Final Cut Pro and License Upgrade Question

[Richard Harrington]

Unless a transfer of ownership form is filed… then it is stolen. Buying old versions from someone else who also upgraded is illegal.

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, and ATS:iWork

[Brian Findlay]

Thanks for the answer, I believe you have tried to answer this with best intent, but stating it’s stolen is just way off base. The software was not stolen, and you’ve called me a thief in a public forum. Your ignorance doesn’t offend me, but I would council you to try to choose your words more carefully in the future unless you are intentionally trying to be an ass.

After reading the license agreement in FCP Studio, I at least have 1/2 the answer, but I still do not know if any copy be upgraded from reading this. Apple has been no help so far.

I’ve used (sales support) and their (near useless) web search engine, and can’t find any forms related to transfer of ownership anywhere. There is absolutely no mention of a transfer of ownership form according to the agreement below, so it appears that it is not necessary to be legal. It may however exist, if anyone knows where this could be found I would appreciate it. Also any info in how to find out if the copy I have has ever been upgraded as Apple can’t seem to tell me so far.

It is interesting however, if you read the “UPDATE” section below, it doesn’t say you can’t have them both installed (on one or two different machines), just that you can’t use them at the same time. So technically you could operation one on your laptop and the other on your office machine (I personally wouldn’t bother). I think Adobe’s license is so much more real world, where they allow you 2 installs. In my case, this is a second Mac and I already have a legal copy installed on the first so to me this is just pure greed on Apples part as I won’t be using the machines at the same time anyway. I would however want the same version on both machines to be practical. Also “UPDATE” (see below in “Transfer”) is something downloaded as a patch or fix (see “Software Updates” in System Preferences) an “UPGRADE” isn’t mentioned (go to Apples webpage to see this for $500), so I think the jury is still out on this one. As this (below) is a legal form, they would not mix terms unless they have incompetent lawyers (which is possible) as they have designated UPDATES and UPGRADES as two separate things. I am sure Apple has a policy (though no one I talked too at Apple seems to know what it is), it’s just not specified in their license. There seems to be NOTHING in their license that prohibits it that I can find, and two calls to Apple Sales support can’t tell me I can’t do it either (they just tell me to hold while they try to find an answer and then hang up). So it appears to be legal, the question is will the Apple server let you do it when you attempt to activate the UPGRADE software.

Has anyone ever tried to upgrade a license that has been upgraded already? If so did it work? How about a “Transfer of Ownership” form, anyone ever seen one? Can you provide a pointer?

Thanks all

Brian

3. Transfer.

You may not rent, lease, lend or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. All components of the Apple Software are provided as part of a bundle and may not be separated from the bundle and distributed as standalone applications.

Updates: If an Apple Software update completely replaces (full install) a previously licensed version of the Apple Software, you many not use both version of the Apple Software at the same time nor may you transfer them separately.

NFR (Not for Resale) Copies: Notwithstanding other sections of this License, Apple Software labeled or otherwise provided to you on a promotional basis may only be used for demonstration, testing and evaluation purposes and may not be resold or transferred.

Academic Copies: If the Apple Software package has an academic label or if you acquired the Apple Software at an academic discount, you must be an Eligible Educational End User to use the Apple Software. “Eligible Educational End Users” means students, faculty, staff and administration attending and/or working at an educational institutional facility (i.e., college campus, public or private K-12 schools).

[Gary Adcock]

[Brian Findlay] “I believe you have tried to answer this with best intent, but stating it’s stolen is just way off base. The software was not stolen, and you’ve called me a thief in a public forum.”

Sorry Brian, I am with Rich on this one, the software was not transfered to you, it was, according to your post, was “left behind by a roommate” and “given to you”, therefor you have no right or claim to the original. Neither one of those conditions qualifies under the “one time permanent transfer of all license rights ”

You act is if the box left behind is covered under maritime “salvage” rights where it would be “finders keepers” and that is not the case.

“Has anyone ever tried to upgrade a license that has been upgraded already?”

without the login of the original owner to confirm the status of your serial number, you will most likely not be able to update the software via the apple site.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Brian Findlay]

Okay.. let me fill in the details for you. The disappeared roommate is deceased friend. The friend who gave it to me was his spouse. Is this the truth? Does it matter? That’s not the question I ever asked. There could be a 1000 scenarios where you are legally in possession of a copy of unknown origin. I am one of those, just take that at face value and answer or don’t answer the questions. The next time when you ask someone a editing question and they accuse you of illegally editing copyrighted media but don’t answer your question, you’ll know what I am talking about.

It is a bit unnerving when you know you haven’t done anything wrong. What I asked and trying to clear up what exactly Apple allows and doesn’t allow with their licenses.

Having been a SW Eng, Project Mngr, etc. most of my life, I know that some SW companies intentionally leave open the upgrade path pretty loose as it is a way to increase their customer base so long as they can do it without diluting (in an obvious way) the requirement of the first purchase. I have worked for one of the big 3 editor companies, just not Apple. There is nothing immoral or illegal about asking about it. And in my specific case, I just want to be able to run (legally) the software (same version) on two machines that I won’t be running simultaneously.

Pardon me if I’m not excited about paying $1300 twice for this privileged which Adobe and Avid, their only real competitors give away freely. Yes it’s Apple’s property and they can do with it as they please, but it doesn’t make trying to clarify and find an alternative (legal) means is illegal or immoral AND if you read their license, it doesn’t appear to be prohibited.

I would have thought that this thread would have been of interest to more people who may be in a similar situation of seeking alternative (legal) upgrade paths as Apple (who I’ve called in good faith twice), doesn’t seem to have an answer for. Rather you purchase a used copy off ebay, an estated sale or bankruptcy sale, it would be good to know where you stand with “unknown” or even previously upgraded software. If you read the license, I find nothing that prohibits multiple upgrades off a single license (this may or may not be intentional, I may be missing something, it’s very difficult to tell as the word “UPGRADE” never appears, only “UPDATE” which is another thing entirely), so the next obvious question is DOES IT WORK. Anyone know?

“without the login of the original owner to confirm the status of your serial number, you will most likely not be able to update the software via the apple site.”

I’m guessing from the “most likely not” means you don’t know either. If you do, please let me know, that’s all I am asking.

This is my final post on this, if you have information, I’d love to hear it, I’ve just spent way too much time trying to create a constructive conversation from people who are deluded into believing there is a moral imperative to throw money at a company without asking if its necessary. There appears to be no legal one.

Thanks all

Brian

[Gary Adcock]

[Brian Findlay] “”without the login of the original owner to confirm the status of your serial number, you will most likely not be able to update the software via the apple site.” \I’m guessing from the “most likely not” means you don’t know either. If you do, please let me know, that’s all I am asking. “

No,
actually it means that it varies with the versions of FCP, and since in your diatribe I fail to see anything about versions – we have nothing to go on.

if you are talking 5.1x and later, forget it- those “new intel only serials” have managed quite tightly. Prior to FCP 5 it would depend on whether that license was registered if and the update was ordered direct from apple or thru a third party.

[Brian Findlay] “Having been a SW Eng, Project Mngr, etc. most of my life, I know that some SW companies intentionally leave open the upgrade path pretty loose as it is a way to increase their customer base so long as they can do it without diluting (in an obvious way) the requirement of the first purchase.”

Yes then shouldn’t you would also know about copyright and piracy issues? I have never heard of a product level manager ever asking to do anything that could be misconstrued as asking for assistance in violating those laws.

and yes I answered your question.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD

[Richard Harrington]

Brian… I was glib but truthful… and totally right in the eyes of Apple….

Im with Gary here… pony up the cash or do it the legal way and get a letter stating transfer of ownership from the original owner.

FWIW… quoting the EULA was a nice touch… perhaps you could toss a few bible verses in and try to alienate yourself a little more….

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, and ATS:iWork

[Brian Findlay]

Okay, thanks for the help even if it came with a back hand.

Rather you know it or not, you CAN install one copy of FCP Studio 2 on two machines just fine. I was never asking for or trying to do something illegal, if I was, I would have done that and never posted here. I am just trying to find the cheapest legal path to ownership, if in the end that means buying the full retail version, than that’s what I’ll do.

“Brian… I was glib but truthful… and totally right in the eyes of Apple….”

That’s all I have been trying to establish, but the more I look at it, the more ambiguous this appears to be. Is there really something wrong with reading and posting the license rather than just saying it’s illegal? Do you see some lines in there that deal explicitly with UPGRADES? I don’t.

Because the marketing and management are people just like you and I, trying to figure how to increase profits and market share these things are all part of a consideration in product price points and upgrade requirements. I just found it a very interesting omission from a company that has the resources to hire the best, perhaps it wasn’t accidental. It appears to be a legal path to a legal license via upgrade (if it works). Also note that the serial numbers on an upgrade are different than the original license, so it IS a different license, not an UPDATE of an existing one. I just want to know if it works but have no intention of flushing $500 if it doesn’t.

Anyway, I’ll stop being insulted if you stop insulting me for reading the licensing and asking reasonable questions.

I think this is a great thread for the forum, I hope Apple gets a bit more real with their license. When I worked for Apples competitor, one of the things they polled their customers on was how many had pirated licenses of FCP, they said it was well over half.

I was told by a director that they considered FCPs easy ability to be pirated to be intentional in order to gain market share. They viewed that some significant amount of illegal users would learn to use their software and eventually buy a license. The company I was at decided to be more liberal (more than one machine) with their license use but enforced it. Only those at Apple know for sure, but if management at a competitor thought it was so, there is probably something to it.

If those numbers still hold (about a year ago I was told that), a significant amount of this this board is made up of illegal license holders. Assuming this director was correct, and Apple was intentionally using piracy as a marketing tool, how far out is it to use leaky upgrade license policy to make legal users where none were before? Does it seem that crazy to you? It doesn’t to me.

It’s likely that Apple reads these things and as sincerely as I doubt they would ever bother with me anyway if I did what I believe to be a legal upgrade, I’m not about to do anything at this point without feeling on pretty firm ground legally. I am going to be back on the phone to Apple on Tues to see if there is a way to find out if my copy was upgraded or not as it was given to me by the legal owner, just not the user.

I still think rather than treating it like the Salem Witch Trials, a frank and specific conversation/debate/etc would be of benefit to all.

If there is something you can add to this except “burn the witch”, I’d love to hear it.

Night All

Brian

[Kevin Monahan]

Brian,
This forum sees tons and tons of requests related to serializing a dubious copy of FCS. In your first post, it seems to be just another one of these. There is not much more a moderator can say other than the party line, “go get a legal version of FCS”. Add to this, some moderators here do business with Apple so making a bad suggestion wouldn’t be right. All forums are this way too, not just the Cow.

You are in one of these gray areas that are impossible to sort out in an open forum. Just do what you were going to and contact Apple.

All this talk about Apple making FCP easy to pirate has got to be a total fabrication. And how can you insinuate that half of Creative Cow are software pirates? That’s just uncool.

I just love conspiracy theories.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Brian Findlay]

Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the reply, good points all, thanks. I did say according to what a competitors polling of owners of their product, over 1/2 their users said they had pirate versions of FCP. So, maybe if I go to that forum on the cow, all the bloody FCP pirates are over there. I’m sure they would never have the audacity to click into the FCP forum 🙂

I don’t know peoples backgrounds, so sometime I think things come as a shock. I don’t know if Apple did this intentionally, but if they did, it was pretty smart, and at least 1 of their competitors believed it to be true. I’m 50 now, alot of my realizations of how the world works from when I was 30 are very different. Businesses (successful ones) are generally very pragmatic. I spent the first half of my professional life in engineering, the second more on the business end, tough I am very comfortable in the techie world, I see the world more from a business end.

I used to work for several different Silicon Valley companies, and I learned (it was disturbing at first), that the most successful companies do not necessarily have the best products, just the best marketing and sales. I worked for some with the best marketing and sales, though the competitors had better products, we were always more successful.

Apples marketing and sales is second to none, people LOVE the Apple brand, is that a coincidence you think of just great products? I think you could go across the product line and find competitors not nearly as successful that have lots of equivalent or near as decent products, just not near as successful. That is due to branding, marketing, and sales. Please DO NOT construe this as bashing Apple, I have alot of admiration for the company, I buy their products, even own their stock. They just understand the game very well and do it better than anyone else. There are a lot of very shrewd people making decisions every day on things like sealing in the battery of an IPOD, to how they view and deal with issues like piracy and upgrades.

You can either hire a band of lawyers to kick in doors of pirates (great press – helps promote the brand I’m sure), or you can accept that there is going to be some level of this going on and try to figure a way to turn the tables in your own favor. Which would be the better business decision? What is worth more, having a great clean cool public image, or being seen as the bully picking on a bunch Idie filmmakers who didn’t tap out for the last dollar owed? The image is worth so much more, they paid billions for it.

I confess, no I don’t know, but I certainly believe it to be a very reasonable, pragmatic, and enlightened marketing strategy myself.

Anyway, I can see that this is just way too uncomfortable for most people to talk about, I’ll let it rest.

All the best ya’ll

Brian