KVR Audio

Nielzie · Post by **Nielzie** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:57 pm

I have bought a few software synthesizers in the past from a certain developer and recently wanted to redownload them from my account on their website, but they where gone.. So I e-mailed the developer to ask if he could fix that form me please.

The answer was that if they don't appear on my account those versions are EOL and he recommends requesting the paid updates.

So.. SOL and not happy about that. The products aren't even labeled EOL, just those older versions

Is that even legal?

Fun fact: one product remains accessible in my account, which is the oldest product of them all which has not been updated since I bought it many many years ago..

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:02 pm

Nielzie wrote:So.. SOL and not happy about that. The products aren't even labeled EOL, just those older versions Is that even legal?

Depends on what is stated in the EULA

But it is not a smart move from a dev if that dev want to keep the business of users also in the future.

Nielzie · Post by **Nielzie** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:08 pm

I have no clue what was stated in the EULA when I bought them a few years ago tbh, but common sense tells me that unless your company is out of business, which obviously is not the cases, I highly doubt if this can be legally right to your customers. How hard is it to make older versions of your products available to customers who have paid for them?

I'd just like to use them now as they were when I bought/upgraded/crossgraded them back then.. This has not become a subscription model has it?

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:16 pm

I guess i know whom you are talking about and i guess it was aimed at forcing the users to pay for some not very significant updates. Whether it is legal should depend on the eula indeed.

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:18 pm

Dont you have back-ups of all your original installers?

topaz · Post by **topaz** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:19 pm

Legal or not IK multimedia totally lost me as a customer for charging for downloads.

Appalling.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:25 pm

Nielzie wrote:How hard is it to make older versions of your products available to customers who have paid for them?

+1 I totally agree

I had such an issue with Puremagnetik some time ago.

I needed to redownload a bought product, but they wouldn't let me do that.

I thought that was weird because they were still selling the product at that time, so how hard would it be to give me a new download link. Bandwidth aint that expensive these days.

Gamma-UT · Post by **Gamma-UT** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:27 pm

It's not illegal. It might be breach of contract if you were never able to download the software.

There are plenty of companies where you get a limited number of downloads that expire after a certain time. However, they are devs who do not maintain a client account download area, which would naturally make you think that the software would be available as long as they were in business. I thought the same as I've encountered the issue.

My view is that while it's technically not illegal, it's a daft way to run a business. Yeah, you convince some people to pay up in order to upgrade and obtain a working download, the number you annoy with the same policy who will then tell plenty of people around them how shady it is surely outweighs the benefit.

Nielzie · Post by **Nielzie** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:55 pm

AnX wrote:Dont you have back-ups of all your original installers?

Nope, unfortunately not. I have of most of my other audio products though (which are many) but somehow I forgot to upload these installers to the cloud.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:00 pm

Yeah, it's not illegal. That said, providing good service moves you to the front of the line. I'm just going to ask, who is it? Naming the dev in a popular forum like KVR may put some pressure on them to provide better quality service.

Nielzie · Post by **Nielzie** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:02 pm

Gamma-UT wrote:It's not illegal. It might be breach of contract if you were never able to download the software.

There are plenty of companies where you get a limited number of downloads that expire after a certain time. However, they are devs who do not maintain a client account download area, which would naturally make you think that the software would be available as long as they were in business. I thought the same as I've encountered the issue.

My view is that while it's technically not illegal, it's a daft way to run a business. Yeah, you convince some people to pay up in order to upgrade and obtain a working download, the number you annoy with the same policy who will then tell plenty of people around them how shady it is surely outweighs the benefit.

Agreed. I find it strange that I can still download their oldest plugin, because it was not updated anymore for years, but the other ones are simply denied, because there has been a paid update for them.

So the customer is practically forced to pay for an update that he doesn't want or need, in order to be able to use the plugin he paid full price for.

jasco · Post by **jasco** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:12 pm

In complete contrast, I recently contacted a developer to enquire if they could add some of their software to my account that I had won in a competition several years ago. Some of this software they do not even sell anymore. They added download links for everything (20+ items) including the legacy software. Now that is *awesome* customer service!

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:17 pm

What company is this?

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:28 pm

Actually, the topic question has a point to it. Imagine you buy something now, which is version 4.5, and, tomorrow, the software gets updated to version 5.0, and any link to the recent version will be deleted, and you have to buy the software again, if you haven't yet downloaded it. Looks like kind of a legal greyzone to me. On the other hand, it's also understandable that companies don't make the whole catalogue of former versions available as downloads, because it's all traffic, and server costs. On the other hand, i wonder how much harm would be done, if they provide alternative download options then, if asked to do so. And also, i kind of wonder why Bittorrent has never really taken off, in the legal wordl. If every browser had a torrent function built in, like old Opera browser, and companies would allow torrent downloads, then, much of the traffic for the download servers would have already been reduced. Guess they want to keep full control over the download at any time.

masterhiggins · Post by **masterhiggins** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 8:45 pm

topaz wrote:Legal or not IK multimedia totally lost me as a customer for charging for downloads.

Appalling.

+1. Completely idiotic practice. They're literally the only company that I've found that actually charges to download something you've already paid for. Granted, you should make your own backups, but it's the principle that bothers me. Bigfishaudio, Loopmasters, Thelooploft, Goldbaby, soniccouture...virtually ANY other company gives you more downloads when you request it (for free). F*** IK.

Is it legal to deny downloads of older product versions to customers & force to pay for update?