Educational version of Production Software.

[Coldfuzion]

Hey guys,

I was at Guitar Center the other day looking at ProTools 9 and I was talking to the sales guy and he was telling me if you make tracks and sell them from the educational version then you have to pay royalties to the respective companies (i.e. Ableton, or Logic).

Is this true? And how the heck does the company know that you made the track on their program?

Thanks.

[ksandvik]

Does not compute. But to be sure read the licensing fine print.

There are restrictions who could purchase academical licenses. And the biggest restriction is that you can't get upgrade pricing so if you will use Ableton Live for the long run (where they used to release a new major version every 12 months even just now there's nothing?)

So economically better to get the commercial kit.

[dryzero]

They can't really tell that you used their program to make a track.

There are such things as "software audits" where they check that people are running proper licensed software but this is usually for bigger businesses.

Also I can't see anything in the ableton FAQ about having to pay royalties either
http://www.ableton.com/pages/faq/edu

It used to be the case for some 3d graphics software that the student versions were not licensed for commercial work. So such restrictions have existed in the past for software.

Surely anyone about to make money from a track could just buy a commercial license rather than pay royalties.

[Coldfuzion]

Thanks for your responses guys!

Ksandvik - The educational version is 40% cheaper then the regular version, so even if I just bought it again when the new one came out, don't you think that would be better?

What if I want to upgrade my educational version?
You can upgrade educational versions of Live (and extend it with add-on products) at standard pricing. As of Live 8 we no longer offer educational discounts on upgrades or add-on products. We continue to provide an educational discount of 40% on new licenses.

Dryzero - You're right.

[ksandvik]

Thanks for your responses guys!

Ksandvik - The educational version is 40% cheaper then the regular version, so even if I just bought it again when the new one came out, don't you think that would be better?

I guess if you upgrade just once and you are still at the institution, then it is economically better. As well as you assume that this pricing will always be around -- which usually is a bad bet.