NFR - but why?!

[martinjuenke]

It‘s psychology

So for some people plugins are drugs, but for others they are tools?

[enCiphered]

Audio plugins are tools. We need and buy those tools to make money, to make a living out of music.
I don´t collect plugins, I work with them and I should have the right to resell them if I have to. Whatever the reason might be (doesn´t get updated, don´t need it anymore..)
A licence transfer fee is more than fair and I will always support devs who allow resale.

[evilantal]

Long story short.... EU legislation requires software developers to offer license transfers when they sell to EU customers.
Simply putting restrictive stuff in an EULA doesn't make it binding. Law overrules any EULA.

Whether developers choose to comply is another matter entirely...

The thing is, would you bring it to court, risk a lot of work, effort and money, or do you just comply to the EULA, and buy responsibly ("responsibly" meaning responsible to yourself).

You know, i know a lot of people who will always tell you "Go to court, go to court!" while they never do. Simply because it's not worth it, in 99,9 % of cases.

Indeed.
That's what makes it difficult to enforce.

[chk071]

Long story short.... EU legislation requires software developers to offer license transfers when they sell to EU customers.
Simply putting restrictive stuff in an EULA doesn't make it binding. Law overrules any EULA.

Whether developers choose to comply is another matter entirely...

The thing is, would you bring it to court, risk a lot of work, effort and money, or do you just comply to the EULA, and buy responsibly ("responsibly" meaning responsible to yourself).

You know, i know a lot of people who will always tell you "Go to court, go to court!" while they never do. Simply because it's not worth it, in 99,9 % of cases.

Indeed.
That's what makes it difficult to enforce.

It's a question whether you'd want to enforce in this case anyway. Small market, loads of one-man, or a handful of people businesses. I just don't see the point. I have a couple of plugins i don't even have installed, which are NFR per EULA, and just catch dust in the virtual wasteland. Frankly, i don't even think a discussion like this would have surfaced back in the days, when people had stuff to do, and didn't bother about non-resellable goods all day. Sort of a first world issue.

[Vertion]

If someone sells their own computer (and dongles), then would that show that nothing software is NFR?

[BONES]

Maybe up until the point that the buyer wanted an upgrade or needed support.

@Bones Wonderful. Enjoy your crappy bull shit world.

It's called the real world and it's the one we all live in, as opposed to an idealised world where everyone else has to make sacrifices so your life can be perfect. If you can't put aside your sense of entitlement long enough to see that a developer has the same right as you and everyone else to make a living from his hard work, then it's you who has a problem.

It would actually be really interesting to see someone go with the same kind of tiered strategy that airlines use. e.g. If someone offered a price of say $50 for a non-transferable license, $65 for a license you can transfer once and $75 for a license that can be freely on-sold as many times as you like. I wonder what the mix of sales would be?

Audio plugins are tools. We need and buy those tools to make money, to make a living out of music.

So you see you have a right to earn a living but a plugin developer should go broke to facilitate that for you? We're talking tiny amounts of money here.

I don´t collect plugins, I work with them and I should have the right to resell them if I have to. Whatever the reason might be (doesn´t get updated, don´t need it anymore..)

This confirms that you have an incredibly self-centred view of the world. What about a developer's right to earn a living? Why do your rights take precedence over his?

[BONES]

There are several reasons I've never even thought about selling plugins I no longer need or use:

• 1 .Because of the pathetic sums of money involved, I don't see how it is worth the effort. When I sell a piece of hardware I'm done with, I invariably lose a helluva lot more money than I lose by keeping a plugin I no longer need.
  
  2. Because even if I no longer need something, I can always see that I have more than got my money's worth from it, so I don't feel that I need to recoup anything by reselling it.
  
  3. Because I'm not an a-hole with a sense of entitlement completely out of step with reality. Even if it was something I realised was a poor choice, it would be my poor choice and I'd take it on the chin. I sure as hell wouldn't expect someone else to lose a sale because I was an idiot.

I have given away a software license - someone wanted ReFX Junox after it had been discontinued and I'd found better things to replace it so I organised to have it transferred. It didn't cost anyone a sale, wots-is-face from ReFX was OK with it and there was no way the other party could have bought it anywhere else. I probably could have charged a premium for it but I was just happy that it would get some use, so I gave it away. Why? Because it's not all about me.

[ShawnG]

This seems to have gone from a question of why companies don't allow transfer, to somehow an assertion that you are an entitled a-hole for selling anything, whether approved or not...

A lot of the cases of companies not allowing resale generally have to do with other decisions the company had made about how it conducts business, for example Cakewalk didn't allow transfer, but also did not have any real method of copy protection (you know, the other thing people complain about here) Image Line does not allow transfer, but they have similar minimal levels of copy protection and in addition have free lifetime updates. It's not necessarily piracy in the bit torrent sense they are worried about (these are among the most pirated programs in existence anyway) but the simple real likelihood that someone would buy the software, sell it, and then carry on using it anyway, which WOULD happen. a lot.

Companies that have a decent method of ensuring that a transferred license is actually transferred, and not just propagated, generally allow transfer in one form or another, and if they do, no one should be made to feel like an a-hole for doing it. Companies make money from this in the form of transfer fees, or simply in the fact that the new owner is likely to buy the next update/upgrade, and the original owner is not. I don't buy and sell a ton, but I have on occasion, and I have both scored nice deals on software, and have been able to offload some stuff that I don't use. The ability and likelihood of me reselling something has played in to my decision to purchase product (or not) that I might not have otherwise.

Not to mention that NI allowing resale allows me to purchase products in between Komplete releases, and then sell them when the next Komplete rolls around, putting that money into the new bundle. If that was not there, NI's sales might dry up in the 18 month between bundle period....

[Michael L]

This seems to have gone from a question of why companies don't allow transfer, to somehow an assertion that you are an entitled a-hole for

demanding that companies allow transfer. When customers don't look at both sides they can appear entitled (e.g. it's all about them).

[ShawnG]

This seems to have gone from a question of why companies don't allow transfer, to somehow an assertion that you are an entitled a-hole for

demanding that companies allow transfer. When customers don't look at both sides they can appear entitled (e.g. they are so special, their own mistakes must be fixed by others).

No, the poster above me stated that among the reasons he never even thought of selling a plugin, was because he wasn't an entitled a-hole. Might not have been YOUR point, but the point was raised.

And besides, anyone is entitled to demand whatever they wish, they aren't entitled to have everyone agree with them, or have the discussion work out the way they want, or to not be called an a-hole for doing it, but people are entitled to bitch if they want.

[Michael L]

^^^ I don't think that's true. You are implying there should be no rules, but this whole thread is about rules and how one rule affects another.

[ShawnG]

Where did I imply there should be no rules?

[Michael L]

Where did I imply there should be no rules?

anyone is entitled to demand whatever they wish... people are entitled to bitch if they want.

I also interpret that as meaning no one needs to consider the other side. Unfortunately, no companies with NFR policies are in this thread....

[Big Tick]

Long story short.... EU legislation requires software developers to offer license transfers when they sell to EU customers.
Simply putting restrictive stuff in an EULA doesn't make it binding. Law overrules any EULA.

Whether developers choose to comply is another matter entirely...

That doesn't mean that the new license owner is entitled to license transfer.

I allow license transfers, but the new license becomes NFR. The new user gets the software usually at a lower price, but loses the privilege of license transfer. It seems fair to me...

Also note, no matter what system is in place, some users will abuse it. I had the same guy buy and resell the same software 8 times over the course of 6 months....

[wagtunes]

@Bones

The crappy bull shit world I was referring to, that you conveniently left out, had nothing to do with license transfers but in buying something that in all reality isn't really yours at all. As soon as the company goes out of business and your software still needs to be validated, if a reinstall is needed, your screwed. This has nothing to do with license transfers or a company's right to make money. If a company goes out of business, they obviously don't give a crap about making money anymore. I should still be able to use their software and not have to pray that my PC never crashes and that I never have to reinstall it. That's the bull shit I'm talking about. Years ago, you bought software, this was not a problem. You could reinstall it as many times as you needed even if the company went under.

But you conveniently left all this out in your condescending response to me calling me an entitled a-hole.