Cherry Audio going NFR...

[0degree]

NFR is abhorrent behaviour and I am disgusted with Cherry Audio. As a past loyal customer, I will no longer buy any products from Cherry and will consider selling off what I have if I cal pull it together by the May 1. Disgusting and shameful of Cherry.

Agreed - looks like they were jealous about people talking about Waves and they wanted some attention too. I'm changing my policy towards CA to NFM - No f**king Money

[ramseysounds]

Plenty enough warning time, demos are available, so good on 'em.
Of course someone whose really desperate to recoup part of the costs of a $39 plug in they no longer want of course feel free to disagree.

+1

[Steve W]

Plenty enough warning time, demos are available, so good on 'em.
Of course someone whose really desperate to recoup part of the costs of a $39 plug in they no longer want of course feel free to disagree.

Thank you for being so generous to offer the opportunity to disagree with you.

Your reply is simplistic in part because it doesn't address other reasons why the change in policy is unfair and it is insulting because of the words you chose ("someone who is really desperate").

Thanks for the the invitation to disagree with you.

[revvy]

Thank you for being so generous to offer the opportunity to disagree with you.

Proper decent of him, make no mistake.

[PAK]

I bought SonicProjects' OP-X Pro II last year using a "student discount". I wanted to sell the license to a guy who had trouble finding a used license

RE: EU Law.. There's 3 conditions which must be met.. 1) It applies to perpetual products only (IE not subscriptions) 2) The product must be fully paid for and, 3) The License must not be in use by the first owner.

Provided these 3 conditions are met the resale CANNOT be blocked for software sold directly within the EU / EEA. Companies saying otherwise are relying on you not taking them to court to prove it.

However, in your case, as you bought a discounted student license (rather than full priced retail), a reasonable argument might be made you did not meet condition 2. In that case it wouldn't be unreasonable to charge a fee to convert the discounted student license to a full priced retail license in order to allow resale. But I'm not sure in cases like those - if they're even well defined under current law. For full licenses it's very clear though. The law says they CAN'T prevent the resale provided they've sold directly to someone living within the EU.

[PAK]

The EU courts don't give a damn about small fry (in the grand scheme of things) EU-based soft synth developers breaking the rules, so why would they care about a US company doing the same?

Yep. Still doesn't make it right. But companies, who might do otherwise, rely on there having to be enough money involved to make the cost of legal action worthwhile..

BTW I'm sure I saw somewhere that Universal Audio do not allow license transfers in North America, but have said they will treat EU users on a case by case basis in order not to violate these exact laws.

[donkey tugger]

Just to muddy the waters;

https://www.osborneclarke.com/insights/ ... e-licences

That's the trouble with case law rather than primary legislation - the principles established are to an extent dependent on a specific case and more open to question, and the ECJ ruling was indicative and passed back to the local courts.

Pity really that UseSoft didn't pursue it to the end, as there still seem to be questions unanswered.

[tehlord]

Probably inundated with transfer requests are people bought their products as an 'unconsidered purchase' only to later realise they're really not very good.

In a world where Diva etc exists, why bother tbh.

[PieBerger]

The EU courts don't give a damn about small fry (in the grand scheme of things) EU-based soft synth developers breaking the rules, so why would they care about a US company doing the same?

Yep. Still doesn't make it right. But companies, who might do otherwise, rely on there having to be enough money involved to make the cost of legal action worthwhile..

BTW I'm sure I saw somewhere that Universal Audio do not allow license transfers in North America, but have said they will treat EU users on a case by case basis in order not to violate these exact laws.

Just to be clear, I wasn't implying that I thought it was OK, just providing an example to make a point that the European Courts don't care, or rather no person or group of persons has been prepared to stump up the requisite funding to make a case for the courts to review.

[PAK]

Just to be clear, I wasn't implying that I thought it was OK

No, I know that - No worries. Only realised, on your response, that I'd worded things which could even be taken that way. Sorry I didn't word it more clearly

[trmupstage]

I can kind of understand why they are doing this. Cherry Audio priced their instruments very low. I can't see wanting to try and resell. I have way too many plugin instruments and effects. When I don't want them, I just put them in an unused folder in the DAW. Unless the plugin was super expensive, it's way too much hassle to try and sell it anyway. I'd say 90% or more of what I have bought remains unused. It's just not worth the time to try and resell any of them.

[martinjuenke]

This ^^^

[sin night]

I usually buy things to keep them forever (even if stay unused for a long time), I almost never sell things second hand, especially if the price is going to be so low that it's not worth the time/effort for the sale.


I can understand why companies may want to go NFR. Regardless of the EU sentence about the right to resell, I may still accept to buy something NFR (if I really need to), but I prefer to know it at the time of purchase (and I strongly prefer to be allowed to sell second hand, in case I ever need/want to). Conditions like "NFR" or "transfer fees" make me think more before making a purchase (even if I'm not planning to sell my license).


Cherry Audio prices are so low to begin with that they are already NFR "de facto" (unless you sell a good amount of licenses together to the same person at the same time)... and I think it's the same with many other companies, especially when there are bundle avaible (so single license are priced either very cheap, or too high in comparison to bundles).


With that said, I just sold my Cherry Audio licenses (I had two paid synths). It didn't make any sense money-wise, it was more a matter of letting someone else enjoy them, while I don't have to think about them anymore (for some unexplicable reason, I was kinda bothered to see them gathering digital dust...). I may be able to buy a pair of lunches at work with what I made out of the sale, depending on what and where I'm going to eat (I should be able to buy two simple pizzas and some water ). Selling them was more a matter of finding a good motivation to remove them from my setup with no regrets.

[Aliens]

Thank you for being so generous to offer the opportunity to disagree with you.

Your reply is simplistic in part because it doesn't address other reasons why the change in policy is unfair and it is insulting because of the words you chose ("someone who is really desperate").

Thanks for the the invitation to disagree with you.

I wrote 'disagree', not have a little cry

[plexuss]

I let Cherry know by email that I am against NFR and I will no longer do business with them. I am also considering selling my $1500 Voltage investment and being done with them. I have zero tolerance for NFR bullsh*t.