Camera Labs

Hi folks,

Do you own the software you legitimately bought?

It appears that some companies believe you don't and that they are selling you what in effect is a licence which may not be resold. In the USA a judge has recently rejected such a claim in a case brought by Timothy Vernor in response to eBay acceding to a request by Autodesk that eBay stop such sales. This case has been widely reported on the web in recent days. Here is the ITWire version.

It will be interesting to see how far this judgement affects the software market. The precedent apparently concerned "legacy media" and one significant difference with software is the ability to obtain version upgrades at reduced prices. The same option doesn't occur with, say, books where it would be perfectly legitimate to sell on part one of a trilogy. Obviously selling on v1 of a software package once it has been used to install a reduced price v2 upgrade wouldn't fly morally and it would presumably also be illegal.

But if you could sell on the previous full version of your favourite photo-editing software at a price that allows you to buy the latest full version for less (net) than the price of an upgrade we might see a healthy market develop. This would be a nightmare if the vendor forgot to "de-activate" such software before uninstalling it, though. I fell foul of this activation issue simply by transferring software from an old to a replacement computer as I reported here.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

They could always just do away with upgrade pricing. Buying the 1st instalment in a trilogy doesn't entitle you to buy the next 2 books at a reduced price.

I can't see how any of this can be policed sensibly, and I believe that the courts are correct in this instance. If I've bought software, I should be able to resell it later on when I'm done with it. Why should software be any different to the rest of my camera gear which I sell off once I'm done?

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PhilipGoh.com

With a lot of software what you actually buy is a license to use the product on a certain number of devices simultaneously. You don't actually buy something physical.

It is more like renting a house than buying a house but rather than paying monthly rent you pay a one off fee to rent the software (use it) as long as you like.

Once you sell camera gear you cannot continue to use it yourself, with software you can still use it, even though it breaks the terms of the license.

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Nikon D90
Nikkor AF-S DX; 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G VR, 55-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR, 35mm f/1.8G
Speedlight SB-700

http://keystrokesukimages.com

Phew, you worried me with that question for a second Bob

Also, a simple Activation/Deactivation for resale function would be fine.

It's not like it'll stop pirates anyway some people just want to sell the software since they don't need/want it any more. Heck people are even getting around Steam which to me is possible the MOST full proof way I've seen of stopping it.

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

Steam is DRM done decently, but it also brings many disadvantages. I'm sure most people here remember the release of half-life 2, which slashdotted the steam servers for a day, meaning no-one could activate the copy of their game (and thus play it) they legitimately bought...

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

I had to wait till the day after it came out, stupid mum

Up side, i missed the rush

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

I think if adobe CS4 was at least 1/5 the price more people would buy it rather than "borrow" it from a friend. I bet adobe would sell more than 5 times what they are selling now too.

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Canon 40D + 70-200mm f/2.8L IS + 50mm f/1.8
Manfrotto 055CX3 + 496RC2
www.thomaslowe.com

I'd pay for photoshop without hestitating if it was 60 bucks/year with upgrades. Right now people pay 60 bucks a year for services like rapidshare, a filehost primarily used to download software illegally.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

I think Adobe know that too and that's why they have student licenses. It greatly reduces the price of their software. I got Lightroom 2 for half the price. (You can check the Adobe website yourself, Photoshop CS4 Extended (student edition) is only 169 euros.)

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Canon 7D | EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS

If all software was reasonably priced they would end up selling more. I'm not sure why they think high prices are beneficial. Also, if Adobe would stop releasing full versions every other year maybe I'd be inclined to buy their software! They should release patches to older versions. That way, if you buy their stuff you actually get to use it without feeling like you're missing out on new features after a year... Oh well, something has to give, that's why piracy is so rampant.

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For me the different pricing levels just go to show how much profit software companies make.

I cannot see how you can justify selling exactly the same versions of something like MS Office at £300 GBP for a copy to a business but only charging £100 GBP to students and teachers. It is more than likely that you will know someone with kids so you just send them out to buy all of your software and get it at 1/3 of the retail price. OK it is not strictly adhering to the terms of the license but people don't like to feel they are being taken for a ride.

If you can only make a profit selling software at a certain price point then sell it at that price. OK have a sale or special offers but when you tier the pricing for certain groups, people will try to bend the rules.

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Nikon D90
Nikkor AF-S DX; 18-105 f/3.5-5.6G VR, 55-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR, 35mm f/1.8G
Speedlight SB-700

http://keystrokesukimages.com

Adobe don't care about the little people, only about corporate types with big wallets. Even MS are better nowadays. Companies are about maximising profit, and they're priced to optimise for that.

Adobe's solution for the low end is to offer crippled versions at lower cost, which might be adequate for many, but it does leave a gap in the middle for those needing more but finding it hard to justify the full price.

Their student offers may or may not be at a loss. It tries to lock you in. If they get you using their software early, you're more likely to keep using it throughout your life. I also guess if you get it legit for a low price, you're less likely to pirate it along with your friends, where any additional income is welcome.

Specifically On Photoshop, I have wondered what is the cheapest educational course I can get on to qualify for student pricing. Possibly even better if I can get that done under work training too.

MS Office is better these days, as they do a student/home version which as far as I can tell isn't crippled as such, keeping the applications of interest for home users, at a reasonable price and even allows multiple instances. The business editions have more applications which is where the money is going.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

The issue of software pricing came up at work not too long ago. It was triggered by this post by Jeff Atwood (of Stackoverflow fame). The found that when Left 4 Dead was discounted, sales (in $$$ not units!) grew exponentially.

I'd bet that Adobe will see similar sales figures if they dropped the pricing on Lightroom and Photoshop.

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PhilipGoh.com

Here's how I see it. The average person probably wouldn't mind spending $50 on some software like Adobe Photoshop. So, if Adobe can make $50 instead of nothing that's a good thing. It's not like the average person is going to pay the full price just because they want Photoshop, they are going to look for cheaper solutions. Maybe finding cheaper or free software, or pirating Photoshop. But if they would lower their price, more people would be willing to at least spend some money on their software, instead of none.

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The problem with such ideas is management. Try floating an idea like that past them and it'll be shot down quickly. In their minds, "If some users are willing to pay $500 for our software, how can we make money at all by selling for $50?" As illustrated by the Jeff Atwood post, that totally ignores the exponential growth of volume and thus sales that you'll rake in just by lowering the price.

This isn't just limited to software but to all products where there is high initial investment (e.g. initial development of software, production of a movie/music album) but then there is very little cost involved in producing the end product that reaches the consumer. A lot of people in those industries are still stuck on stupid.

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PhilipGoh.com