Selling an account instead of paying transfer fees.

[V0RT3X]

I get why some people might do this because of high fees, but if it is against the EULA then I think its probably a major case of BUYER BEWARE.

What do you think?

Is it worth it?

Fwiw I dont think if should be allowed..

[Hink]

I'm a little concerned about where this might go...VORT3X there is nothing wrong with the post, this is not directed at you but I want it clear that there will be posts removed if people take it to bragging about circumventing the system and if that's what the thread turns into I'll have to remove it.

Sorry, not trying to be a jerk...just laying out the ground rules

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

I was curious about this with the Waves accts. Some say Waves allows it but seems like it would be against Eula. And from a karma standpoint it doesn't seem good. But then there are others that charge no transfer fees so the acct takeover would be more efficient.

[V0RT3X]

I'm a little concerned about where this might go...VORT3X there is nothing wrong with the post, this is not directed at you but I want it clear that there will be posts removed if people take it to bragging about circumventing the system and if that's what the thread turns into I'll have to remove it.

Sorry, not trying to be a jerk...just laying out the ground rules

Thats fair Hink.

I would like an open discussion regarding this though as I've been seeing this happen in the marketplace. I think those that arent aware should at least have some information and this is why we should discuss it a bit.

[revvy]

Personally I wouldn't buy somebody else's account. I'm not that desperate for any SW, if I can't afford it I don't buy it, this just seems like asking for problems.

In terms of sellers who do it, I guess folks just wanna get paid, irrespective of how.

But anyway, if it's against thew rules then it's against the rules, end of discussion really? Or put another way either Ben allows it on his site or he doesn't.

[medienhexer]

I think we should address the transfer fee situation a little bit.

Let’s say you buy a BFD expansion because of the very convincing sound examples on the website. There is of course no demo download. But no matter what you do, in your own songs, it never sounds as good as on the website. On the contrary, you’re even less satisfied than with the stuff you were using before.

Now, with their pretty aggressive sales, you’re lucky to recover even half of your investment. And then there’s a $50 transfer fee. Per product. Even the cheapest one.

So that’s a sale that’s never going to happen. Let’s say you decide to move on to a different product altogether. With the BFD core and several expansions, the value might get you most of the way there. If only you wouldn’t have to pay several hundred Dollars in transfer fee.

And that’s where I think an account transfer is starting to look like a good idea.

[CircuitEYE]

Personally I wouldn't buy somebody else's account.

No, not a good idea as some company's will shut it down if they find out.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I think we should address the transfer fee situation a little bit.

Let’s say you buy a BFD expansion because of the very convincing sound examples on the website. There is of course no demo download. But no matter what you do, in your own songs, it never sounds as good as on the website. On the contrary, you’re even less satisfied than with the stuff you were using before.

Now, with their pretty aggressive sales, you’re lucky to recover even half of your investment. And then there’s a $50 transfer fee. Per product. Even the cheapest one.

So that’s a sale that’s never going to happen. Let’s say you decide to move on to a different product altogether. With the BFD core and several expansions, the value might get you most of the way there. If only you wouldn’t have to pay several hundred Dollars in transfer fee.

And that’s where I think an account transfer is starting to look like a good idea.

Good idea? Y'mean like not paying taxes?

These are the requirements that are meant to be followed.

This issue has come up before, in other discussions, and it's troublesome that there is no hard ruling here that it won't be tolerated; even moreso given that there are developers who are part of this community, who are having this behaviour waved right under their noses.

I have to assume that it's an issue that has remained under the radar, as opposed to tolerated or encouraged. Hopefully this will be the thread that gains enough momentum to have it stopped

[medienhexer]

It’s not like paying taxes.

The fees are decided at the sole discretion of the developer. In case of BFD, the fee is higher than the second hand value. That makes it pretty much impossible to sell.

Waves and Plugin-Alliance are close second places in that regard. IKMultimedia raised their transfer fee to 20 bucks, too. The difference being that you can actually demo the product before purchase.

Also, the results I get with Waves, IK or PA more closely match what they advertise on the website.

Now, you can of course argue that customers should never have the right to sell software licenses. I would have to disagree.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

It’s not like paying taxes.

It is in the sense that it is a fee/tax that most of us would rather not have to pay, and many decide that they shouldn't have to be forced to pay it.

The fees are decided at the sole discretion of the developer. In case of BFD, the fee is higher than the second hand value. That makes it pretty much impossible to sell.

The fees are decided by a developer based on the amount of man 'hours' it'll take to deal with the support, and also to mitigate against the loss of a sale.
And in the case of BFD, where expansions can cost past $150, money can still be made off of the sale. On the cheaper libraries I'm sure there will definitely be less of a margin.

But you seem to be inferring that those who are selling accounts are doing so because they stand to make no money (The fee is higher than the potential selling price). While this is likely to be the case in a small amount of cases, my impression is that people are fee-skipping because they don't want to pay ANY money

Waves and Plugin-Alliance are close second places in that regard. IKMultimedia raised their transfer fee to 20 bucks, too. The difference being that you can actually demo the product before purchase.

Actually, I think IKM's is even higher. It is in Euros, anyway. I know, because I am currently trying to rid myself of their products. I might make a fiver on each of them, but that's just the way it is

Now, you can of course argue that customers should never have the right to sell software licenses. I would have to disagree.

I absolutely feel that customers should be able to sell licenses. But it's not always that clear-cut. How different developers would be potentially affected by having to grant license transfers, by law, depends on many things. As such, I think that certain smaller developers especially small preset =-designing outfits should be able to refuse resale, which is typically how it currently is.

What I do think should be implemented is some kind of scaling. If it is the case that companies are trying to recoup money against the lost sale of the transferred license, then the fee should be scaled up or down, appropriately. This would definitely make the FXP situation a little bit more 'acceptable'

[imrae]

Right, if the same developers keep popping up for these account transfers then maybe that should be taken as a sign that people don't think their transfer fees are reasonable.

PA's previous system was pretty fair: a) flat transfer fee b) fee cap for multiple simultaneous transfers c) allow PA customers to cover the transfer fee using loyalty vouchers. The fee is a bit high compared to the real market value of the plugins, but this was compensated by the above. Now they have removed the fee cap and made vouchers more difficult to use we are seeing more account transfers...

Most offensive is the Waves system, with fees linked to fantasy prices and added onto the WUP that should already cover any added support burden.

[simonden]

Well, the issue is that the EULA is generally written in the country that the company is located and a lot of the time that is invalidated in other countries. If the company sells to someone in one of these other countries, then they have to accept the laws in that country.

In many countries, you have a right to sell/transfer software and in some cases transferring accounts is just easier, rather than an attempt to circumventing fees (which appear to be not enforceable in many countries in any case).

Regarding transfer fees, even though these appear to not be allowed in some countries (the 2009 update to the EU CSD appears to clarify that software can be transferred without notifying the original author and that the original author cannot prevent the new owner from using the software), I personally don't actually have a problem with small transfer fees as someone needs to either pay/write the license transfer software or spend time transferring it. Although there is also the argument that this should be incorporated into the original development costs/sale price.

The issue comes with companies that say 'you have to pay for the latest update to transfer' (appears to be not legal in some countries) and then charge an inflated transfer price (i.e. 5% of the 'full' retail price which is a fictitious hyper-inflated retail price) so that the cost of transferring is so prohibitive that you end up losing money. The issue here is that your recourse is either decompilation (appears to be allowed in the EU CSD if the author prohibits you from transferring) which very few people will have the skills of (and in any case the buyer probably wouldn't buy as they will assume it is not legit) or to take the original company to court, something that will end up cost and time prohibitive, which these companies bank on.

So, I will happily transfer accounts, conscience free. Although, I think all the accounts I want to transfer allow it anyway.

And my future GAS money will continue to go to companies that make transfers easy and hassle free, especially as I somehow seem to end up with multiple licences.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Right, if the same developers keep popping up for these account transfers then maybe that should be taken as a sign that people don't think their transfer fees are reasonable.

Everybody's different idea of what is or isn't reasonable is ultimately measured against the amount that the developer has set, based on what they feel is reasonable. But the solution to that mismatch shouldn't be to just decide to break EULA and not pay; Rather, more needs to be done on the front-end to warn people of the before buying. We have a thread here that helps clarify which developers allow transfers and what is involved, and developers normally do have an FAQ to detail transfer processes. But maybe they need to make it much clearer. From there, the potential buyer has all the information to make the choice to support this developer or avoid them.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Well, the issue is that the EULA is generally written in the country that the company is located and a lot of the time that is invalidated in other countries. If the company sells to someone in one of these other countries, then they have to accept the laws in that country.

In many countries, you have a right to sell/transfer software and in some cases transferring accounts is just easier, rather than an attempt to circumventing fees (which appear to be not enforceable in many countries in any case).

Regarding transfer fees, even though these appear to not be allowed in some countries (the 2009 update to the EU CSD appears to clarify that software can be transferred without notifying the original author and that the original author cannot prevent the new owner from using the software), I personally don't actually have a problem with small transfer fees as someone needs to either pay/write the license transfer software or spend time transferring it. Although there is also the argument that this should be incorporated into the original development costs/sale price.

The issue comes with companies that say 'you have to pay for the latest update to transfer' (appears to be not legal in some countries) and then charge an inflated transfer price (i.e. 5% of the 'full' retail price which is a fictitious hyper-inflated retail price) so that the cost of transferring is so prohibitive that you end up losing money. The issue here is that your recourse is either decompilation (appears to be allowed in the EU CSD if the author prohibits you from transferring) which very few people will have the skills of (and in any case the buyer probably wouldn't buy as they will assume it is not legit) or to take the original company to court, something that will end up cost and time prohibitive, which these companies bank on.

So, I will happily transfer accounts, conscience free. Although, I think all the accounts I want to transfer allow it anyway.

And my future GAS money will continue to go to companies that make transfers easy and hassle free, especially as I somehow seem to end up with multiple licences.

Well, hopefully you won't get the choice to do it here

[simonden]

Well, hopefully you won't get the choice to do it here

But why not? You are looking at it only from one-side. I own the software, it is mine free and legal to transfer. What you are suggesting is that KVR helps developers to circumvent the law.