Sure, I misspoke. "own" is just what most people say in every day speech when talking software.You do not own the product you have purchased. Period. You have purchased a product license for use based on a companies terms and conditions. A company can change the terms and conditions of that product and you are required to abide by those terms and conditions.
Adobe changed their terms and conditions and now I cannot use my licenses for old creative suite software and font folio,, paid almost $3,000 and have physical media (cd’s) and software key. This software is a licence to use and Adobe chnaged the terms and conditions so that no used private or professional can use the software, they end of life the products and changed the terms and conditions so that even though I have the media, the licence keys and can install it, based on the terms and conditions I can be sued just installing and using said software. This is just one example.
You do not own your software. Period. You own a license to use it governed by the intellectual property owners rights given under the license agreement that you agreed to. Company or owner of said intellectual property can change that license for use.
You can pirate and be in violation of the software, you can hot wire, get a patch or whatever you choose to do, even if you purchased a product license, but you will be in violation of the companies terms and conditions and the license agreement. You do not own the software you purchased, you purchased a license to use the software and that is an agreement covered under the softwares terms and conditions.
You may not like it, you may disagree with it morally, but you do not own anything but a license to use what you have bought.
I negotiate terms and conditions for a living. I redline and work with company attorneys and legal departments to comply legally to meet legal statues that would be in violation of those terms and conditions if I agree or sign an agreement. Not talking out my ass or arm chair lawyering. You do not own the software licence you purchased, read the terms and conditions and speak to the company if you have questions.
More correct words would be "have a license for". Not "own a license for". Even though that is what most people say. That was not my point, as I also talked about the agreement.
You have the right to sell/transfer second hand licenses whatever the terms says, at least in the EU. So some terms companies try to force upon you might not even be lawful in the first place.
1. You can use a license as long as it is not breaking any terms. You paid for a license, then you can use it as you wish according to the terms as long as they follow the laws in your country.
In the license agreement, does it say that you can't run the software on a computer that does not check if the eLicenser software (or dongle) is actually used (or not) when you are running the VST?
2. You can't say its a violation of terms and conditions if you don't know the exact terms. Do you know for a fact that the agreements talked about in this thread informs you that you MUST run another software (eLicenser) to run the software you want to run, the VST?
Does it say in the license agreement that the software you use (the VST) must be able to cross-talk with another software (eLicenser) - otherwise the license agreement for the VST is not followed and you can not use it?
3. If Adobe changes any terms AFTER you signed an agreement, you need to accept the NEW agreement and terms. Otherwise it is 100% not valid. I would send that shady claim to a lawyer for sure.
I wonder how any legal system would handle a claim that refers to "we changed the terms after you signed it". You can't override old terms until a new one is signed.
If they actually did this, you can for sure sue them. I would NEVER touch such a criminal-acting company.... Side-track: I actually uninstalled the Adobe suite recently just because Adobe forced an update (could not open the software without the update) which made it bricked/unusable on the machine I ran it on (an older computer with older OS) - and they did that without letting me know before the update was installed. The whole organization I work for is removing Adobe suite as standard because of their pseudo-criminal behavior and price shocks (we're talking hundreds of licenses). A lot of money is being saved and people realized the alternatives work as good or even better (with a few clear exceptions though!).
I know that there's been court cases about these issues in the EU where these nasty companies had to bend down to consumer rights.. If what you say is true about Adobes behavior, a class action suit should be coming soon! No one should support borderline-criminal companies like that.
4. Steinbergs terms regarding VST2 and VST3 clearly shows that you need to accept the new terms in a NEW agreement. That is why some devs only makes VST2 plugins and no VST3 versions: they don't want to accept the NEW terms where they are forced to not distribute VST2 versions anymore.
5. You can do whatever you want to the software itself as long as you keep it private and follow the terms of the license agreement that you accepted. Within the law of course.
To be clear: you are NOT breaking the law by not following the license agreement, you are breaking the license agreement. With piracy you are breaking the law (in most countries at least), but you are not breaking any license agreement since you never signed an agreement in the first place....
Do you think for real that Steinberg would sue anyone that have a license (if they some how magically found out that anyone used the extremely old and non-supported Virtual Guitarist) - but run the software without using the now deprecated and not sold eLicenser??
Bare in mind there's no upgraded version that they want you to buy instead either....
Did anyone actually read the terms for their VST software that uses eLicenser? Virtual Guitarist? (for example)
Statistics: Posted by Freaqpeak — Sun Jan 26, 2025 4:05 am