Resale/License transfer LIST

Carles (the OP of this thread) felt this thread was becoming unwieldy, and many of the posts in its 12 pages were now moot, or sometimes of the attack nature, which he was uncomfortable with, especially since the thread is a sticky. After scanning through the posts, I think Carles is right.

The original purpose of this thread was informational, so people could easily see which companies have friendly resale policies and which don't, so he asked me if we could either start a new "clean" thread for just the list (minus the debates), or clean up this thread. I suggested cleaning up this thread would be the best option, if for no other reason than starting a new thread would start the debate all over again and we'd once again wind up with a new 12-page monster that no one actually reads. (Interestingly, many of the "debate" posters in the last few pages of this thread started their posts with the words, "I haven't read this entire thread, but ...")

So ... I edited the thread. Admittedly, it was with an ax rather than a surgical knife. This is a case where (IMO) less is more, so I deleted just about all posts (over 200) that I didn't think were really important.

I apologize to the many people whose perfectly valid posts were removed. I understand that people put thought and effort into their posts, so I really, really do hate to delete them. (FWIW, I also deleted all of my own posts.) However, most posts were many years old, and as I said, no one was reading the entire thread anymore, since it was so dang long. Plus the thread had unfortunately drifted into ugliness with snippy back and forth arguments in a few places, including the first page.

I did keep a number of posts which I believe offer valuable insight. Admittedly, they're mostly from the developers' perspective, and I may catch heat for that, but I think the information is worthwhile, so I kept them. Before I get accused of playing favorites, though, I'll point out that I'm keeping this thread a sticky, even though my own company is in the naughty section.

I'll also point out that anyone is free to start a new thread debating the merits of resale policies. That's totally fine. VI-Control has always been first and foremost a members' forum, not a developers' homefield. However, in this thread, we'd like keep things strictly informational. If you have info on whether companies have friendly or unfriendly resale policies, then please do post. If you want to debate the policies, though, then please post elsewhere on the forum.

Thank you for your understanding.

Thanks Mike!

Auddict allowed reselling for me just recently.

This is a shame. The first post was never updated and many posts were adding to the list, so now all that info is gone. I don’t expect someone to read a long thread, but updatung the list on the first post before trashing it all would have made this post useful. Now it’s a sticky post with a list from 6 years ago, a tad short and outdated at best.

I asked the OP years ago to update the list, he said he didn’t have time but would let the site owner know. Now it’s all moot. I even feel bad about wasting the time I put into adding names and researching some of this and posting. it’s all gone. What a site. Would have takien me only a few hours to extract the names and create a list to add to the first post (I’ve been through 12 page threads before), but because no one but the OP can change the list, it’s become an almost useless thread as time goes on.

Why not take the sticky off and let it die? Unless there is going to be a list that is updated or can be edited by more than one guy, it’s a pointless endeavor. Plus, being at the top I keep checking it to see if the first post is updated (last time was maybe 3 years ago?) and leave disappointed every time. Perhaps it’s time to let it go or give us an option for a group post/list. Thanks.

Just to be clear, if you die, Spitfire will allow your spouse or another member of the family to use your licenses.

Sibelius19 said:

Just to be clear, if you die, Spitfire will allow your spouse or another member of the family to use your licenses.

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X-Bassist said:

This is a shame. The first post was never updated and many posts were adding to the list, so now all that info is gone. I don’t expect someone to read a long thread, but updatung the list on the first post before trashing it all would have made this post useful. Now it’s a sticky post with a list from 6 years ago, a tad short and outdated at best.

I asked the OP years ago to update the list, he said he didn’t have time but would let the site owner know. Now it’s all moot. I even feel bad about wasting the time I put into adding names and researching some of this and posting. it’s all gone. What a site. Would have takien me only a few hours to extract the names and create a list to add to the first post (I’ve been through 12 page threads before), but because no one but the OP can change the list, it’s become an almost useless thread as time goes on.

Why not take the stick off and let it die? Unless there is going to be a list that is updated or can be edited by more than one guy, it’s a pointless endeavor. Plus, being at the top I keep checking it to see if the first post is updated (last time was maybe 3 years ago?) and leave disappointed every time. Perhaps it’s time to let it go or give us an option for a group post/list. Thanks.

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I agree although it was updated by the mods in February. What if you create a new similar thread which can replace this one?

You wouldn't have Wavelore Pedal Steel that you would like to sell would you?

Desperately need to get my hands on it, but thier website has no support after sale I.e. Theyre still selling it, but not sending download links etc after sale which is a real pain.

Carles said:

List updated (please feel free to fix me if something is wrong).

Also, not sure if anyone interested, but just in case, please developers feel free to use this distinctive if you wish.

Cheers,
Carles

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Collected so far (sorted alphabetically):

Reselling friendly
- Addictive drums (free, easy)
- Ample Sound
- Arturia (seems to be free)
- AudioEase (?)
- Best Service (one time reselling, €25 fee, BS own products only)
- Camel Audio (slight fee)
- Chocolate Audio (read their FAQ)
- Embertone (Name/address/phone/email needed)
- FXpansion ($50 fee)
- iZotope (free)
- Native Instruments (possibly some exceptions)
- Orange Tree Samples (free, easy - possible exception for KPlayer libraries?)
- Output (conflicting reports, but seems yes)
- Project Sam (one time reselling, €25 fee, easy)
- Samplemodeling
- SampleTekk
- Steinberg (free, easy)
- Toontracks (one time reselling, conditions may apply)
- U-He (free, easy)
- VSL (requires a fee, easy)
- Xsample

Case by case (product specific or other factors)
- Heavyocity* (usually not, but products partnered with Native Instruments are transferable via NI support)
- Impact Soundworks (not by default, but possible in a case by case basis)
- Soundiron
- Spectrasonics (software instruments only, case-by-case basis, transfer fee in most cases)
- Wave Alchemy

No friendly
- 8dio
- ArtVista
- Auddict
- Audio Bro
- Bela D Media (stated in EULA)
- Cinematic Strings
- Cinesamples
- EastWest
- Fable Sounds
- Garritan
- Musical Sampling
- Orchestral Tools
- Realitone (but has 30 day refund policy)
- Sample Logic (stated in EULA)
- Sonokinetic
- Spitfire Audio
- Vir2
- Virharmonic
- Wallander Instruments
- Zero-G (stated in EULA)


(list updated eventually)

Many are missing I know, so please, add more if you know about.

Cheers,
Carles

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Missing Fluffy Audio, looking by their website they should be placed in the bottom tier. https://fluffyaudio.com/licensing/

Bottom Tier, but we often allow it, as you see from the occasional sales here on vi-control. We prefer to apply a stricter rule and have a lax approach on it, than leaving the potential for abusing it. How do you know that when a user sells a library he actually deletes it?

paoling said:

Bottom Tier, but we often allow it, as you see from the occasional sales here on vi-control. We prefer to apply a stricter rule and have a lax approach on it, than leaving the potential for abusing it. How do you know that when a user sells a library he actually deletes it?

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From my first and very resent experience with a totally rigid inforcement of a no resale/tradein/refund policy I will stay away from all brands with such policies. There is no way for me as customer to know if I will buy a flawed product if I can not try a demo or return it if it turns out bad after a purchase. And there is no way to separate companies that enforce the policy with a blunt no in every way or that have a lax policy and my offer a reasonable solution.

Seems to me that it there is no working serial, activation check for the libraries you should take that up with Native Instruments. After all there are quite a few like me that just got Kontakt for the purpose of using libraries. Or develop something like Play from EastWest that only lets the user play the libraries when the fee is paid. I also like companies that have the new model when you pay a monthly fee for a certain time and then after that you own the copy.

Something has to be done about this cause this is like somebody said like buying a car and then realise that the breaks or something is bad. Would you not expect that to be fixed or to return the car?

In the case there’s any kind of incompatibility, we try to come up with a fix and if we can’t we offer a refund.
Do you think that’s an easy route to develop your own player?

We have the rights to choose the rules that makes us more confortable with our job and our customers have the rights to decide if they are willing to buy from us or not. For example, whenever we can we offer upgrade paths by discounting all the retail price of the original product, even if it was bought on sale. (just an example of something which not always happens with any developer).
Or in some cases I have discouraged a customer to buy a library from us and invited him to consider a competitor’s one that was maybe more suited to his purpose.

I’ll stress about this, because some users tend to think that we (the developers) are offering a kind of service (even before buying anything from us) and everything should be due to them.

While I prefer to think that it’s a kind of honest relationship where we try to make our best to give our customer the most pleasant experience possible.

And I dislike some kind of marketing for the lack of honesty with their customers... but that’s stuff for another topic :-D

paoling said:

In the case there’s any kind of incompatibility, we try to come up with a fix and if we can’t we offer a refund.
Do you think that’s an easy route to develop your own player?

We have the rights to choose the rules that makes us more confortable with our job and our customers have the rights to decide if they are willing to buy from us or not. For example, whenever we can we offer upgrade paths by discounting all the retail price of the original product, even if it was bought on sale. (just an example of something which not always happens with any developer).
Or in some cases I have discouraged a customer to buy a library from us and invited him to consider a competitor’s one that was maybe more suited to his purpose.

I’ll stress about this, because some users tend to think that we (the developers) are offering a kind of service (even before buying anything from us) and everything should be due to them.

While I prefer to think that it’s a kind of honest relationship where we try to make our best to give our customer the most pleasant experience possible.

And I dislike some kind of marketing for the lack of honesty with their customers... but that’s stuff for another topic :-D

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Since NI already have made a player I think they have the skills to add some subscription/licensing bit too it. In fact I thought they have or maybe they do. I have bought one library from OrangeTree that appears in my NativeInstruments Native Access. Seems to me that it handles the licenses in some way, not sure if I could play that library if I unistall the license. Well anyway as a third party dev bringing a lot of content to their platform I would bring it up with them if you don't have the means to make a VTS on your own like EastWest or AmpleSound (or partner with them?).

Yes, you are right. You can have any kind of policy you like. But this is a sad policy that cause a lot of grief unless so I think you need to be pretty upfront with it. And in your cause I think it is rather visible and not as hidden as when I got tricked into a bad deal. This is why this forum and others need to have a clear thread like this so we as customers can stay away from bad policies and bad companies(which may or may not be the same depending upon how the policy is enforeced).

As a company you are offering a product and with said product it is usually expected that there is some kind of support and issues management for it. It is in fact all up to you. If you write policies that totally disengage yourself from that kind of normally expected responsibility it needs to be very clear. But we have been through that now

It sounds to me that you handle these kinds of issues with some sensitivity and honesty. I would like to put you to the test, but I really can't. Dominus was an option for me, but I bought the wrong horse from 8Dio, which was a huge and sad loss of the majority of my "music hobby funds". I am grateful that NI stepped in and gave me a good offer to upgrade to Komplete from the Kontakt I bought to play the library. There are a lot of nice instruments in there that will keep me going (just no choir). If I knew what I know now I wish I had picked Dominus. Hopefully it would have worked out better and if it had not that you would have allowed me a trade for some other product or resale/refund. if 8Dio had sense to let me off the hook I would have tried some other library, maybe yours...

Well the cost of releasing libraries with NI system is pretty high and it makes sense only for certain libraries (like OrangeTree guitars that please a wider audience than many orchestral libraries).

In anycase if someone is malicius he can find a way around Kontakt licensing and keep the library working even if he sells the license to someone else.

We don’t mind to miss a sale, again, we are not in this job to squeeze money out of our customers, instead I believe that a honest way of interacting with them is the best way to conduct our business. I reapeat, the chances of someone buying a library, reselling and keeping it on his hard drive are pretty high, so we have a rule that prevent it. But as I said we have always handled this rule in a very lax way depending on the circumstances. And if something is clearly broken for him, we’ve always looked for a solution or offered a refund.

By the way, as far as I know NI won’t change their model regarding Kontakt very soon. They seem fine with how it’s working now.

Also I dislike subscription models. From a customer point of view, because all these subscriptions add up to a point that they can be unsustainable and for us it would convert our customers in thousand of mini-bosses who rightly pretend us to release new content on regular time frame. It would also ruin the happyness of releasing a very cool library (like Dominus or Rinascimento) and see a spike in the sales that tells us that we are heading in the right direction.

paoling said:

By the way, as far as I know NI won’t change their model regarding Kontakt very soon. They seem fine with how it’s working now.

Also I dislike subscription models. From a customer point of view, because all these subscriptions add up to a point that they can be unsustainable and for us it would convert our customers in thousand of mini-bosses who rightly pretend us to release new content on regular time frame. It would also ruin the happyness of releasing a very cool library (like Dominus or Rinascimento) and see a spike in the sales that tells us that we are heading in the right direction.

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Well that is your opinion. I used to feel it was always best to pay the full price and own the license, but that only applies if I won it so I can sell it when I don't need it. So I see the value for a rental system instead of this library license trap.

NI won't change their way unless you tell them it would boost sales. And you will not change your model either until the day enough users like me have gotten burned and all swapped over to EW or VST solutions. Basicly drivning you out of business. That will happen some day if this goes on I am sure. EW have changed the game.

As for the pleasure of seeing a spike in sale on release that reminds me of Ahrefs videos about blog spikes. Basicly it appeals to the human mind to get instant gratification and see a big change, but in the long term it is better to get a constant inflow of new loyal followers to a blog. It builds up more over a long time a growing mass as opposed to a one time spike that fades away. As for hundreds of small bosses I am not sure what you imply, but compared to free to play games there are models for buying small add ons that seems to generate better economics than selling the main game. So I guess it could be better to release small parts of a library gradually even.

As for potential hackers pirating software, well Microsoft has been hacked for ages and they are still around. So if enough people think the product is good it will work.

This business model with zero resale policy is unfair and unsound to me.

You see subscription models more and more now for plugins (Waves, Slate Digital, Izotope, Eventide, Mathew Lane, Exponential Audio, Softube, and more), so it's just a matter of time until it's the standard for libraries. I guess the ones who adjust to this early is the ones who will succeed the most because they are establishing a large customer list.

Not sure I agree. If you add up all the plugins and instruments I have, it would add up to 100’s of companies I’m paying each month. Now let’s say I could get that down to my favorite 30 companies, say averaging $20/month, that’s $7200 a year. Not terrible, but every year, as long as I want my sessions to work.

Right now I own them all for as long as I want, no extra money involved. Maybe I’ve spent that much in the last couple of years (or a little more). But I’m done. I’ve got enough to write for years.

Now for those starting out who want to test the waters, and are unwilling to wait for sales (or have a big gig lined up) perfectly understandable that a monthly fee would work. I just can’t see doing it across so many companies for years and years. East West, Spitfire, Project Sam, Cinesamples, Performance samples, Fluffy Audio,.... Did we mention plugins? Slate, Fab Filter, Sound Toys, Waves, Kush Audio, .... It would force you to stick to less companies or pay outragous montly fees. Yet I find many companies who are great at one thing (or one area) and not great at others (or they don’t offer every product needed).

I’d hate to see my monthly bill. More than all my other expenses combined... and I live in Los Angeles!

Athough Output’s new model of subscribing to new sounds each day yet you keep what you have when you quit sounds good. I’m just not sure I’d use the sounds (almost too overproduced).

X-Bassist said:

Not sure I agree. If you add up all the plugins and instruments I have, it would add up to 100’s of companies I’m paying each month. Now let’s say I could get that down to my favorite 30 companies, say averaging $20/month, that’s $7200 a year. Not terrible, but every year, as long as I want my sessions to work.

Right now I own them all for as long as I want, no extra money involved. Maybe I’ve spent that much in the last couple of years (or a little more). But I’m done. I’ve got enough to write for years.

Now for those starting out who want to test the waters, and are unwilling to wait for sales (or have a big gig lined up) perfectly understandable that a monthly fee would work. I just can’t see doing it across so many companies for years and years. East West, Spitfire, Project Sam, Cinesamples, Performance samples, Fluffy Audio,.... Did we mention plugins? Slate, Fab Filter, Sound Toys, Waves, Kush Audio, .... It would force you to stick to less companies or pay outragous montly fees. Yet I find many companies who are great at one thing (or one area) and not great at others (or they don’t offer every product needed).

I’d hate to see my monthly bill. More than all my other expenses combined... and I live in Los Angeles!

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Wow, you really got a lot of stuff to use there. Just looking at EastWests Libraries they say that they are priced at 15000 total and cost 25 bucks per months. That makes 500 months of use until payback. If we wait like forever and manage to buy it all at 50% discount that is still 250 months. Equals about 25 years of usage. I am glad you have confidence you will still love and use your products and dont feel any need for new products 25 years from now. I think they will and I assume they will also add products to their service as we go along which potentially will make them even more worth subscribing to. But most of all I think that if they see a better inflow of steady revenues they will stopp selling permanent licenses and cut off that branch in the future.

As for me personally using these products on a hobby basis I see more and more benefits of the rental model. There are a lot of months when I don't have any time to dabble with music. Months that I can unsubscribe and get back in later when I want to play again.

And most of all I don't get stuck with flawed products I dislike and can not even sell.

GearNostalgia said:

Wow, you really got a lot of stuff to use there. Just looking at EastWests Libraries they say that they are priced at 15000 total and cost 25 bucks per months. That makes 500 months of use until payback. If we wait like forever and manage to buy it all at 50% discount that is still 250 months. Equals about 25 years of usage. I am glad you have confidence you will still love and use your products and dont feel any need for new products 25 years from now. I think they will and I assume they will also add products to their service as we go along which potentially will make them even more worth subscribing to. But most of all I think that if they see a better inflow of steady revenues they will stopp selling permanent licenses and cut off that branch in the future.

As for me personally using these products on a hobby basis I see more and more benefits of the rental model. There are a lot of months when I don't have any time to dabble with music. Months that I can unsubscribe and get back in later when I want to play again.

And most of all I don't get stuck with flawed products I dislike and can not even sell.

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I understand, but truth be told, you’re only going to want to play the top 30 percent of any developers inventory- tops. For me, with East West for example, I have Hollywood Orch Diamond for the strings and brass, Stormdrum 3, Silk, and Symphonic Choirs. Nothing else from them interests me at all, but I’d still have to pay monthly to use just those few. But for trying out what they have (especially on a free trial) it’s excellent.