What exactly is the reason for plug-in's requiring license transfer fees?

[soundmodel]

What exactly is the reason for plug-in's requiring license transfer fees?

Is it necessarily just about making money?

Or are there real costs to be covered?

[Bulbizarre]

Well, if there's no barrier, you can spam a company under different names with transfer requests and they won't be able to tell the legit requests from the spam.

[Urs]

My guess: An average of 5 to 10 emails back and forth, database operations, this and that taking an average of so and so many minutes at an average cost of 30€ an hour for the staffer who does it.

[Burillo]

some developers will not have license transfer policy at all - these developers are simply lazy and are taking advantage of the fact that it's not illegal to do so. my view is, if you're going to open a business selling digital licenses to the public, providing a way to transfer them is part of the cost of doing business and being open to the public - that is, basic consumer protection. again, it's not illegal, which is why a lot of developers simply refuse to have license transfer available in the first place, and they will bitch and moan about how it's labor-intensive (so automate it, duh), or how it requires investment (again, duh - you're a business), but in the end, it's not illegal so they do it.

for those that do have paid license transfer, it's usually an attempt at backhanded regulation of second hand market. for example, Waves, IK, PA - they sell their stuff dirt cheap (if you count frequent sales and discounts), but since it's generally possible to obtain their stuff even cheaper on second hand market, they wouldn't get a cut unless they force you to cut them in with license transfer fees. that way, even if you as far as to sell their stuff, they get a cut, but usually, because of the transfer fees, it's cheaper or marginally more expensive to buy a new license than it is to buy a second hand one, so they just effectively cut out the second hand market entirely. this especially applies to FXpansion and Acustica, because those have exorbitant license transfer fees, to a point where it's effectively not worth it to sell any of their plugins at all, because there's no way you can come out not losing money.

an example of a fair transfer fees policy is the one u-he - if you're transferring licenses left and right, you have to pay a cut. this discourages abuse. however, if you're just a regular person who's selling a plugin after owning it for some time, it's free for you.

[soundmodel]

My guess: An average of 5 to 10 emails back and forth, database operations, this and that taking an average of so and so many minutes at an average cost of 30€ an hour for the staffer who does it.

Sounds like a good guess, but I find this archaic.

I.e. why isn't the license system entirely automated?

[whyterabbyt]

What exactly is the reason for plug-in's requiring license transfer fees?

Is it necessarily just about making money?

Or are there real costs to be covered?

why do you think there's a singular 'the' reason? Im sure different developers probably have different reasons.

[soundmodel]

What exactly is the reason for plug-in's requiring license transfer fees?

Is it necessarily just about making money?

Or are there real costs to be covered?

why do you think there's a singular 'the' reason? Im sure different developers probably have different reasons.

Because I speculated that there's only one reason:

to make money.

OTOH the motives for this may be varied:

-to cover real expenses
-to turn in a larger profit

Based on how fees appear in things like Paypal it's possible that it's "to turn in a larger profit". That it's not a real cost, but merely a business trick made to make people pay more.

Since it's virtual, then I don't find that an argument comparing it to "well just like you'd send gear in post" applies.

[acousticglue]

hence the rental market was born

[melomood]

It's a bit of a self answering question. Somebody who doesn't work for free will be doing the transfer you require in lue of the license being able to magically transfer itself

[whyterabbyt]

Because I speculated that there's only one reason:

ah, so basically just looking for bias confirmation. ok.

[Ploki]

Some have archaic manual transfer systems. (U-he, d16, bra, fuse audio, fabfilter) charges vary, some even free.
Some devs have automatic systems such as Voxengo, PA, iLok.
Voxengo is free, iLok charges, PA even more.
Automated transfer with fees is raking money or discouraging resale in favour of selling your own discount licenses. (PA)

[Burillo]

It's a bit of a self answering question. Somebody who doesn't work for free will be doing the transfer you require in lue of the license being able to magically transfer itself

IK license transfer process is automated, no one is "working" while doing the transfer. yet, it still costs money. so no, it's not at all a self-answering question.

[antic604]

Isn't the most obvious reason "lost sales", though? If I bought a plugin and sold it to someone else, the developer only saw one sale instead of two. Obviously I can't use the plugin anymore and the other person now can, so - in practice - only one license is in active use, but still two people have used it, created music with it, maybe even profited from using it, etc.

[Ploki]

By that logic you could charge transfer fees for literally anything

[Biome_Digital]

Probably because they lose money on a second hand sale that then needs support. It's quite understandable, really. It's not like physical objects, it's all licences and digital.