anybody can spend $20 to get access to them at anytime I'm sure a lot of people would compose with cheap or free tools and then record with the good stuff .

But as I said in the other thread, a cloud based rental/sane demo service run by a third party would be interesting.

I want a rent-to-own option for softsynths :)