Academic Version?

[Steven Gonzales]

Everyone installing Final Cut Pro accepts a license agreement. Academic version purchasers also promise that they’re eligible for the discount before purchase, and accept that the academic license is a limited one.

Ultimately, all moral behavior rests in the individual. I would hope that everyone working in this creative venue is also a person who can be trusted to keep their agreements.

While in college, many students get in to campus sports events free. After college, even though they are burdened with loans, they don’t get in free.

[Craig Shields]

You can cross-grade to FCP Studio until the end of the year. It’s NOT an academic version.

Also, Walter, why lecture someone on the morals of using the academic version professionally when it was a simple straight-forward question? You have no idea how he wants to use the program or why. It’s wrong for you to assume that was the purpose. I could understand if that was a part of the question, but it wasn’t. It’s like someone said above, it’s up to the individual.

[Tony]

35mmGuy,

Once you are a working professional and making real “income” any software maker should expect that the student user prepare to step up to the professional level and pay for his applications instead of pretending to still be a student. As a professional you may also want extended support plans etc which would assist you run your business more effective so hiding out as a “ex-student” just to save a buck is worthless.

Apple or any other software maker need not offer the academic version because it is not in their best interest if student users will “cheat” them by using the academic version on a “for profit” productions.

So in the best interest of future students benefitting from the “academic” offer I would suggest you do the right and legal action which is to sell your academic version and obtain the professional license.

FYI I was able to upgrade from the academic version of FCP 3 to the FCP 4 professional version without having to rebuy the entire application again. The policy may have changed since that time.

Tony Salgado

ps- How will your clients react when you boot up the application and the academic version logo appears. If they ask you “are you still as student?” and the answer is clearly “no” then be prepared for the client to reconsider how much they should be paying you as a “student” versus a “true professional”.

The client may ask for a reduced rate based on the fact your software operation cost are so much lower than a “true professional”.

In addition the client or any other “true professional” you work with may question your ethical and work standards given the fact that you chose to “cheat the system” then why not “cheat the client” or other co workers.

[Richard Boddington]

I don’t have the academic or non academic version. I have express, non-academic.

I was curious if there where any feature changes with the academic version, as I see lots of them for sale.

My point about the student becoming a non student is that I doubt few if any people going from student to working pro would bother to buy the non-academic version. I guess that’s just my belief about the human nature of most people, that’s all.

R,

[Walter Biscardi]

[35mmGuy] “I was curious if there where any feature changes with the academic version, as I see lots of them for sale.”

With the advent of sites like eBay a lot of real and fake students realized it would be easy to purchase the Academic version of FCP and then turn right around and sell it for a profit. Almost every copy you see up there these days are Academic

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Ron Dylewski]

I though the only difference between the regular and the Academic versions was
that the manual in the Academic version is twice as long and written in very
obtuse language… 🙂

[Steven Gonzales]

The academic version only works in the morning, and the rest of the time it is trying to be a publishing application. The academic version did some important work, but it was a long time ago. The professional version gets more done in the same time period, but the academic version will be around long into the future, as it is protected by the system.

[Debe]

Dang! I’m going to have to stop drinking ANYTHING when I read these boards!

You nearly had me nasally spewing Earl Gray all over my laptop!

Very funny!

debe

[Passenger Robert]

I am a student– I did have the Academic version of “soundtrack pro”– i followed the cross-grade procedures through apples website– I paid the $199.00 plus tax and sent in my sound track discs. Apple in return sent me the entire suite in the Universal format– and it was NOT academic. I sent in my disc the first day they advertised the promotion– as a result i had to wait about 2 months to get my discs. So– I can tell you what happened to me– but that was a long time ago– so I can’t say they’re still opperating it the same way.

[Boyd Mccollum]

[zrb123] “the crossgrade form for the academic version is the exact same form as the non academic version and noware on the form douse it say that youo will get the academic version in return. I have also heard from others that they did not get the accademic version when they did the crossgrade from there origonal academic version.”

When you do the crossgrade, you just get the disks. The “academic” vs. “non-academic” is in the serial number that you use. The application is exactly the same, therefore the disks they send are exactly the same. You get new disks, BUT you do not get a new serial number with the new disks, so if your SN is from an academic purchase, then the crossgrade is still an academic version of FCP. (I’m not sure, but I don’t think it will work with an academic version of FCP 4.5 or earlier.)

When you actually buy FCP in the store, the boxes on the outside may say Academic, Full, or Upgrade, but that just lets you know what type of serial number you are getting. It has nothing to do with the disks or documentation. For instance, if you purchace an upgrade from 4.5 to 5.0, when you type in the serial number, based on the number, the installer goes and looks for an earlier license of FCP on the computer – if it’s not there, it won’t install. If the earlier serial number is an academic SN, it won’t install. If you purchase a full copy, the installer doesn’t need to verify if there is an earlier version of the serial number on the computer.

For those who shouldn’t be using the academic version, or plan on moving into a pro environment in the near future, it might be worthwhile to see if you can purchase a legitimate stand alone, non-academic version of either DVD SP, Soundtrack, Motion or an older version of FCP 4.5, then spend an additional $199 for the crossgrade. You’ll then be able to get into the non-academic FCP studio environment for around the price of an academic license.