Resale/License transfer LIST

gsilbers @ Mon Oct 29 said:

spectrasonics will let you transfer with a personal request and explanation.

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At the moment, I am in the process of that license transfer (as the new owner) and it is FAR from easy to do. After 1 month, it is still not transferred. The seller even said to me that he was going to give me back my money, but I stated that he should keep trying for another week

RobertPeetersPiano @ Mon Oct 29 said:

At the moment, I am in the process of that license transfer (as the new owner) and it is FAR from easy to do.

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That's not the case actually. I've now looked into it and I'd like to clarify this situation so people don't get the wrong idea. We've worked really hard here to get our license transfer customer service improved and the turnaround time reasonable. However, we deal with tons of fraud cases and so we have to investigate each request on a case-by-case basis...and that does take some time.

The seller in this transfer is in the transfer process with Spectrasonics and we never received any communication with Robert (the buyer)...so he didn't really know what was happening...except what the seller communicated to him.

After 1 month, it is still not transferred. The seller even said to me that he was going to give me back my money, but I stated that he should keep trying for another week

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The delay is essentially because a company tried to sell Robert a license that doesn't belong to them. It belonged to a former employee of the company. As most of you know, we license to individual users...not companies/corporations.

When the company contacted us and we discovered that the license was owned by a former employee, we told the company that only the employee could sell it since he is the licensed owner of the product.

They returned the product to the employee who sent us pictures showing he had possession of the discs yesterday, and so now that the ownership has been properly established, the license transfer was submitted to our administration to transfer this yesterday. Once we have ownership properly established, it really doesn't take that long to get an answer if the license is transferrable.

All parties are all now well aware of our licensing at this point and understand the delays - they just did not communicate that accurately to Robert (the buyer).

These are the kinds of issues that come up in many transfer requests, hence why we need to handle them on a case-by-case basis.

spectrum @ Tue Oct 30 said:

RobertPeetersPiano @ Mon Oct 29 said:

At the moment, I am in the process of that license transfer (as the new owner) and it is FAR from easy to do.

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That's not the case actually. I've now looked into it and I'd like to clarify this situation so people don't get the wrong idea. We've worked really hard here to get our license transfer customer service improved and the turnaround time reasonable. However, we deal with tons of fraud cases and so we have to investigate each request on a case-by-case basis...and that does take some time.

The seller in this transfer is in the transfer process with Spectrasonics and we never received any communication with Robert (the buyer)...so he didn't really know what was happening...except what the seller communicated to him.

After 1 month, it is still not transferred. The seller even said to me that he was going to give me back my money, but I stated that he should keep trying for another week

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The delay is essentially because a company tried to sell Robert a license that doesn't belong to them. It belonged to a former employee of the company. As most of you know, we license to individual users...not companies/corporations.

When the company contacted us and we discovered that the license was owned by a former employee, we told the company that only the employee could sell it since he is the licensed owner of the product.

They returned the product to the employee who sent us pictures showing he had possession of the discs yesterday, and so now that the ownership has been properly established, the license transfer was submitted to our administration to transfer this yesterday. Once we have ownership properly established, it really doesn't take that long to get an answer if the license is transferrable.

All parties are all now well aware of our licensing at this point and understand the delays - they just did not communicate that accurately to Robert (the buyer).

These are the kinds of issues that come up in many transfer requests, hence why we need to handle them on a case-by-case basis.

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I should rephrase myself: Spectrasonics offers a very good service, the seller didn't quite tell me all the details, so sorry Spectrasonics!

I thought there was a law passed in Europe that allows licences to be sold and transferred.

BTW, there is a forum in KVR on resales and licenses.

kitekrazy @ Tue Oct 30 said:

I thought there was a law passed in Europe that allows licences to be sold and transferred.

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It only applies to software, not sound recordings.

D

Daryl @ Wed Oct 31 said:

kitekrazy @ Tue Oct 30 said:

I thought there was a law passed in Europe that allows licences to be sold and transferred.

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It only applies to software, not sound recordings.

D

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wouldn't that be a bit pointless tho. i mean the audio is part of the software.
you're not buying different licenses for the programmed patches and the audio content. you buy a license to a software. even if the software contains audio, its still under the same license.

the law should be in effect even if a company doesn't have a physical presence in EU. all it takes is for the company to do business in EU. They trade in the European countries, so must abide by the trading laws there.

Im no expert, so I might be completely wrong of course. so correct me if it's so. o[])

Vartio @ Wed Oct 31 said:

Daryl @ Wed Oct 31 said:

kitekrazy @ Tue Oct 30 said:

I thought there was a law passed in Europe that allows licences to be sold and transferred.

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It only applies to software, not sound recordings.

D

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wouldn't that be a bit pointless tho. i mean the audio is part of the software.
you're not buying different licenses for the programmed patches and the audio content. you buy a license to a software. even if the software contains audio, its still under the same license.
I might be completely wrong of course. so correct me if it's so. o[])

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Sorry, you are wrong. There is certainly a software portion of the product, but the important thing to realise is that you are buying a licence to use the audio, and that is not covered by the European re-sale law, which only covers software.

D

Daryl @ Wed Oct 31 said:

you are buying a licence to use the audio, and that is not covered by the European re-sale law

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Yeah. You're right. I missed that.

Carles @ 29.10.2012 said:

- U-He (free? easy?)

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Quite easy, in most cases it's free - however if you want to sell a product you purchased within the first 6 months of purchasing it, you will have to pay a small fee per day left to end the 6 months period. Or something like that.

Carles @ Tue Oct 30 said:

Let's say that you can use a library for 5 years before becoming obsolete (it's just an example)
You produce 10 profitable tracks in 2 years. You sell your copy and another artists will produce 20 tracks in 3 years. Isn't the same that if you alone have produced 30 profitable tracks in 5 years? where is the difference?

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The problem for the developer is this:

The basis of the pricing of the license to create derivative audio works from their copyrighted sound recordings (i.e.: using the devs sound recordings in your music recordings) is based on a "single user" professional model. Essentially, if the user is able to use it once, then the pricing is justified.

The lifetime use for the single user is considered a special privilege extended by the license, that means that you have unlimited rights to use the samples as much as you like...but just for YOU. Otherwise, the entire business model falls apart and prices have to go way up.

Here's a real world example:

• Sting prominently uses a drum loop of mine from Liquid Grooves on a hit song. I didn't get called to do that session and neither did my drummer. We got our $99 once for Sting buying the product. It's actually a great deal for him, because it was far cheaper than hiring our team and our drummer for the session. Our drummer did get his royalty, so at least he made something for appearing on Sting's record, but it's a very small amount.

Sting uses a number of other loops from that same product over the years on various projects, making more and more money without having to pay us a royalty. We still make the same amount, just paid once.

Sting's used the library a number of times over the last decade and he's creatively done with that library.

Our audio recordings are now embedded in many of Sting's albums....a big honor for us of course, even though it wasn't a big financial gain.

No problem so far. Everything is functioning as it should. The way this kind of single user license is setup is to be very generous to the end user.

• Lady Gaga wants to use the same drum loop library of ours now.

If she buys it legitimately, more hits are made with it. We get our $99 and the drummer gets his royalty. She has the right to use it for her lifetime too. A lot of money is getting made by these artists on our work, but it's ok because the license is setup to work for any single user for their lifetime.

However, if Sting sold her the library...now the creators and the original musician gets nothing. Hardly fair....right? She should pay the musicians and the people who contributed to her album...especially if she's using their audio recordings...right?

With digital data you can extend this scenario very far, with one paid copy being used by many, many people.

If I only get paid once for lots of artists using and profiting from my work, then I would either have to charge an insane amount of money....which would only allow my work to be used by the very top pros, or stop producing these kinds of products completely (which would be much more likely)

The "single user/royalty-free lifetime license" model we have in the industry now is a very good one, because the prices are set so that they are accessible to any serious music producer. It's a win-win for everyone:

The developers win because they can reach a larger audience and sell larger quantities, the serious hobbyist/semi-pros win because they have access to the same tools as the pros, and the pro music producers win because they get access at an incredibly low price for unlimited usage.

Your argument could make some sense to me if you buy a product by 500 credits and you sell it by 500 credits or if both are using the product simultaneously. Otherwise make no sense to me.

As soon as you sell your 500 credits product for 350 credits you already paid for your corresponding part of usage and I don't see any ethic conflict on that.

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One person's usage of that license is 500 credits....it's not based on a certain number of years. The license pricing that all developers base their pricing on is based on any use by the licensee at all.

For example, one vocal phrase in Vocal Planet was used by Mark Isham in the score to Crash as a primary melody of the score. He didn't have to hire the singer, which would have cost much more than the price of the library (which includes 500 singers and thousands of recordings he's can use for his lifetime) So the price of the library more than paid for itself for just one usage.

Also your argument makes unfair the fact that one composer can produce 50 cues in 5 years while other composer can produce only 20.
Should the vendor of the library claim an extra payment to the lucky one that produced 100 cues?

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No. That's why all sample library licenses are based on "single user, single lifetime fee for any use".

That's why the deal is such a great one for end users!

In the past, you had to license samples PER project, per track and you could only use them once for a LOT of money! ($10,000 to $250,000 per use!)

The sample library licensing model is already extremely generous to end users....and this is why license transfers are problematic for many developers.

perhaps should return the full value to the unlucky composer who produced 0 cues?
Should it be completely free for me who as amateur don't make any money out of it?

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That's certainly a risk that any user takes when requesting a lifetime license for a professional sample library.

Most good companies will work with you however if you really can't use what you purchased. That's just good customer service.

just consider that you've been paying for a renting time and it becomes fair enough automatically

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It's definitely not rental. In fact, the license you accepted and legally agreed to probably states that it's not a rental service. So trying to think of it that way is already breaking your agreement with the developer.

Do you feel the same with your hardware?

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And here is where you are not understanding the primary difference:

Samples are copyrighted sound recordings.

A license allows you to take those recordings and make NEW musical recordings of your own with them and distribute them. Legally, this is called creating a "derivative work"....which is NOT the case with hardware.

The sounds that are generated by hardware are not protected by copyright law, so you are free to use them in your own recordings. However, you are not free to use copyrighted sound recordings in your own recordings unless you have a specific license to do so.

This is the key difference and why so many get confused between hardware and sample-based products like sample libraries.

Perhaps there is a huge difference between a pro and an amateur at this regard

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I think this is a really important point.

What we are talking about here are professional sample libraries that have licenses designed for professional use. Non-pros also have access to them, but they have to abide by the same license terms.

Sometimes, developers have different types of licenses available for different kinds of users. We have an educational license for example that's far cheaper and designed especially for teaching our instruments in the classroom, but the license terms are far less flexible than our standard license for music producers.

Hope that's helpful.

spectrum @ Thu Nov 01 said:

Carles @ Tue Oct 30 said:

Let's say that you can use a library for 5 years before becoming obsolete (it's just an example)
You produce 10 profitable tracks in 2 years. You sell your copy and another artists will produce 20 tracks in 3 years. Isn't the same that if you alone have produced 30 profitable tracks in 5 years? where is the difference?

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The problem for the developer is this:

The basis of the pricing of the license to create derivative audio works from... (etc)

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Indeed, much appreciated. Very useful explanation, much informative and pretty fair in my opinion. In fact to the point that makes me feel embarrassed by starting this topic.

But, I think we have to agree that "the rules of the game" are made for people who take profit from these products (and not necessarily at Sting's level).

Still is deeply unfair that same rules applies to pro beginners and even less to amateurs.

I'd be pleased to get an amateur license which strictly restrict the use for personal usage and accepting sever penalties if used in any commercial project, cheaper and also reselling friendly (from amateur to amateur of course) but you know what, such license doesn't exists and I do believe that never will do.

The most similar thing I could get is an educational discount but I'm not student and nor teacher.
So should I to pay the fee to get enrolled in a course which I never will actually use in order to get a certificate?
Or, should I ask for instance in my children's school if they could gently cheat and print out a certificate stating that I'm either student or teaching a course just to get access to a license a bit more close to my actual position as amateur?
Well, that's to me the same ethically incorrect as if I go directly to the underground and grab an illegal copy (the last option is even cheaper as it is completely for free).

That's one of the more sad things.
The current policies invites to either, leaving your beloved hobby because the market is aiming to pros only or becoming an illegal user or at least break your ethics cheating somehow in order to get a more fair policy.

That really make no sense.

While we are apples and oranges here the developers only provide solutions for oranges, and that's why some people agree with the current policies and some deeply disagree, we are different genres under an unique set of rules.


That's what I'm trying to state here.
For let's say oranges (amateurs) the list above is at the moment the best way to avoid that a permanent mistake will happen over and over, unfortunately with the restrictions that it implies, but still (for me) the best option is not to purchase anymore from any non "seller friendly" vendor, sadly.

Said that, I much appreciate those vendors who are amateur or low income composers friendly, and I'd encourage them to please don't change their policies as they are the single viable possibility for those who don't want to use illegal copies or leaving the hobby.

Cheers,
Carles

Hi everyone.

Its a complicated issue. Spectrum (Eric) has given some great information on the background to it.

Our prices, musician royalty structure and business model are based on a customer buying a single non transferable license that enables them to make music recordings using our IP - namely the samples contained in our libraries. Transferring a license from one person to another via the NI system is not impossible but is time consuming and thus has a cost to us. There is an issue with the fact that once someone has transferred a license they no longer hold the right to include our IP in their derivative recordings. Also we would be giving product tech support to people who had not generated any income for the company, which eventually adds up to a further loss in some way.

If we wanted to allow resale in the future we would have to revise our prices upwards to account for the percentage loss in sales and thus royalties to our musicians, and to account for the extra time and cost in dealing with ownership transfers.

We prefer to keep our prices keen, make great products that hopefully no-one would wish to part with, and spend our limited time and resources on giving gold standard customer service to our customers.

Aside from all this - and as a composer myself - I take pains to make very very detailed (some might say waffly and interminable) youtube videos with simple naked demos of the library's patches - so that you absolutely know what you are getting when you buy, as far as humanly possible.

I'm not into carefully crafted demos mixed and produced up the wazoo, I absolutely don't want to have to deal with upset customers who thought they were getting one thing and received another.

We try really really hard to be a good company, fair to our team, our musicians, (these people are all our friends) and to our customers - many of whom we know personally.

We make the tools that we would want to have for our own work, and we hope that our taste translates to others.

I hope thats helped explain our position. There is another super long thread about this as well back a few months as mentioned.

All the very best,

Paul

Eric's post was interesting regarding samples. The funny thing is there are samples used in hardware now (even large samples libs like in the Kronos) and you can resell one of those. I'm also confused at how some companies, like Spectrasonics, sample the heck out of everything out there to make their libraries but do not allow you to sample a chunk of their libraries.

Case in point. Isn't it illegal to sample a Roland D-50 becasue of the sampled waveforms? But I see the D-50 was used in Omnisphere. Eric can you explain this?

I spent close to $600 bucks on a library (on the no sell list in this thread) last year and wish I had my money back. It sucks enough to shell out that kind of money and then maybe get to resell it for 2/3 to 1/2 of what you paid but to not be able to resell at all hurts. (I'm not rich) I guess in the future I will be more mindful of companies that do not allow a transfer.

And God Bless Try-Sounds, ven with the chirping birds , it's a great place to evaluate a llibrary.

dpasdernick @ Mon Dec 24 said:

Case in point. Isn't it illegal to sample a Roland D-50 becasue of the sampled waveforms? But I see the D-50 was used in Omnisphere. Eric can you explain this?

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It's simple to explain: Eric was hired by Roland to do the original patch design for the D-50, and most likely licensed Spectrasonics recordings to Roland for use in the D-50. No double standard, it's just that Eric has been in this business for a LONG time.

Hi everyone, I would just like to clarify this issue. We have not changed our terms and conditions with respect to existing customers.

The T&C have always stated that it is at our discretion whether or not to allow a licence transfer. Please note the paragraph "The Licensee may NOT, without first obtaining the express written consent of CS, assign their rights and obligations under this Agreement, or copy, redistribute, encumber, sell, rent, lease, sublicense, or otherwise transfer their rights to the Software Product. If permission is granted by CS, license transfers can be applied for via Native Instruments’ support at..."

We were in fact happy to help out one or two customers in the past, but this statement in the T&C in no way guarantees the blanket right of a licence-holder to transfer their licence. Ultimately, we have decided to withold our permission, as we found that some users were trying to take unreasonable advantage of our goodwill; we found the process was being abused and the whole thing was becoming too time-consuming for us.

If anyone has any further questions on this issue, please contact me through the support form on our website.

Cheers,
Alex

Orange Tree Samples doesn't allow reselling of Kontakt Player libraries:

Bear in mind that certain products cannot be transferred:

• NFR (not for resale) copies.
• Kontakt Player libraries--serial numbers cannot be transferred.
• Products that are discontinued or otherwise not for sale.
• Products purchased less than 6 months ago.
• Products received as transfers within 6 months.

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Parsifal666 said:

I see "Best Service (one time reselling, €40 fee)"

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Hey Parsifal,

The current transfer fee for most (if not all) Best Service libraries is €25. This applies to products released by Best Service (including Chris Hein's libraries), but not those simply sold by Best Service. Hope that helps.

This is a really useful thread. Is there a secure, reputable place that people would recommend where license transfers can be bought and sold?

Sorry if this has been asked many times before?

Garry said:

This is a really useful thread. Is there a secure, reputable place that people would recommend where license transfers can be bought and sold?

Sorry if this has been asked many times before?

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https://vi-control.net/community/forums/for-sale-music-gear-classifieds-free-service.66/