List of sample developers terms of sales and issue management policies

[woggle]

I think GearNostalgia is performing a useful service here - similarly to the one on VI-Control.
I do not agree with those who think because something is in a contract then buyer beware - in people focused jurisdictions customers have to be made aware of important stipulations in a contract - they can't be buried within thousands of lines of tiny text etc etc. There are mechanisms for this eg checkbox that you have read and understood the contract for each important section , highlighting, repeating, summarising etc
I also do not agree thinking someone should just wear it if the product does not work as expected based on the advertising - here I would include various showcasing videos as advertising.
Basically if you cant try it out and it does not work as expected by a reasonable person for the purpose intended then you should be able to get a refund (or at the very least on-sell it). This is the case in consumer law in many developed countries and is subject to continuing work by the OECD.
Finally it is clear that many companies and developers have business models that both sustain the business and allow transfer policies that support consumer agency. Rather than defend companies with restrictive policies, we should promote those that do and encourage businesses that restrict their customers agency to adopt business models that are both socially responsible and profitable

[GearNostalgia]

You IGNORED the "warning sign" which is called "EULA/business/license terms", and now you blame them for you ignoring it and call it a "trap" that they apply totally standard license terms which you ignored.
Exactly: Check out the product. Check out the license. If you don´t like either aspect, don´t buy. You said it yourself. Simple, isn´t it?

The fact that you missed that step can´t be blamed on anyone but yourself. There´s no surprising, evil clause in the EULA that says stuff about sacrificing your firstborn or something. Just regular stuff that you obviously weren´t familiar with. Which is unfortunate for you but surely not something you can blame anyone else for.

And what you call "pissing you off" is the other party expecting you to stick to the contract based on their license terms (which you agreed to) instead of your own fantasy purchasing terms (which, I reckon, you didn´t negotiate with them before your purchase).

I did not ignore it. Like the vast majority of humanity I don't read throught all legal fineprint of every company. That would take like 2 hours each time I would upgrade an apple device or anything, cause in ALL cases where I haver ever bought a product in my 45 years thing have been settled in some way by discussing it with the company. I some case product returned and in other cases with a swap to something else or a minor discount or store credits. So I did not choose to ignore it, I just waded throught those pages swiftly as most of us usually do, not expecting it to be the single worst terms I had ever seen up til that point (not I have seen more after looking for it).

As for testing, there is not way to test that product, there are no reviews from users of it and to top it off I was engaged by their onlinestaff while looking at the demo. He had a long and friendly chat with me esuring me that it would do what I wanted and more and I wish sure I would be very please with it. From the point where the salesperson acknowledged that I had found flaws in the product he said that I should have pick another product than the one he had adviced me to and now. I told him it was ok, everybody can give a bad advice and taht he could fix it by swapping me over to another product without that flaw. From that point it was all. Sorry read the fine print, we don't help out.

That is how they pissed me off. Ensuring your customers that the products are perfect and turning tail and not presenting the slightest solution for bad advice.

[GearNostalgia]

I think GearNostalgia is performing a useful service here - similarly to the one on VI-Control.
I do not agree with those who think because something is in a contract then buyer beware - in people focused jurisdictions customers have to be made aware of important stipulations in a contract - they can't be buried within thousands of lines of tiny text etc etc. There are mechanisms for this eg checkbox that you have read and understood the contract for each important section , highlighting, repeating, summarising etc
I also do not agree thinking someone should just wear it if the product does not work as expected based on the advertising - here I would include various showcasing videos as advertising.
Basically if you cant try it out and it does not work as expected by a reasonable person for the purpose intended then you should be able to get a refund (or at the very least on-sell it). This is the case in consumer law in many developed countries and is subject to continuing work by the OECD.
Finally it is clear that many companies and developers have business models that both sustain the business and allow transfer policies that support consumer agency. Rather than defend companies with restrictive policies, we should promote those that do and encourage businesses that restrict their customers agency to adopt business models that are both socially responsible and profitable

Thank you. And please help me with tips of companies to add or changes that needs to be made.

[GearNostalgia]

Can we have 'customer' properly replaced with 'customer who bought a product but has no intention of keeping it' in the first post please.
Not all customers have selling what they've bought as their main priority when it comes to how they rate companies. The implication that its the sole important metric of how to rate a sample developer's treatment of their customers is entirely false.
Also, this thread isnt a 'list of sample developers terms of sales and issue management policies.' It isn't a list of any details, its a crude division into three sets of companies primarily on on the basis of a single quantifiable thing, ie resale. ( The 'sales statement' classification is speculative at best, there's no guaranteed correlation there with how companies will actually behave, so its effectively useless)

No, I stick by this as the only facts available. How companies implement their policy leads to hearsay and is subjective. BTW, my intention is always to use stuff to have fun, but sometimes it does not pan out.

[GearNostalgia]

You're making easy-to-avoid mistakes here in your zeal. I would recommend cutting it out. This forum exists because of product and there's a nice balance (cf Vi Control, which IME lacks in). This is not balanced.

Exactly. This site exists solely because of the vendors which are named and shamed here. AND, this list includes subjective experiences, which could be completely wrong, depending on the person you ask. Really, i'd bite the apple, and live with a bad investment, instead of wasting your time on this.

Although OP obviously has ulterior motives imo their is some value in what he's trying to do. As saturated as the sample market is it could be helpful to potential customers to have a simplified list of vendors policies without having to read a long EULA, email support, or search a companies websites for policies. The first post could definitely use more diplomatic terms and listing companies as "customer unfriendly" isn't completely fair as it leads people to think about customer service rather than just sales policies.

People seem to be conflating terms of sale with customer service/support. Clearly plenty of companies could have great customer service while at the same time having undesirable terms of sale (that aren't even legal in EU in most cases). Chk is right that customer service is completely subjective and varies especially with larger companies who may have different people doing the job, but a companies stance on demos, refunds, & sales policies are clearly outlined somewhere for legal reasons.

I don't think companies should have to refund people if they simply find out they don't like a product or it doesn't meet their expectations imo it's up to the consumer to do proper research before buying, but if somebody buys a product that they can't demo that just doesn't work on their system or accidentally bought two licenses or the wrong format at checkout and can't get a refund or exchange for another format that's a company that I wouldn't want to give any of my money

No, I have no hidden agenda. I made this list cause my first experience was rotten and I don't want more to fall into that trap. A simple list to act as a startingpoint for new buyers plain and simple. I have edited the list a few times, but I can not seen another way to clearly point out that is is a list about Sales terms and not about how nice the speak or whatever cause in the end it does not matter if they talk sweet and act ridgid.

[GearNostalgia]

A bunch of customers can have nice experiences with a developer while another bunch had poor experiences with the same developer. Listen to peoples opinions is not the way to go I think.

Stick to the facts about the developer and list their official policies, and EULA. If any developer have a tough EULA but in fact is very nice and helpful, then that developer should perhaps update their EULA to reflect that reality. It's even a good marketing move from them to do so.

Agree. I came to that conclusion too after a while.

[GearNostalgia]

Native Instruments should be T3.

It did not seem like that when I red the terms, I will check it again.

[epiphaneia]

I did not ignore it. Like the vast majority of humanity I don't read throught all legal fineprint of every company

When I was younger, back in the days when every sample library was a major investment for me, I bought quite a few rubbish libraries and I was out of luck ("sold as-is"). I bought libraries the license terms of which stated I had to pay extra for commercial usage. I also bought libraries that said "We stole these samples from other artists´ records, better don´t use them for professional purposes". But noone forced me to buy them, I knew what I was getting.

I understand that most people don´t enjoy reading license terms. But what´s the solution then? No license terms? Decide the best license terms by forum poll? License terms that are easy to read but open the doors for "law trolls" (yes, they exist!) to sue them? License agreements are not long and winded because companies want to give us trouble, but because that´s what´s required to keep them running on a legally safe basis, especially when operating worldwide.

And even if I understand you don´t like reading license terms, it´s still your negligence, they didn´t hide it from you or make it extra complex in order to lure you into some "trap" - really most people in places like this forum or vi-c know "the nfr problem" (there´s even a "vendors allowing resale" thread here in the forum, as a rule-of-thumb I´d assume that someone who doesn´t approve of resale also won´t be easy on returns/exchanges).

You didn´t know that, that´s bad luck for you, but most people are obviously not as surprised as you were, so it´s apparently not a widespread problem or new and evil corporate scheme to earn an extra $100 a month (not in a market that largely depends on repeat customers). In fact companies are probably aware that they lose sales because of such license terms, and still consider it better that way. As I said, their business decision. Your consumer´s decision.

No store I know of would accept the return of any used/opened software product, music cd, video or similar goods, so the "no returns" concept is not an exclusive matter of the world of samples either (and no, there´s no way to "demo" a movie either).

To sum it up: From a company perspective, there´s pretty much no other option than strict license terms to protect business, I don´t like that either but I understand it.

However, and I agree with you here, a customer can expect that a decent customer service would still deal with a problem on a case-by-case-basis when there´s a good reason (e.g. bugs) - and not "it says no returns on the tin, sorry, mate" (but try it: Apple, Microsoft, SAP,... they even sell you "software maintenance contracts" that cost up to millions and don´t promise to really fix bugs... and it says so right in their T&C).

Therefore I reckon, compiling "customer service experiences" makes more sense than judging license terms by "customer friendliness" - most people won´t be able to judge the legal implications or necessities of license terms, but they know good service when they experience it.

[GearNostalgia]

I did not ignore it. Like the vast majority of humanity I don't read throught all legal fineprint of every company

When I was younger, back in the days when every sample library was a major investment for me, I bought quite a few rubbish libraries and I was out of luck ("sold as-is"). I bought libraries the license terms of which stated I had to pay extra for commercial usage. I also bought libraries that said "We stole these samples from other artists´ records, better don´t use them for professional purposes". But noone forced me to buy them, I knew what I was getting.

I understand that most people don´t enjoy reading license terms. But what´s the solution then? No license terms? Decide the best license terms by forum poll? License terms that are easy to read but open the doors for "law trolls" (yes, they exist!) to sue them? License agreements are not long and winded because companies want to give us trouble, but because that´s what´s required to keep them running on a legally safe basis, especially when operating worldwide.

And even if I understand you don´t like reading license terms, it´s still your negligence, they didn´t hide it from you or make it extra complex in order to lure you into some "trap" - really most people in places like this forum or vi-c know "the nfr problem" (there´s even a "vendors allowing resale" thread here in the forum, as a rule-of-thumb I´d assume that someone who doesn´t approve of resale also won´t be easy on returns/exchanges).

You didn´t know that, that´s bad luck for you, but most people are obviously not as surprised as you were, so it´s apparently not a widespread problem or new and evil corporate scheme to earn an extra $100 a month (not in a market that largely depends on repeat customers). In fact companies are probably aware that they lose sales because of such license terms, and still consider it better that way. As I said, their business decision. Your consumer´s decision.

No store I know of would accept the return of any used/opened software product, music cd, video or similar goods, so the "no returns" concept is not an exclusive matter of the world of samples either (and no, there´s no way to "demo" a movie either).

To sum it up: From a company perspective, there´s pretty much no other option than strict license terms to protect business, I don´t like that either but I understand it.

However, and I agree with you here, a customer can expect that a decent customer service would still deal with a problem on a case-by-case-basis when there´s a good reason (e.g. bugs) - and not "it says no returns on the tin, sorry, mate" (but try it: Apple, Microsoft, SAP,... they even sell you "software maintenance contracts" that cost up to millions and don´t promise to really fix bugs... and it says so right in their T&C).

Therefore I reckon, compiling "customer service experiences" makes more sense than judging license terms by "customer friendliness" - most people won´t be able to judge the legal implications or necessities of license terms, but they know good service when they experience it.

Your opinion. You are entitled to it, but I don't agree with it. This simple list of facts is enough for me, but you can start a thread about subjective customer experiences.

[GearNostalgia]

Native Instruments should be T3.

You were correct. Thank you for pointing it out. NI now have T3.

[GearNostalgia]

Vienna Symphonic Library added to the list.

[jancivil]

If you own any VSL libraries and your eLicenser breaks or gets lost you have to pay 50% of your libraries to get your license back.

No, if it breaks and that breakage is assessed as avoidable (your fault), they make you pay. I had a broken dongle which was an old dongle (not even registered except after-the-fact) which I sent to L.A. and they restored all the licenses. A Steinberg rep saved the day responding to an email same afternoon to help me with making that old dongle legit, additionally. I had to go to Guitar Center to buy a dongle and I was sorted (they provided me with a limited all applications license in the meantime).

[jancivil]

Also, as per having no returns policy, a lot of these are Kontakt libraries which once you have the files, you can completely hold onto them and even distribute them after getting your money back (even if they're protected thru NI although I can't really go into that here). I wouldn't operate like that, people are in business. I'm not a pro-big-business kind of a person but these are human beings with livelihoods and a normal self-interest, this is not some kind of communist ideal world we're in here.

[GearNostalgia]

I have thought about elicensers breaking. Is it possible to get a clone and have one on the shelf just as a precaution?

If you own any VSL libraries and your eLicenser breaks or gets lost you have to pay 50% of your libraries to get your license back.

No, if it breaks and that breakage is assessed as avoidable (your fault), they make you pay. I had a broken dongle which was an old dongle (not even registered except after-the-fact) which I sent to L.A. and they restored all the licenses. A Steinberg rep saved the day responding to an email same afternoon to help me with making that old dongle legit, additionally. I had to go to Guitar Center to buy a dongle and I was sorted (they provided me with a limited all applications license in the meantime).

[jancivil]

Not with Steinberg or VSL anyway. EDIT: I don't think it's technically possible.

I lost one when I had to go into hospital and lost my place, my landlord didn't do me right. Steinberg has a Zero Downtime program and if you kill the dongle (it's still out there in the world hypothetically) you can get a replacement license for no cost. I don't suppose you can keep repeating that w. a license but they did it for me in 2016.