another food for thought.

image line's (special) sell policy is based on lifetime updates and upgrades for free,i personally like this very much but that's just me.

if changing the policy could harm their business it is very unlikely that the judgment would apply to them unless the eu want to kill business.


(and eu law is not belgium law

A few things:

1) IL on their own forums acknowledged the ruling, but haven't as of yet (to my knowledge) come up with an official response as to how to handle transfers. The court stated quite clearly that vendors cannot oppose the transfer of licenses. I've not seen any posts by IL saying that they believe the EULA takes precedence over law. That would be a strange one, because it would mean you could write contracts that permit you to do illegal things because "the contract takes precedence". Just because the contract you have with a hitman says it's OK to kill someone doesn't make murder suddenly legal. It's also why contracts always include a severability clause (salvatorius) - the bit that says "If a provision of this Agreement is or becomes illegal, invalid or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, this shall not affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision of this agreement."

2) Belgium is most definitely subject to EU law. What tends to happen is that there are EU guidelines, which lay down certain minimum guidelines that must be implemented into local law. The member states are free to go above and beyond the guidelines, but must adhere to at least the guidelines. If the EU says, for example, that a warranty must be for at least 2 years (it's something similar, I'm not about to google it for you), Denmark can say that the warranty period is 5 years and Germany can say 3. The UK can say 2. But Finland can't say 1. So the member states' laws don't need to be identical, but a certain base line applies to them all. Countries that contravene the guidelines get taken to court. Belgium obviously is part of the EU and thus subject to "EU law". The ECJ is the highest court in Europe and its rulings are EU-wide. I don't know where you're from, but basically it's a bit like the US - different states can have their own policies, but their policies may not conflict with federal law. If the supreme court says something is not OK, that also applies to the individual states. You can't say "US law is not Texan law", because Texas is part of the US, and federal law trumps state law (the Bill of Rights, for example, applies nation-wide). At least, that's how I understand it as a non-US citizen (so usual caveats apply).

3) Support contracts (such as the lifetime upgrades) are not necessarily transferable according to the ruling. Most IL posts seem to suggest that lifetime upgrades are not/will not be transferable. Seeing as they haven't yet implemented a transfer policy, they've essentially shot themselves in the foot on this one, as they can't really know at the moment that licenses have been transferred (unless you explicitly tell them) because they've refused to involve themselves in the process. That's why Ben wrote what he did in the marketplace sticky.

4) England is not a member state of the EU. The UK is though.

FL Studio gives buyers free upgrades for life. If Image-line won't allow support to a second hand customer, will the second hand customer be eligible for free upgrades? I just don't think it's worth buying second hand. It's cheap enough new, and you're guaranteed of the free upgrades.

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honestly, what does IL update besides FL Studio itself? how much of those "lifetime updates" are users really getting?

terms and conditions apply.....
read them before you buy

Exactly.. i mean that's true tbh

how can their eula outweigh the EU high court? are you joking?

I have to ask.. are you a personal friend to image line or a shareholder with vested interest? Or are you a lawyer?

This animosity towards the consumer and elation towards IL is quite bewildering otherwise.

You have flat out said in a post that selling an image account is ILLEGAL.

illegal is a strong word, but in my understanding on the flip side, it is their own EULA which is the illegal part to begin with.

you are to aggressive,sorry.
all this can be discussed friendly.

No. Terms and conditions DON'T apply when they're against the law.
Which in the case of IL (and others opposing transfers) they are.
"Read before you try to participate in discussions."


If the 1st hand license included support, then so does the 2nd hand license.
A license type or the coverage of a license doesn't change, just because someone else is granted ownership.

In my case, I bought FL Studio as a boxed product "back in the days" when boxed FL products came WITHOUT the lifetime free upgrades. I then explicitly bought a license to get access to the lifetime free updates part. These are two separate licenses.

I recently sold my IL account with both these licenses in it. If IL decide to annull/revoke the lifetime free upgrades license as a sanction because the account was transfered - that would be perfect material for a lawsuit against IL.


Beside the point. As long as all version upgrades and bugfix updates are covered for free, the promise is kept. Not worth a discussion.

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I don't see too much aggression in his posts.
Just answer the questions.
Please.

EDIT:


Sorry, but... the law is a little more than a mere opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EULA






http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endbenutzer-Lizenzvertrag