I can sell Photoshop, My car, a bucket I bought, a HD etc...

News & General Discussion
1

But I am prohibited from selling my Silo 2.0 license.

Gone are the days where you pay for something and it belongs to you with the right to sell it when you don’t need it anymore.

It’s a BS system and I hate it.

What I hate even more is Photoshop costs the same in UK pounds as it does in US dollars i.e. I pay £600 for it and in the US they pay $600 for it.

Way to rip of the software buyers in the UK.

Fleece us why don’t you. Go on…do it.

Also, sell me you app then forbid me from reselling it when I don’t need it anymore… go on… do it… suit you…suit you sir…

Am I being Flippant? Am I being Obnoxious? Of course I am. At least I can sell those on when I’ve finished with them.

Death to Draconian EULA’s and death to currency exchange rate rape of the british public purse.

Rip Off Britain…Yeah sure… Now why don’t all you other countries join in the mugging.

Too much coffee today.

My point is… I bought the thing… SO I can sell the thing if I want to just like I can sell my MP3’s or my CD’s or my car.

Err…That’s all I got to say about that…

2

Same thing with your Unity license.

–Eric

3

Swallows Pills and Grabs Shotgun

4

I kinda thought you would do something like that. :wink:

–Eric

5

Ya, but when are you not going to need Unity? :wink:

But ya, this is kind of a dumb euala.

6

US, UK pricing was always like that. When I was a student in the UK it was impossible to get an educational license of 3dsmax. My university could but it for their labs for 1000 pounds though. Meanwhile US students could buy a package including 3dsmax, biped and some other program for $1000.

Only people that did a comparable educational discount for students back then was Microsoft.

As far as software goes, not being able to resell your software is the norm now. Places like Blitz Research are the exception really. I wasn’t aware you were allowed to sell Photoshop, that surprised me :slight_smile:

7

Yep, while I do have a problem with their European pricing, that’s at least one decent thing about Adobe. As far as I know, you can even still use the U.S. version in Europe - unlike with Autodesk’s products. I would probably call it the Autodesk norm. :x

(I can still sell my ZBrush license and as far as I know, other 3D vendors let you transfer your license for free or for a small fee.)

8

Yes - you can sell your Photoshop License. I don’t think that’s generous of Adobe, though. I think that’s onyl rightful. It’s kind of a fundamental debate but I dn’t think you should be prohibited to sell anything you bought, either.

I don’t know if that’s becsue of German law or in general but you can sell licenses of professional products in many cases. Most of the time you’d have to get a license-transfer contract from the company and it also costs a little fee, too. But I know that I can sell my Adobe licenses, my Cinema 4D license and my ZBrush license if I wanted to.
I mean - why prohibit it? Maybe the company does lose that one full-price sell. BUt what about the updates? If you have to calculate your expenses very strictly you might buy a used license and try to upgrad that. That’S what I would have done hadn’t Maxon made that 50% off C4D deal last year. A satisfied upgrading customer is worth more than a customer paing for the cheaper competitive software, IMO. No?

Autodesk restricting the licenses from US to be used in any other country only made me leave them. I havent’ used 3DS Max since I had to while being employed somewhere.

BTW - think you’re being ripped off in UK for a Photoshop License? Photoshop costs (standalone) 1010EUR (incl VAT) - extended even 1486.31 EUR in Germany. THAT’S a ripoff, IMO.
And don’t get me started on pricing of Autodesk software, either. 3DS Max costs 3800 EUR … incl VAT 4522 €. Compare that to 2588 EUR I’d have to pay for the US version. Admittedly that’s because of a strong Euro compared to the USDollar right now. Also the pricing has become more even when you compare them to what they were a few years ago. I still find that pretty annoying. For the money I’m paing more, here I could very well buy a mid-range Mac Pro or god knows what a beast of a PC. :wink:

9

I agree. Although, these days it is VERY easy to download almost any software that costs thousands of pounds illegally from torrents and such.
Maybe that’s why they don’t allow you to sell the licenses? Because anyone can download a “cracked” license or something and then try to sell it?

I dunno :S

10

Hmmm… here’s a fun one…

How does a developer, with a straight face, both refuse to let customers resell a product to a third party and employ DRM schemes that, realistically, only seems to negatively affect those same customers?

Also, how is it okay to tell your customers that the product they’ve just bought from you has no value, yet every pirated copy of that exact same product somehow retains it’s full value to be counted as a “loss” when it comes time to balance the books later on?

11

How many people who sell their licenses will also keep a copy for themselves? Is that fair to the software company?

12

Isn’t that what the DRM is there for? To prevent that sort of thing?

Companies that allow a transfer of ownership also require you to destroy any copies of the software you have upon completion of the transfer. Anyone that bothers going to the trouble of performing a legitimate transfer of ownership (which generally involves directly informing the developer so they can update their records) usually won’t do something that stupid. It kind of becomes a nightmare for the customer when the third party comes back a few days later asking for a refund when the software rejects the serial number…

13

… and an even bigger nightmare for the software company. They now have two customers that they would then have to assist in a business transaction that they had no involvement in.

I sure miss the good old days when I didn’t have to worry about copy protection and I got paid 10x what I do now for the same kind of work. :wink:

14

Seriously: if the customer just sold their license and kept a copy for themselves they could have just downloaded the torrent, as it’s juat as illegal.
I don’t think that anyone who’d keep a copy of a 1000+ € program would hesitate to also download it for free. It’s way easier and faster. After all he won’t be able to activate it after a license transfer anyways as the license would be active on too many computers.

Sriously I still feel kinda weird when the software I paid lots of money for doesn’t feel like I can use it without problem on my own machine.

Example: I had problems with Mac OS lately, so I tried to create another user to see if the problem exists as well. suspecting Photoshop I started the program from the second account. It started but I suspect it activated another account with Adobe as CS4 does not tell you when it’s activating any more. On the other hand I can (apparently) only deactivate my whole suite not individual programs from it. So if I deactivate my suite on that computer is it deactivated on the whole system? Does it tell me that everything’s deavtivated or will it make problems if I try to activate it for another single user again, then. The program does not tell me but I’ve got the diffuse feeling that at some point it might just cause problems and I’ll have to contact Adobe and let have them reset my activations.

Make that an equal problem for all activated Software on my Mac (Unity, Cinema 4D, Zbrush pus said Adobe Bundle) and I’ve got LOADS of work should I have to reinstall my OS. And it looks like I have to.

So yeah - I think Bones3D has a point here: If I’m not allowed to resell the stuff anyways why still make it DRM? It does not seem like any kind of DRM would have stopped illegal downloads and activations for people who really want to pirate software. It’s mostly a hassle for paying customers. Ah … I’m ranting now. I’ll stop here ^^

15

Hmm, nice topic… international price gouging, EULA, and DRM (et al).

We are just at the tip of the ice burg for most of these little demons. I really don’t think the general public has any clue what’s being done to them. Canadian prices for equilivant US products have long been unbalanced verses the exchange rate, but now before we go off with our pitch forks and tourches, you better check the rules at home. Government wants a piece of any action, and usually throws it into the general “protectionism” bucket, along with a bunch of other laws to “ensure the competitiveness of our national producers”. I don’t think it accounts for all the price difference, but… it’s worth a look before you BBQ companies at large.

EULA - well, it’s kind of knitpicking to single out tools. Microsoft popularized the Licensing verses buying back with MSDOS (no they didn’t invent it, but they sure have been a interestingly successful implementation). Autodesk tools? H*ll, you don’t own any of the OSes your using (unless you happen to have an opensource one running) much less the software! You “buy” music and apps from the Apple store? Nope, try again, you own the right to “use them”. digital books… I think the recient case of an ebook being “re-possessed” (with refund) clears that up.

End of the day, because digital media companies can do a thing, they do (and love it btw). Ain’t no better disposable economy than one you actually OWN! Once I take away your hardware (by removing support, and driving standards well beyond the poor machine’s ability to keep up), you my friend are going to RE-LEASE all your software (makes stock just quiver in excitement :lol: ).

DRM? Damned Ridiculus Mechanism for enforcing corporate rights! So much for trying to prove someone committed a crime, let’s just treat everyone like a criminal up front and see if we can spot the good ones (who manage to defeat the DRM anyway).

Sad thing is … I end up getting dragged into this sick little world. My game for iPhone, has DRM graphed on. People who buy my game can’t sell or trade it (no matter how I feel, I don’t care if they sell/give it to someone else personally, I don’t like pirating, but buying my product and selling it (or even giving it away) isn’t pirating in my books. Adding insult to this injury, if I don’t make updates to my game (and keep my Apple dev license in good standing) then eventually those people will likely be forced to upgrade to a device which can’t play it. At this point I can’t even build for iPhone 1.0 from the current SDK.

sigh if anyone comes up with a cure for common stupidity, I hope it gets around faster than Tiger Woods.

Cheers,

Galen

16

One added side note…

If the argument for developers refusing to let their customers transfer ownership of a product to a third party is based on support issues or a lost sale to a potential new customer, then why not have those developers offer to buy back a product from the customer at a price point that both the developer and the customer agrees with? That way, the product is removed from the market entirely and the serial number is retired completely, eliminating the possibility of the customer “keeping a copy for himself” afterward.

17

The issue is money. Old versions of your software drain sales from new versions, and support money. Due to public outcry, you can’t force the customer to the next upgrade. But, you sure do want to. (see microsoft’s last 2 operating systems for reference). Oh, and buy what back? A rental license? You don’t rent a flat for 3 yrs and expect to get money back (other than a damage deposit) to move out, do you? I know we’re really talking about fairness, but let’s look at what we have done to ourselves:

  • We want some software.

  • The company that makes it says “sure, you can rent it” in legal-eze so thick that only a lawyer in that space could understand it.

  • we get mad when we can’t sell what we’ve never owned.

Now, SHOULD we have owned it? maybe. SHOULD we have known clearly that we were not buying it. YES. What are our (as consumers) alternatives to the shinny new thing? Usually, not many. Sure, I traded Windows for Mac OS… one lease for another. Do I feel better? Not legally. I can’t even install Mac OS on any hardware I happen to have lying around (legally).

When will this EULA thing really go south on us?

  1. When something happens (unexpectly) to one of the major suppliers that isn’t recoverable. Basic Disaster Recovery practice, usually only applies within a given entity. Apple doesn’t backup MS code, just in case…

or

  1. Some stupid law gets through that allows a company to excerse their rights under their EULA (they can take the license back… without real or implied cause). Only threat of public backlash could possibliy save us then.

Most people fear what would happen if their harddrive crashes, family pictures, music, videos, work, code, etc… Now what happens if your OS company decides you’ve had enough fun and “evicts” you as tenant? I’ll bet it feels worse if the damage is intentionally done, as oppose to hardware glitch.

(good lord this topic is really depressing the more you think about it, isn’t it?)

Galen

18

Buying vs. leasing…

If I remember correctly that’s where Autodesk got caught in that Vernor case. Interestingly, they still use the word “Purchase” on their page, while they claim it is basically a lease.

Maybe leasing is a completely different market and it surely would not sound that glamorous.

Plus would you still be able to lease something “AS IS”? Probably yes, but this might open another can of worms as far as bug fixing goes.

:roll:

19

Your analogy is lacking, though.

  1. A flat can only be rented to ONE person at a time. Software on the other hand can be mutiplied as often as the marked desires.
  2. A flat depricates by being used. Software depricates by time and competition on the market.

Your analogy would be more relevant to software leasing - which is possible already. It’s still lacking, though :wink:

The more I think about it the more I like Bones3D’s ideas. If you don’t want a copy on the market any more buy it back. The older the version number the lesser you get.
From the company’s point of view that’s not necessary though. Why buy something back if you can just keep the money and make sure it doesn’t get on the market by restricting it within the EULAs? It’s totaly understandable and I surely woulnd’t act any different as a company.

Sometimes I really wonder why so many people (from the customer side of it) defend what companies are doing? “Is it fair? No. But what can you do … ah well.”
The other side of it is: if customers really got fed up of unfair treatment (and I know I’m going way beyond the right to sell licenses here) - what would the companies do then? As much as consumers are depending on the companies’ will to keep software running - companies are just as well depending on the consumer market’s money.

An interesting side note to that - apparently US lobbys are targeting Open Source: When using open source makes you an enemy of the state | Open source | The Guardian

Where to draw the line and by whom?

I guess it just boils down to treating the customer fair enough while still maintaining enough rights to your own software. It’s being treated fair while still having the good feeling of working with something you feel god with and think your money is well-spent on. Not something you need to buy because someone kind of forces you to. The line’s pretty blurry, IMO.

20

It’s the very nature of these licenses that people resist very simple analogies. But it’s the simplest terms that might help facilitate change. When Bill Cliniton was in office and the internet was starting to take shape, there was a proposal in US Govt to make a copy of all private security keys for encryption available to the Govt security agencies. The analogy that killed it was likening it to giving the Govt a key to your backdoor, just in case. Most Americans didn’t (and don’t) understand the details about encryption, but the backdoor key thing, they got!

I don’t disagree with Bones3D’s suggestion, however I’m afraid thus far, history doesn’t bode well for those relying on companies or public movements to maintain momentum for greater good. Your points are well made, and a more consumer focused approach wouldn’t be hard to hammer out. Like, if you “buy it”, the copy you bought is… wait for it… yours :wink:

But your later point about the US lobbist is the point. Now, in my experience, I wouldn’t worry about the lobbists yet. They represent an interest group, a special interest group in this case. They may have powerful friends, but… happily (in most cases) the entire US goverment doesn’t loose it’s collective minds. Canada got an honorable mention there at the end (it’s always nice when they remember we’re up here :lol: ). As head of the US, with a down ecomomy, a global recession, and so on, do you reallly want to start pounding the “trade sanctions” war drums? Canada - US border runs about 1.5 billion a day. This would be a great time to shut 'er down over opensource use in goverment :wink: (let’s do it boys! I personally never trusted Canadians).

There is no limit, at present or historically, to what people will attempt to control or bend to their own purposes. What’s new here is an unprecidented ability to excercise actual control over a purchased (or leased, or whatever you’d like to call it) item.

Cheers,

Galen