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New Pricing…activation.. legitimacy
Does anyone think the new lower pricing per seat will be enforced more strictly, (online activation, calling home, locked to a machine, etc).
I’m thinking it could actually be a good thing. Isn’t it better for the industry when >99% of users are actually paying, and that when you hire someone you know your getting a legitimate shop.
They key would be, to me, some added user incentive to it calling home. Things like roaming setups, web backup of projects, sharing, automatic crash logging and comparation, etc would be so useful that many people would choose to allow it to connect all the time to the FCPX cloud. Imagine a stock library just a right click away, auto recognizing possible matching stock shots for comps or actual use.
The more I think about the features talked about, the more excited I get. Yes I would love to see a hard track option, Viewer, traditional bin options (and buried someplace, the old 3 Way CC) but forgiving the new look, (not currently a fan) this will be an extremely exciting release. Just background rendering, floating point and color matching are huge.
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8 Replies
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[Richard Dee] “Does anyone think the new lower pricing per seat will be enforced more strictly, (online activation, calling home, locked to a machine, etc).
I’m thinking it could actually be a good thing. Isn’t it better for the industry when >99% of users are actually paying, and that when you hire someone you know your getting a legitimate shop.”
I assume, since it’s sold through the App Store, that it’ll use standard App Store copy protection. Which is, essentially, no technical enforcement of how many computers an app is installed on (the license allows for either multiple machines used by one user, e.g. your desktop and laptop, or one machine used by multiple users, e.g. a machine in an edit suite), but each of those computers must be authorized on your iTunes account. As far as I know App Store apps don’t regularly phone home, but of course initially authorizing a given machine on an account requires connecting to Apple.
This seems to me like it strikes a good balance. It’s activation, sort of, but in exchange it relieves the user of having to manage serial numbers (unlike, say, Adobe’s activation system which still requires them), the user can re-install the app at any time from Apple’s servers with a couple of clicks, and it doesn’t obnoxiously enforce a limit on the number of machines that means you might have to call up and beg to be allowed to use your own software on a new machine if your old one dies without being deactivated.
It won’t stop people from buying FCP X and installing it on more machines than they’re allowed to, but it should stop casual redistribution beyond the machines under a user’s direct control (i.e. outside of a given company or household), because people aren’t going to give their iTunes account information out to random individuals, since anyone who has it can make purchases charged to your credit card.
Of course I’m sure the copy protection will get cracked (they all do) and the app will be possible to pirate, but hopefully the lower price and convenient App Store installation will encourage more users to go legit.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read What is FCP X’s relationship to iMovie? on our blog.
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Low price is the best anti-piracy protection: by reducing their profit margin, you make the reward for high-volume piracy worth less than the hassle.
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According to those who know much more than I do, apps from the App Store are harder to pirate because of some sort of coding that’s in the app. Something to do with the installation process and markers on the computer that did the download.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
But for the small one guy operation you will only have to buy one copy and you can install it on upto five systems as long as they all have the same iTune log on. So your laptop and desktop should run the app at the same time. The move to App store for big apps will be interesting, I can see both the pros and the cons but in the end it is not that big of a deal, it is just a comfort (or lack of comfort) thing that will probably go away pretty quickly.
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[Mark Suszko] “Low price is the best anti-piracy protection: by reducing their profit margin, you make the reward for high-volume piracy worth less than the hassle.”
Harks back to the days of AutoDesk AutoCAD, when its license per seat was deemed outrageous. Of course piracy was rampant.
jPo
You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?
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One of my big questions is going to be how does this affect our annul agreement. We maintain on this campus around 90 Final cut licenses we also pay a yearly fee to maintain these licenses which entitled us to all upgrades. So I’m wondering if we are going to be able to migrate that agreement to be able to get it from the app store or are we going to have to get individual iTunes accounts for each Mac we have.
Questions Questions and more Questions
Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho -
Michael Sacci Wrote: “But for the small one guy operation you will only have to buy one copy and you can install it on upto five systems as long as they all have the same iTune log on.”
That’s pretty cool, but if you only bought one copy would it allow you to use FCPX on multiple systems at the same time or would you get an error message about someone else already having it open?
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[Dustin Parsons] “That’s pretty cool, but if you only bought one copy would it allow you to use FCPX on multiple systems at the same time or would you get an error message about someone else already having it open?”
The license terms for Mac App Store apps are essentially that for each copy you buy you can choose to either:
1) Install it on all the computers used by one individual.
2) Install it on one computer used by many individuals.Presumably FCP X won’t perform that sort of local network check, to allow for the former. But it’s always possible Apple won’t stick to standard App Store rules with FCP X — it is their store, after all, so they can do whatever they like.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read What is FCP X’s relationship to iMovie? on our blog.
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