Propellerheads wont transfer REs. Is this legal?

[joeyluck]

Buyer's regret is a thing. Why should devs have to pay for a person's bad decision though? We all make bad purchases. Just roll with it and move on and maybe learn to be more careful next time.

I guess on this topic, the buyer's confidence is also a thing. And when customers go in knowing they can resell something, they might buy something they otherwise wouldn't have. They might buy more REs than they would have...and much of the time, not even resell any of them. But just having that sense of some security makes people feel better (especially in a closed system). I think you might see an increase in sales when RE-selling™ is allowed, but not as much actual reselling going on...

And those few who do sell, might take that money and put it right back into the RE market.

[diminished]

Buyer's regret is a thing. Why should devs have to pay for a person's bad decision though? We all make bad purchases. Just roll with it and move on and maybe learn to be more careful next time.

That's how I roll with bad restaurant visits etc. I'll pay, but I won't come back. The software we're speaking of isn't personalized though, it's not rotting. Nobody, expect maybe John Deere, is stopping me from selling my old vehicle. To play the devil's advocate now, sorry for the sarcasm, but just for the heck of it: we all know bad business decisions, why don't the devs just roll with it and develop only VST from now on, where there's a much larger market?

All that aside: it's a ruling by the fucking European Court of Justice. We're all allowed to have opinions about that, but in the end, if applicable to our little case here, it's the law.

[diminished]

Buyer's regret is a thing. Why should devs have to pay for a person's bad decision though? We all make bad purchases. Just roll with it and move on and maybe learn to be more careful next time.

I guess on this topic, the buyer's confidence is also a thing. And when customers go in knowing they can resell something, they might buy something they otherwise wouldn't have. They might buy more REs than they would have...and much of the time, not even resell any of them. But just having that sense of some security makes people feel better (especially in a closed system). I think you might see an increase in sales when RE-selling™ is allowed, but not as much actual reselling going on...

And those few who do sell, might take that money and put it right back into the RE market.

Good answer.

[bxbrkrz]

As long as all, from the smallest to the biggest mega corp, play by the same EU rules. It should not matter if you're based in the US, the Republic of Malta, or the Cayman Islands.
We shall see.

[diminished]

As long as all, from the smallest to the biggest mega corp, play by the same EU rules. It should not matter if you're based in the US, the Republic of Malta, or the Cayman Islands.
We shall see.

Yep
Next up: Swexit. EU killing swedish companies. Headline: Teenage Engineering bankrupt because they were forced to provide printed manuals

[bxbrkrz]

As long as all, from the smallest to the biggest mega corp, play by the same EU rules. It should not matter if you're based in the US, the Republic of Malta, or the Cayman Islands.
We shall see.

Yep
Next up: Swexit. EU killing swedish companies. Headline: Teenage Engineering bankrupt because they were forced to provide printed manuals

... "Swexit!" Better trademark it right now.

[TrevaRanks]

I’m not a lawyer but I work in consumer law so know a bit; the case being referred to may set a legal precedent, meaning if you were to take the issue to court then the judge would need to consider the legal thinking behind that decision and apply it to your case IF the circumstances are the same.

It unfortunately doesn’t necessarily make the ruling from the case become ‘the law’ and mean Props are doing something illegal as such, as legislation has not been passed and the facts of the case need to be examined. You would need to take the case to court. I see many traders doing things every day that a court wouldn’t uphold, but it’s all down to whether somebody actually takes them to court, which is a very lengthy and costly process.

Laws around copyright, licensing etc are very complex and those articles are a simplification of the concepts. You would need a specialist solicitor as this is not the type of case you could just rock up to small claims court and represent yourself in.

That ODR link you’re using will find you an alternative dispute resolution service who can mediate between you and Props, but they’re not obliged to use them and I suspect the case may be too complex for that anyway, so court will probably be your only option.

Good luck to you but I wouldn’t hold your breath mate.

[JdA57]

"Propellerheads wont transfer REs. Is this legal?"

Yes, for shure it is!

And I think it's ok like that

[Oquasec]

Propellerhead gets talked about more than native instruments. that says something

[JunctionArsonist]

My take on this is that the full version of Reason is incredible value. As we speak it is on sale. I would argue that REs on the other hand are poor value when compared to Reason itself (some argue they are of poor value on their own accord but I won't weigh in on that).

I bet the Price of reason is artificially low to give customers access to the RE market (growing the customer base) so that Props can rake in a bunch of passive income without the costs of active (reason 5/6 era) development. I'm not trying to be overly critical, just observing the reality of today.

[dioxide]

And those few who do sell, might take that money and put it right back into the RE market.

Yes but there's still less cash going to the Prop Shop, which needs to be replaced somehow.

Scenario 1
Buyer A, Buyer B and Buyer C buy a RE from the Prop Shop. Each licence is $10. In this scenario, the Prop Shop receives $30 and this is split between PH and the Dev.

Scenario 2
Buyer A buys a RE from the Prop Shop ($10). Buyer B also buys a licence from the Prop Shop ($10), but after a week decides that it was a mistake, so sells their licence to Buyer C for $5. Buyer B takes the money they have recouped and put it back into the Prop Shop ($5). In this scenario, the Prop Shop receives $25 and this is split between PH and the Dev.

In Scenario 2 there are still $30 of transactions, but the Prop Shop (and thus Dev) receives less. The costs of developing a RE remain the same, and a developer needs to recoup a certain amount of money if they are going to produce cool software. So under Scenario 2 the income needs to be balanced out so that the Prop Shop still receives a total of $30. The only way to do this is to increase the price of the software from $10 to $12.50 ($12.50 + $12.50 + $5 = $30).

While I've just used $10 amount to illustrate this, and it's all fairly speculative, these cost increases are a percentage. Whereas you might look at this and say, "yeah I don't mind paying an extra $2.50 to be able to sell my licence on", I bet you wouldn't be so happy about paying $125 instead of $100 on a more expensive instrument or effect.

Allowing RE licence resales will put up prices of REs for everyone. I don't want this.

[dioxide]

Thinking about it a bit more, the only advantage to Scenario 2 is that someone gets a bargain. In Scenario 1, no-one gets a bargain as everyone pays the same but in Scenario 2, Buyer C gets it for $5, but only because it is subsided by Buyers A and B who can afford to pay more. I guess it's a little exercise in wealth redistribution.

I can see why someone being able to get their hands on a RE for $5 instead of $10 is a good thing, but more from a point of view that looking from certain countries, some REs are pretty expensive. If you live in the US or Western Europe, in a country with wages that are similar to that of the RE developers themselves, I'm not sympathetic at all. Most RE developers are doing this as much for the love of it as for the money, I don't imagine any of them rolling in cash from this, and I think for many it's still a side project. If you screw with the economic side of things too much, I think we'll see more developers quitting, which means less cool stuff for everyone.

In Scenario 2 above, I used an example where half of the shop bought licences end up on the second hand market. That's perhaps a bit high, but for certain types of RE it could be even higher, which effectively kills the "long tail" of sales spanning a few years. For instance there is a speech synthesizer and various chip synths in the Shop. For many users these are REs that you might only need for a single project, so they might buy them and resell them after a few months, depriving the Developer of a full price sale. Even if the money goes back into the Prop Shop, it probably won't go back to the same dev, because there are now other new cool things available to play with.

To be honest I think introducing VSTs might have already killed the possibility of these kinds of REs being produced, as there isn't much motivation to have them in a native format now that Reason supports VSTs. For me that's a shame as I think they add to the richness of the Shop. These Devs would most likely be the worst affected by allowing resales of licences, so would probably switch to working on devices that have wider appeal.

[joeyluck]

And those few who do sell, might take that money and put it right back into the RE market.

Yes but there's still less cash going to the Prop Shop, which needs to be replaced somehow.

Scenario 1
Buyer A, Buyer B and Buyer C buy a RE from the Prop Shop. Each licence is $10. In this scenario, the Prop Shop receives $30 and this is split between PH and the Dev.

Scenario 2
Buyer A buys a RE from the Prop Shop ($10). Buyer B also buys a licence from the Prop Shop ($10), but after a week decides that it was a mistake, so sells their licence to Buyer C for $5. Buyer B takes the money they have recouped and put it back into the Prop Shop ($5). In this scenario, the Prop Shop receives $25 and this is split between PH and the Dev.

In Scenario 2 there are still $30 of transactions, but the Prop Shop (and thus Dev) receives less. The costs of developing a RE remain the same, and a developer needs to recoup a certain amount of money if they are going to produce cool software. So under Scenario 2 the income needs to be balanced out so that the Prop Shop still receives a total of $30. The only way to do this is to increase the price of the software from $10 to $12.50 ($12.50 + $12.50 + $5 = $30).

While I've just used $10 amount to illustrate this, and it's all fairly speculative, these cost increases are a percentage. Whereas you might look at this and say, "yeah I don't mind paying an extra $2.50 to be able to sell my licence on", I bet you wouldn't be so happy about paying $125 instead of $100 on a more expensive instrument or effect.

Allowing RE licence resales will put up prices of REs for everyone. I don't want this.

I think some of this might just be overthinking it. I would go back to my other point that folks would be more encouraged to buy, but never actually sell. In my 20+ years of buying music software, I have never sold a single piece of it... But I do find the secure feeling with certain software knowing I have the flexibility to sell it. Are you asking if I would be more encouraged to buy a RE for $125 vs $100 if I knew I could resell it? The answer is yes. But to that point, would Reason itself be cheaper if we couldn't resell it? I'm not familiar with any software costing more because of the ability to transfer a license. Some have fees, but not many. Of all the VSTs I have bought that can be transferred, I don't feel like I overpaid for them.

[Boombastix]

From reading the ruling I believe PH is on thin ice if they refuse to transfer the REs with a Reason license transfer. It is probably most correct to see a as RE an add-on software module/extension to Reason and should be considered one and the same purchased software function. Resale of individual REs is a different story, as they could be considered extensions to the main software Reason. It could be that they just decided not to do anything until a real "shit-storm" happens. But in the consumer business you can screw individuals quite easily since few have a real incentive to file a claim. It is different in business to business contracts where large corporations have legal staff on the payroll and contract disputes can be in the multi-million dollar range. An individual will unlikely spend $20000 on legal costs to fight a $500 issue.
The US is different through with the risk of class-action lawsuits and attorneys working on contingency basis, but in the EU you probably have to file a claim to some Ombudsman or similar.

It seems though that the SW manufacturer do not need to provide maintenance etc to the 2nd owner, so a transferred license may not be eligible for the $129 typical upgrade. So if you sell your Reason 10 license to someone it may be so that PH can charge the full license if he wants to get R11 in the future as the new license holder then also become eligible for support and maintenance upgrades. Basically it means a resold license could perhaps get a restriction like a NFR license. This was a bit fuzzy though and I read it fast...

[WongoTheSane]

I'm not driving, I'm travelling!

[MrFigg]

I'm not driving, I'm travelling!

Do they call you Mr. Fahrenheit?

[tt_lab]

I am favouring RE selling, and want to add a new variable to dioxide's argument: Updates
Devs can charge for updates, so the buyer who got the RE in the 2nd hand market should pay for keeping the RE updated.
There is still some money to make for the devs from those licenses.

[Creativemind]

Why do you want to sell Reason, do you need the money?

You could just keep it if not and you can upgrade at a later date when (if it's some features you were frustrated about) when said feature/s arrive?

EDIT - Sorry, was presuming they will arrive there lol!

[Noplan]

I suspect it's legal because they are not stand-alone programs that only work in their rack. A kind of additional features of Reason.

[bxbrkrz]

Question.
Radical Piano. Synchronous. If bought before being ‘integrated’ in Reason one should still have the right to sell them, yes? All or nothing.

[jam-s]

If I remember correctly the Props are weaseling out of this by this:

"No transfer. You may not transfer, rent, lease, or sublicense the RE Product (other than to the extent that such right is expressly granted under applicable mandatory law)."

--> No transfer, until we get sued and are forced to allow it.

[xylyx]

--> No transfer, until we get sued and are forced to allow it.

The problem is that anyone with enough money to actually pursue this legally, has enough money to not care about not being able to resell their REs

[miscend]

not all vst companies allow you to re sell either like heavyocity ?
are you telling me there all being illegal ?

Yes, from my point of view its clearly illegal.

To avoid all the hassle you should give your account away for free to the buyer of the licence.

[miscend]

The next logical step would be to sue compagnies like Apple and Google, first. To me the PH app store is the same as those companies' app stores. Why can't I resale my Candy Crush Saga, Angry Birds or Temple Run 2 to another person and across platforms, from Android to iOS, and vice versa? The article you linked was written in 2012. GoogApple not worried.

To have built-in banner ads withing your rack, yes inside Reason, is the way to go.
The same way you could play a game for free with ads, or pay for it and get rid of the ads, why not have the same option with REs? Instead of creating a rack few people will pay for, but can't give it away for free (because dev time is money), give the devs a third option between free and $9?

Apple and Google are US based companies. I am talking about the EU law.
https://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/yes-virg ... rope/45821

If they trade in the EU, and have local subsidiaries in the EU, they have to follow local laws right?

[miscend]

I am favouring RE selling, and want to add a new variable to dioxide's argument: Updates
Devs can charge for updates, so the buyer who got the RE in the 2nd hand market should pay for keeping the RE updated.
There is still some money to make for the devs from those licenses.

It’s only fair to go after the big boys like Google, Microsoft and Apple first. Rather than small devs like Propellerheads.

I believe Apple channels all their revenues through Ireland. They all have EU bases.