Melda License transfer fee. Legal or not?

[Nicolas Castro]

Hi everyone, hope everybody is ok.
For a long time I've been a Melda customer. Love the AGC, the offline rendering options and a lot of other features. At the moment I'm selling a bunch of plugins I don't use. In the process of selling and doing license transfer's I've dealt with developers who charge nothing for a license transfer, like Tokyo Dawn Labs, Voxengo, and Black Rooster Audio. Others like Fuse Audio Labs, charge a small fee ( 5 euros-dolars) and other's charge a little bit more (Kuassa, Noiseash). Regarding Melda's license transfer policy, I need to pay a license transfer fee of 20% of the full plugin price, which I think is absolutely abusive to customers. For example, if I want to sell Melda's MMixingFXBundle - real price 649$ - I HAVE TO PAY 130$ FOR THE LICENSE TRANSFER. I think this is absolutely unacceptable. In Europe it's ilegal to prohibit license transfers, and allthough Melda permits them, they have seized an opportunity to profit from the situation, easy to do since the law has a loophole regarding license fees. How? Making it very hard for the license owner to sell them at a fair price. (All of this also applies to United Plugins).
In conclusion, owning a Melda plugin is not really true. If aI buy a car and then want to sell it, do I have to pay a big fee to the car's company? I think it's easy to understand what I'm trying to say.
Now that I'm selling a lot of Melda's plugins, I'm actually loosing money.
To wrap it up, and just as a friendly advice: always check the license fee transfer price before buying a developer's plugin. All my respect to Tokyo Dawn Labs, Fuse Audio Labs, Black Rooster Audio, Voxengo and so many more that respect customers and that can tell the difference between abuse and fairness.
Love.

[agharta]

I agree, it's a complete rip off.

[vmood]

Yeah, I noticed it when I looked through Knobclouds Developer page to see which of my plugins could be sold there.

Don't have much from Melda, will definitely not get more from them.

[morphex]

I’m trying to think of the issue from their perspective as a business. But charging 20% of the plug-in’s price for a license transfer, seems incredibly excessive to me. The transfer price for their MXXX multi-effect would be hundreds of dollars. That’s insane in the membrane! Clearly, it would make it very difficult to sell it for a fair price.

If a user doesn’t need it anymore, for whatever reason, I would encourage them to transfer their license to a new customer. Charging a flat fee of $10 to $20 per license would be reasonable. And a new user is more likely to buy more software, even if it’s not right away. But to me, 20% comes across more like corporate greed, and it’s bad optics.

[MirkoVanHauten]

From a business perspective it sounds like a good strategy when you know your plugins are sold 2nd hand very often. Which I think could be the case, given the many who once invested in fairly cheap plugins which then didn't click with them. May it be due to UI/UX or because some just didn't work like their pricy counterparts.

From a users perspective this is just greed.

I don't get license transfer fees at all anymore. What am I paying for? The transfer is nowadays done in a single mouse click.
Is it just to profit off an unsatisfied customer? Then excessive fees make them even angrier.

[Dark Fiber]

Yes, saw this myself too. Wanted to sell a few plugins. Impossible with 20% fee.

Now they're collecting virtual dust...

[Trancit]

But are they actually charging this??

I bought a few Melda plugins here on kvr and the license transfer was always done without any costs for me or the seller...
Voitec was never asking for the money but perhaps I was just lucky...

[TechHaus]

All of these clothing brands are going to start buying back their clothes from thrift and second hand store before they even hit the shelves, so that they can control and profit from the second hand sales. In the clothing space, consider all of the consolidation and how many brands are under one big corporate umbrella now.

I think what Melda is doing will become more of the norm in the future. Profiting off a piece of second hand sales is a lot of extra revenue.This is just normal business, going forward.

I mean there's a reason Fender owners bought Reverb.

In the video game world, Gamestop just took tradeins of broken consoles just to thin the inventory out there. Now they are jacking up vintage game pricing.

[concealed identity]

My guess is that this is done because they have weekly sales where they rotate the discounted plugins, and also have irregular sales with sometimes quite deep discounts. So there is probably some concern about people buying plugins to resell later, and this in turn devaluing them.

For-profit resellers are a huge problem with video games, and I've seen the same thing happening over the years with audio software. I don't think Melda's transfer fees are a good solution, since regular users are negatively impacted by it, but I understand the concern (if that is indeed the reason- it's just an assumption by me).

[careyletendre]

A 20% transfer fee is not abuse. Consider your car analogy. Where I come from, there is an 11% tax on new cars. If i turn around and sell that car the next day, the buyer has to pay another 6-11% percent depending on where it is bought. This applies to every time a used car is sold.

One should consider this vehicle tax far more concerning than a silly transfer fee for luxury items like audio plugins. Just be grateful for having the disposable income to indulge in your passions and let it go.

[starflakeprj]

A 20% transfer fee is not abuse. Consider your car analogy. Where I come from, there is an 11% tax on new cars. If i turn around and sell that car the next day, the buyer has to pay another 6-11% percent depending on where it is bought. This applies to every time a used car is sold.

One should consider this vehicle tax far more concerning than a silly transfer fee for luxury items like audio plugins. Just be grateful for having the disposable income to indulge in your passions and let it go.

Well, imagine if you, as the original buyer, also had to pay the tax when you sell the car, not the second hand buyer. And you already need to sell your car to less than half the price because the car dealer usually runs sales at 50% on new cars. Now also imagine that the tax is not 11%, but 20%, both when you buy the car, but also when you sell the car.

[TechHaus]

A 20% transfer fee is not abuse. Consider your car analogy. Where I come from, there is an 11% tax on new cars. If i turn around and sell that car the next day, the buyer has to pay another 6-11% percent depending on where it is bought. This applies to every time a used car is sold.

One should consider this vehicle tax far more concerning than a silly transfer fee for luxury items like audio plugins. Just be grateful for having the disposable income to indulge in your passions and let it go.

Well, imagine if you, as the original buyer, also had to pay the tax when you sell the car, not the second hand buyer. And you already need to sell your car to less than half the price because the car dealer usually runs sales at 50% on new cars. Now also imagine that the tax is not 11%, but 20%, both when you buy the car, but also when you sell the car.

You don't have to imagine it...this is why boomers are not selling their homes currently in the US...sitting in homes that are way too big for them.

https://www.realtor.com/news/real-estat ... tudy-2026/

Just like the folks who won't sell their Melda plugins now.

[starflakeprj]

A 20% transfer fee is not abuse. Consider your car analogy. Where I come from, there is an 11% tax on new cars. If i turn around and sell that car the next day, the buyer has to pay another 6-11% percent depending on where it is bought. This applies to every time a used car is sold.

One should consider this vehicle tax far more concerning than a silly transfer fee for luxury items like audio plugins. Just be grateful for having the disposable income to indulge in your passions and let it go.

Well, imagine if you, as the original buyer, also had to pay the tax when you sell the car, not the second hand buyer. And you already need to sell your car to less than half the price because the car dealer usually runs sales at 50% on new cars. Now also imagine that the tax is not 11%, but 20%, both when you buy the car, but also when you sell the car.

You don't have to imagine it...this is why boomers are not selling their homes currently in the US...sitting in homes that are way too big for them.

https://www.realtor.com/news/real-estat ... tudy-2026/

Just like the folks who won't sell their Melda plugins now.

I just wanted to dismantle the car analogy. But yeah, same thing with a house sale, obviously

I sold my Melda plugins a long time ago and took the hit. Will never buy a Melda plugin again and I even deleted my account due to this.

[careyletendre]

And you already need to sell your car to less than half the price because the car dealer usually runs sales at 50% on new cars.

Are you seriously complaining about sales driven depreciation affecting the used market?

The facts remain:

It is not a 20% tax. It simply a prohibitive levy. It is not abusive and is completely avoideable.

[starflakeprj]

And you already need to sell your car to less than half the price because the car dealer usually runs sales at 50% on new cars.

Are you seriously complaining about sales driven depreciation affecting the used market?

The facts remain:

It is not a 20% tax. It simply a prohibitive levy. It is not abusive and is completely avoideable.

I don't mind if a developer charges for a license transfer, there are others doing that as well. But in combination with the continuous 50% sales they are running, they are devaluing their own plugins and reputation.