ToneBoosters: New License Transfer Policy

[GaryG]

Yes, we'd have the KVR armchair lawyer team (which is apparently always on retainer)

classic.

[Nightpolymath]

Just because the plugin is only worth 20€ doesn't mean that Jeroen's time is worth 0€.

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(Let's see how many reply layers the board software supports )

+101,999,890

[ere2learn]

Just because the plugin is only worth 20€ doesn't mean that Jeroen's time is worth 0€.

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(Let's see how many reply layers the board software supports )

+101,999,890

+101,999,891

[original flipper]

But, you can't win - if the developer stated no transfers due to low price point there would probably be disgruntled folk as well.

this is a false dichotomy. having either no transfer policy or having transfer cost 50% of the plugin price aren't the only options. which was already brought up in this thread, with examples of developers charging similar prices for plugins, but charging less for transfers.

Unfortunately I think you have the false 'dichotomy' ....as you call it!

I don't think you read my posting in full (and understood what was being said) before you responded - I was writing from the perspective of why a dev might not want to get involved in resales - NOT what options he/she may put in place to supplicate those wishing to sell the product...

[JJ_Jettflow]

Yes, we'd have the KVR armchair lawyer team (which is apparently always on retainer) decrying Toneboosters blatant disregard of the EU ruling that no one can ever seem to accurately explain.

Put me in the camp if "it's just $22." Second hand sales for it probably went around here for $12 or so. At first it appears that all this griping is about that $10 differential. So, under the new policy, you sell it second hand for $15 and give Toneboosters $10. In the end, you get $5 back instead of getting $12 under the old policy. That's $7 difference. All of this critique is over the ability to re-sell incredibly good but cheap plugins under a policy that has the potential to cause you to loose the equivalent of the cost of a value meal at McDonald's.

Baffling.

However, what I do hear every so often around KVR is this. Someone tries to sell them second hand for $15 (because of the fee). A poster pipes in with "why not just support the developer directly since it's only $7 more?" And Toneboosters potentially gets another sale.

TL; DR version: 7 is the key. 7 dwarves. 7-11. You know, 7!

I'm baffled too.

I did a search in Marketplace for "Toneboosters" and came back 54 hits going back to 2012. Out of those hits, about 9 were for sales. Yet the same search over the same period for "SKnote" was 170 hits with about 24 of them being sales.


So I'm baffled because the whole premise of Toneboosters increasing the license transfer fee to 50% is because all the 2nd hand sales were hurting his company. What second hand sales? Over 3 years only 9 sales? That is about 1 every 4 months. There are a few other places around that re-sell software but since I only visit Marketplace, that is what I am going on.

Then I get even more baffled because here is Sknote with about 3 times as many sales on KVR yet he charges nothing for his LTs and offers a 7 day money-back guarantee. He even promotes his the re-sales in his KVR support forum.

I'm stumped.

[Aubrey Lamont]

I don't see a problem here. If I'm Jeroen, I probably do the same thing.

[murnau]

I don't see a problem here. If I'm Jeroen, I probably do the same thing.

Very important info. Thanx for letting us now.

[jsp1979]

I did a search in Marketplace for "Toneboosters" and came back 54 hits going back to 2012. Out of those hits, about 9 were for sales. Yet the same search over the same period for "SKnote" was 170 hits with about 24 of them being sales.

Ah..but these numbers may not give the right picture. Marketplace threads (unlike threads in other forums) are deleted after a certain length of time and so they aren't searchable after that point. So, many such sales of both companies products are gone from the record. Plus, when many sell their items, they delete all the info and write "Sold" or delete items when they sell. Those won't show up in a search. The Feedback thread is somewhat useful but that's an (unknown) fraction of the actual number of sales. It's hard to draw any conclusions on the Marketplace thread count.

So I'm baffled because the whole premise of Toneboosters increasing the license transfer fee to 50% is because all the 2nd hand sales were hurting his company.

I'm not aware that Toneboostes has confirmed that. It's a reasonable guess, but no one here knows why he changed it.

Then I get even more baffled because here is Sknote with about 3 times as many sales on KVR yet he charges nothing for his LTs and offers a 7 day money-back guarantee. He even promotes his the re-sales in his KVR support forum.

I'm stumped.

Let's take a look at SKNote in particular. You've likely seen lots of sales because the guy behind SKNote went on an tirade deleting threads in his forum and inexplicably insulting a number of users. So, that's one potential reason for the spike in sales over the past six months.

On top of that, SKNote makes hardware units and likely makes most of his living from the sale of the hardware units. Toneboosters (to my knowledge) has no such hardware revenue.

Here's the bottom line though for me: I don't understand why people are so hung up on the percentage, when the total dollar amount is surely what matters most. If I buy Predator from Rob Papen and then sell it second-hand, I'm likely to loose about 50% or more of what I paid for it by this transaction. He charges no fee, but I'm out roughly $80 by selling it second hand.

If I buy Tooneboosters' bundle for $22 and sell it second hand with the fee, then the most I could possibly loose is $22. That dollar amount is much more important than the associated percentage of the fee.

Toneboosters' products are essentially being punished here (so to speak) because their initial prices are so low for what you get. People seem to be indicating that if they'd had higher prices all along that this wouldn't be such a big deal.

[Skorpius]

I did a search in Marketplace for "Toneboosters" and came back 54 hits going back to 2012. Out of those hits, about 9 were for sales.

This figure is definitely misleading. I remember that in late 2013 (or was it in early 2014?), all previous threads in the Market Place were deleted because of a major technical change in the site structure. Thus, there's no possibility to assess the real number of sales ads relating to ToneBoosters during the last few years.

[murnau]

Every thread in Market Place without activity for a minimum of 30 days got deleted.

[JJ_Jettflow]

Ah..but these numbers may not give the right picture. Marketplace threads (unlike threads in other forums) are deleted after a certain length of time and so they aren't searchable after that point. So, many such sales of both companies products are gone from the record. Plus, when many sell their items, they delete all the info and write "Sold" or delete items when they sell. Those won't show up in a search. The Feedback thread is somewhat useful but that's an (unknown) fraction of the actual number of sales. It's hard to draw any conclusions on the Marketplace thread count.

I mentioned in my post that this was only taken from Marketplace and that there were other places that did software re-selling but I only used what I found on KVR. My intentions was to come up with a reasonable reason for such a dramatic rise in price. If indeed there had been a serious number of sales then that would have seen a good reason for such a move. Regardless, there are other ways to curb over re-selling without technically castrating any chance of a re-sale.

I'm not aware that Toneboostes has confirmed that. It's a reasonable guess, but no one here knows why he changed it.

There has been no word from TB on this move and it is pretty much a given that it was done because it was either interfering with his coding time or the re-sales were draining resources. Even so, again there more customer-friendly ways of to implement it.

Let's take a look at SKNote in particular. You've likely seen lots of sales because the guy behind SKNote went on an tirade deleting threads in his forum and inexplicably insulting a number of users. So, that's one potential reason for the spike in sales over the past six months.

On top of that, SKNote makes hardware units and likely makes most of his living from the sale of the hardware units. Toneboosters (to my knowledge) has no such hardware revenue.

Here's the bottom line though for me: I don't understand why people are so hung up on the percentage, when the total dollar amount is surely what matters most. If I buy Predator from Rob Papen and then sell it second-hand, I'm likely to loose about 50% or more of what I paid for it by this transaction. He charges no fee, but I'm out roughly $80 by selling it second hand.

If I buy Tooneboosters' bundle for $22 and sell it second hand with the fee, then the most I could possibly loose is $22. That dollar amount is much more important than the associated percentage of the fee.

Toneboosters' products are essentially being punished here (so to speak) because their initial prices are so low for what you get. People seem to be indicating that if they'd had higher prices all along that this wouldn't be such a big deal.

When I sell a product, I sell it because it is not working for me. That can be either because it not the right tool for the job or the fact I lack the audio engineering ability and experience to get the right results from these products...most likely the latter.


I used Sknote because the software price was $10 more average from Toneboosters but you got the advantage of a 7-day money back guarantee and a a free LT. To the best of my knowledge, this has been offered before he began making hardware, but I am not 100% certain. But we do not have to look only at SKnote. Many other companies are dealing with license transfers in a fair manner, many of which I have mentioned here on numerous time through this thread. Acustica Audio, U-he, Sonimus are just a few off the top of my head.

I am not concerned out the cost at all. What I am concerned is that his actions make re-selling his software almost impossible and the fact that other devs will adopt the same attitude. First it will be TB, then every dev, small and big, who is suffering from poor sales is going to jump on the band wagon and try to boost sales by upping the cost of an LT. I exaggerated with my example Spectrasonics charging $400 for and LT for Omnisphere but in reality, why not? There is nothing really to stop them right? The EU ruling only said they had to provide a method for the consumer to transfer the licence, they did not set a limit to the cost, at least not to my knowledge of it.

And the sad fact of it is the license transfers are probably the least of the problem for TB and others right now. A mixture of economic instability and a glutted software market is making it very difficult for the guys to make sales and for customers to buy. There has been a downturn in sales even on Marketplace. A year or two ago, things sold in days...now weeks.

The competition is fierce and devs need to be clever marketers as well. Say you are looking for a compressor but you do not have any money? Go to Klanghelm and get his free comp and love it. Then when you get money, are you going to go buy DC8 or are you going to go to toneboosters? Yes, TB has unending demos but that attraction for something free (and several at Klanghelm) that you can call your own...a gift...might just be the deciding factor, not the cost of the overall plugin or the license transfer.

This may work for Toneboosters for a while or he may soften a bit (like $10 per transaction instead of per product) but he and other devs are going to have to game up because with things like TDR SlickEQ and Kotelnikov comp going for free, it just got harder.

[lnikj]

Much of this debate hinges on whether one sees the transfer fee as €10 or as 50% of the price of the plugin. If the former, then this does not seem an exorbitant amount of money to charge for the dev's time in administering the transfer. If the latter then, IMHO, the problem with your perception is simply that the dev should have charged more for the plugin in the first place.

FXPansion / IKM / 2C Audio / Melda have had license transfer procedures for ages that challenge anybody attempting to resell their plugins, but I don't see the floodgates opening because Toneboosters have joined in, if that is how you see it. Imageline and Sonic Charge just refuse to play ball at all.

If you don't like the policies of these companies then just walk away. Quietly. Silently even.

[Pyrotek45]

didn't read everything but here's my take on license transfesr; every one should allow for an easy transfer process period.

first off, everyone at one point in their life can think of a time where they simply did not need something any longer. so they would sell it at a lower price because it was "used", however software does not get "used" like something physical. but it's still entirely possible for it to be unneeded anymore. if the software does not allow for a license transfer, you're sol. you can't redeem anything, you can't even GIVE it away no matter how much you will never use it again. it becomes a digital waste. which is too bad when there could be someone else less fortunate to afford it that could make great use from it, that's a shame. if it were something physical, at least it could be given away. this is why i believe it is important to allow your software to be easily transferred. wouldn't you rather have customers who uses your products instead of one's who do not anymore? sooner or later you will have a few people who simply say they have your plugs but don't use them anymore, and perhaps it's not because they're bad, but they have other ones they prefer. however this could cause others to see your plugins negatively, and word of mouth is a powerful tool in marketing. another thing is, if a person buys something, they should have the right to sell their copy. and even if you don't agree with that it's still a smart move for any dev because now the customers feel as if they did't just buy something BUT also invested in something. it's just the smarter thing to do marketing wise.(for instance, when i bought cyclop i was more willing to buy knowing sugerbytes transfer policy is rather painless and cheap). giving power to the customer will always benefit the developer in the long run. what tone boosters is doing doesn't feel like a smart move for his part. for one, people might be put off about having to buy half the plug again just to sell it. i can understand charging a small fee, but the whole point of selling something second hand is to make some of your money back. this is just taking the power away from the customer and will hurt the dev in the long run. if he just allowed anyone to transfer anything for free and make it nfr after the first transfer, that would be ideal, or charge a smaller fee(i think charging a small fee is the way to go in some cases because one plug could make you plenty of money if it keeps getting resold and bought by people who would never have bought the products at full price to begin with. i think this is the path he is going, but its a little unbalanced in the devs favor). what you would get in the end is people who are happy with tone boosters product without being able to take advantage of him, and that's exactly what tone boosters should want. my advice for him to to charge a smaller fee and give some of the power back to the customer.

[Syntilla]

the whole premise of Toneboosters increasing the license transfer fee to 50% is because all the 2nd hand sales were hurting his company.

According to whom?

Toneboosters has never had a formal licence transfer policy, but with his usual generosity Breebaart has previously arranged them for free. He is now - or soon will be - required to have one, with all the setup and maintenance hassle that entails.
He is perfectly entitled to set whatever fee he considers reasonable.

These are top of the range plugins, by one of the smartest developers in the business - just check out his c.v., or the number of international audio, broadcasting and other engineering standards that he helped draft.
His only crime appears to be that he's selling $200 plugins for 20 euros.
And people are saying they won't buy them because they aren't worth enough second-hand?
Contemptible.

[JJ_Jettflow]

Much of this debate hinges on whether one sees the transfer fee as €10 or as 50% of the price of the plugin. If the former, then this does not seem an exorbitant amount of money to charge for the dev's time in administering the transfer. If the latter then, IMHO, the problem with your perception is simply that the dev should have charged more for the plugin in the first place.

No problem with my perception on the topic...not at all. He simply could come up with a fair system that would curb all these re-sells that take up his time by simply not allowing it to be resold for 6 months. He could set it up like U-he where you pay a percentage for the first 8 or 9 months and then it is free of charge. He could have made them NFR after the first re-sale.

FXPansion / IKM / 2C Audio / Melda have had license transfer procedures for ages that challenge anybody attempting to resell their plugins, but I don't see the floodgates opening because Toneboosters have joined in, if that is how you see it. Imageline and Sonic Charge just refuse to play ball at all.

If TB softens its stance (like FXpansion has) that you pay one fee per transaction not per product, then that would even be better. As for IK, I have successfully sold many of their products and made a decent return. Companies based in North America do not have to recognize EU regulations.

While it may be only 10 euro, that is per product. If you bought his complete catalog, the total cost would be 242 euro...with a license transfer fee of 121 euro. I think that beats the costs all the ones you mentioned...and more.

If you don't like the policies of these companies then just walk away. Quietly. Silently even.

The whole idea of these discussions is to allow people to express their opinions on events in a rational, adult-like manner and learn to balance their thoughts with those of others. So all I can say is if you do not like these discussions, just walk away. Quietly, Silently even.