I am very surprised.

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robotmonkey wrote:
Also, even though I'm sure there are a lot of dumb users who contact support with questions like "where's my VST plugin folder" and such, I think that there are not much reasons why people would contact support at all. If I think back all those years I have used music software, absolutely 100% of the cases where I have had to contact devs have been related to issues with copy protection. I have had to ask new hardware keys, beg for re-activations, license transfers, or there have been cases where the CP mechanism itself has been buggy. But I can not remember a single time where I have had issues with core functionality of any music software in a such way that it has made me contact support.
Me too.. never have asked for actual bug support one time that i can remember EXCEPT for IK, and publicly here at KVR.. I usually have zero contact with dev after purchase. because i have demoed product and make sure it works on my machine prior to purchase (usually)..

Plus, i actually feel the fine folk at KVR do the job for most devs when it comes to issues. Problems usually get answered by other users here very very fast. The community is helping one another. I'd take that route for speed over contacting the dev any day as preference.

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TheoM wrote:I think you are mistaken re selling from the US. if the customer himself is in the EU then that makes no difference where they bought it from. However it makes a difference for the rest of the world, of course.
Look, if the point of sale is not within the EU, the rulings and laws within the EU have no effect.

If I download and buy from a US company with US servers and US payment processors, I can throw all sorts of EU laws at them, they have no effect. The same is true when I buy a product from a European company from, say, audioMIDI. In that case only US laws apply, no matter what.

Otoh if an Australian buys a download product from an EU retailer - EU laws most certainly apply, no matter what laws and regulations you have in Australia. Technically you *import* that license/product.
TheoM wrote:What do you mean about the "these licenses may not be transferrable at all by this court ruling".. do you mean stuff that uses C/R? Is that allowed to block the buyer from getting a response code?
What I mean is, the court ruling only applies to single user / single computer licenses. It does not apply to licenses that can be used on multiple computers and multiple users. So, if a license grants you to install and use the software on two or more machines, you're pretty safe to assume that the software vendor is not obliged to transfer your licenses by any EU law.

(actually, some comments suggest otherwise)

- Urs
Last edited by Urs on Sun Feb 17, 2013 11:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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michi_mak wrote:
quincy wrote:...
The point is, as I think someone above has said, that to expect an infinite lifetime of support for any number of users for the single initial product cost is just not a viable business model for most companies doing this professionally...
so you take the same approach that every user selling his license keeps it running???
nobody denies that there are crooks exploiting a transfer but what about the others ( the honest ones ) - why punish them ???
'Occupy Fraud' is the napster, 'I'm cool, therefore it's free' lifestyle.
The number of honest people is plummetting like a lead duck,
while governments choke and divert the worlds private sector wealth,
away from those who earned it, to fund their own golden parachutes.

If a devs flagship software is cracked, or used by a buddy-plan
of deadbeat owners, sales die, and action must be taken, no easy solution will suffice. Money is lost, lifestyle sacrifices are made. Happiness circles the drain.

The honest people always fund the thieves, paying higher prices,
forced into buying mandatory insurance, profit margins lost
to funding runaway bureacrat salaries and benefits.

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So why then did Andy from Cytomic, an Australian company, just recently tell me that licenses are exported when sold?

(To be fair, he also wrote that he's not entirely sure about what that means when it comes to resales.)

Doesn't the "export" part overrule the "point of sale" completely?
Because if the point of sale is more important than where the customer exports the license to - why then, for example, are OEM licenses of Windows legal in Germany but not in the UK or the US?

If someone living in the US bought a System Builder (OEM) version of Windows from a German online shop, the point of sale would be Germany. And sales of these licenses is legal in Germany, which would make the sale legal - so why then does KVR promote otherwise in a sticky thread at the forum's Market Place?
I don't work here, I just feed the trolls.
My sales thread @ Market Place
My website with lots of free stuff:
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One thing to notice is that the EU sentence included as a basis various international laws and treaties.

So I believe all this is still pretty much on diapers, it would take a while and some cases around the world to settle some international standard. Hopes it is soon, this introduces a lot of uncertainity for buyers and developers.
dedication to flying

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Urs wrote:
TheoM wrote:I think you are mistaken re selling from the US. if the customer himself is in the EU then that makes no difference where they bought it from. However it makes a difference for the rest of the world, of course.
Look, if the point of sale is not within the EU, the rulings and laws within the EU have no effect.

If I download and buy from a US company with US servers and US payment processors, I can throw all sorts of EU laws at them, they have no effect. The same is true when I buy a product from a European company from, say, audioMIDI. In that case only US laws apply, no matter what.

Otoh if an Australian buys a download product from an EU retailer - EU laws most certainly apply, no matter what laws and regulations you have in Australia. Technically you *import* that license/product.
TheoM wrote:What do you mean about the "these licenses may not be transferrable at all by this court ruling".. do you mean stuff that uses C/R? Is that allowed to block the buyer from getting a response code?
What I mean is, the court ruling only applies to single user / single computer licenses. It does not apply to licenses that can be used on multiple computers and multiple users. So, if a license grants you to install and use the software on two or more machines, you're pretty safe to assume that the software vendor is not obliged to transfer your licenses by any EU law.

(actually, some comments suggest otherwise)

- Urs
I think you'll find you really need to check the first part out, as many different sources told me if the company is based in USA or even antarctica it doesn't matter, if they sell to an EU citizen then that companies EULA does not apply to the EU customer. However, it is going to be interesting to finally see the results of all this in the long run.

Cheers..

p.s thanks God for reasonable devs like you.. 9 months, no fee, and no NFR, and you make a living. I don't see how it can't work if handled properly.

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chokehold wrote:So why then did Andy from Cytomic, an Australian company, just recently tell me that licenses are exported when sold?

(To be fair, he also wrote that he's not entirely sure about what that means when it comes to resales.)

Doesn't the "export" part overrule the "point of sale" completely?
Because if the point of sale is more important than where the customer exports the license to - why then, for example, are OEM licenses of Windows legal in Germany but not in the UK or the US?

If someone living in the US bought a System Builder (OEM) version of Windows from a German online shop, the point of sale would be Germany. And sales of these licenses is legal in Germany, which would make the sale legal - so why then does KVR promote otherwise in a sticky thread at the forum's Market Place?

Andy told me even though he living in UK his business is 100% Australian one.

FWIW he recently started allowing transfers again for a 15% fee.

It's going to go up to 20% after he implements C/R.

Cheers,

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Indeed, what matters is that all buyers are within the EU. It applies to non-EU companies as well if they sell their stuff to customers in the EU. If they don't have subsidiaries in Europe, they probably can decide to no longer offer support. But the US company cannot prevent the EU citizen from selling off their licenses to another EU citizen.

Also, it does not matter if a license may be installed on one or more computers. What matters is if the originial customer buys a certain number of licenses as a package, say. 50 licenses, which is often the case with professional software from companies such as Oracle. In that case the customer, usually a company, may not sell those 50 licenses to 50 individual buyers, but only as a package of 50 licenses to one buyer.

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TheoM wrote:
mutools wrote:
michi_mak wrote:BUT i WILL NEVER ACCEPT being called a thief a priori!!!
Who did call you so? If you think i did (i did not) then please quote the part of my post that made you think i did so we can cleanup the confusion.
what you said mr mutools was a clear general judgement on your behalf that most users of your software who sell it would keep it and use it. Instead of going with the theory that they just might not want to use your stuff anymore for whatever reason, and want some money back for it. (case in example, Cytomic, i deleted the glue from my machine the day i sold it)
I have not read the whole thread yet. This is how far I have got.

I saw somebody mentioned services. At work we have various software that we have to subscribe too to use it. No subscription and the software stops working. This means annual fees. I still have Cubase VST5 and it still works on my system. I have Fruity Loops 3 and it still works on my system. Go the subscription route and I will have to buy a new computer every so often because to use the subscription software I would have to use the latest incarnation which may only work with the latest hardware.

I do not have an answer to the transfer question but the above subscription system will make me spend more ££££. I do not think that I would want to have all my software on a subscription basis.

I will continue reading this interesting thread.

Have fun

Mark

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TheoM wrote:Andy ... living in UK
I could have sworn he lived in Perth. Learn something something new every day.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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michi_mak wrote:i don't blame this *us for demanding respect - i just don't understand why some devs can live with granting transfers and others refuse to grant transfers although both "kinds" of devs have the same issues with piracy ...
and moreover i can't understand why some consumers insist on NOT having granted rights...
of course you can't understand that; its a straw man.
you're reducing a large set of cases, each with a vast range of different circumstances and factors involved in their profitability and success, reducing the scope of your argument to one single common factor, then trying to extrapolate a predictable 'result' from that single factor.

the profitability and success of a business isnt inextricably and only related to their response to piracy, there are countless other factors. and you dont have any realistic information on how successful or profitable any of those businesses are in the first place to make a comparison of that.

why would you think you could understand something that you have no data for and has no logical foundation?

You might as well be complaining that you can't understand what kind of music people called fred will like.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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