Plugin Alliance new transfer policy caused concerns and is corrected...

[iftango]

u-he does not even register on my radar.

You're missing out on Diva, Bazille and Zebra. 3 great synths.

u-he has been making plugins since 17 years now and has a team of 13 people. They produce quality products at a steep but reasonnable price, don't devaluate their products and allow free license resale after 9 months. They don't seem to want to take over the world as some others do.
They provide quality and respect.
They will remain on my radar for long.

[chk071]

F*** this. I want to transfer 30 licenses a month, at the minimum.

[robotmonkey]

u-he does not even register on my radar.

You're missing out on Diva, Bazille and Zebra. 3 great synths.

u-he has been making plugins since 17 years now and has a team of 13 people. They produce quality products at a steep but reasonnable price, don't devaluate their products and allow free license resale after 9 months. They don't seem to want to take over the world as some others do.
They provide quality and respect.
They will remain on my radar for long.

Yeah, but so do Waldorf, Xils, Image-Line, KV331, NI, even Waves lately, and many others.

[iftango]

F*** this. I want to transfer 30 licenses a month, at the minimum.

Then I guess you are making a business out of it which we are not.

[robotmonkey]

F*** this. I want to transfer 30 licenses a month, at the minimum.

Then I guess you are making a business out of it which we are not.

Maybe he has just several accounts with PA and transfers licenses between them just as a hobby?

[michaeltn86]

You see, I have absolutely no need for any additional plugin in any category - I have dozens and dozens of compressors, EQs, reverbs, preamp-emulators, modulation-effects, guitar-amps, etc. - and for most of us it will be the same. So why should I pay more than (say) 30€ for a compressors if I have more compressors than I could ever use anyway?

You seem to take for granted that (say) 300€ for a compressor would be any warranted. But the truth is the discounted prices are what most people are willing to pay, not the MSRPs.

I think this is the matter. Waves was first to realize that the market had profoundly changed. These days the majority of the music making market does not consist of big studios and star musicians. Majority of people making music are hobbyists, bedroom producers and so on. This is a huge amount of people. And I think it's obvious that a lot of those people, especially if they are not making any income with their music, are not going to buy that many 350$ plugins. They would rather download them from the warez sites.

The new economic reality is of digital goods online market saturation. There's just so many things you can spend your money online these days. Games, music, films, books, tutorial videos, software etc. There's lots of competition. It has been shown long time ago that in such environment a micro-transaction sales model works well. It's better to sell many copies with low price instead of couple with high price.

U-he is often brought out as an example of a developer who does not "devalue" their software. But guess what? I have now so many plugins that u-he does not even register on my radar these days simply because every niche they offer has been already filled by competition. The only u-he plugin I bought was the 15$ ACE when they had the one-off sale, and only because it was so cheap.

that's a great post. it's obvious that are more people are "joining" the market I/o staying and buying more stuff in the market.

Waves' business policy is very good, and they still have their HW which can cash a lot of money for those who can. Native interments is also a great example, they can cash a lot of money for their HW.

I will also add SLATE's business plan is pretty incredible for the amount of years they have. very incredible and they were able and willing to change their business policies when they saw the need for it. very incredible when you think about how many years they are in this market.

[chk071]

F*** this. I want to transfer 30 licenses a month, at the minimum.

Then I guess you are making a business out of it which we are not.

Maybe he has just several accounts with PA and transfers licenses between them just as a hobby?

Whatcha guys mean? I buy 100 plugins a month, and at least 30% of that is garbage!

[iftango]

Whatcha guys mean? I buy 100 plugins a month, and at least 30% of that is garbage!

Wow you might want to think and demo before buying.

Anyways as probably no vendor puts out more than 5 plugins each month you should not be limited there. PA authorizes 10 transfers per month.

[chk071]

Humour doesn't transfer quite so well on the internet.

Don't think i'd ever want or need to transfer more than one plugin every 6-12 months...

[db3]

The transfer process is fully automated now. I've done one and it went straight into the other person's account. Their $20 transfer fee could be a right little earner with no staff required...if they hadn't capped it

[counterparty]

I don't really have a problem with the changes, but I can see how people who had been counting on their purchased software retaining resale value would be upset. As a compromise, how would you feel if they allowed transfers but made the transfer fee cash only (i.e. no vouchers)?

[iftango]

I would find it acceptable if they did something like u-he does: for a certain period (6 to 12 months) after buying it (first or second hand) the plugin can only be sold for a $15/20 fee cash only. After that it' would be free to transfer.

[iftango]

Or as ValhallaDSP does: the licenses can always be transfered but for a $10 cash fee. One thing to note however is that neither Valhalla nor u-he do sales so the license prices don't go down too much and $10 remains acceptable. Buy it for $40 second hand and sell it for $30+$10 fee.

[MogwaiBoy]

Yeah, Valhalla (+ Toneboosters, Klanghelm and others) did it the right way from the start by not thinking their plugins are worth more than entire DAW apps.

PA are suffering from Waves-itis. Their RRPs are a joke and constant sales feed a rampant secondhand scene. And like Waves, rather than looking in the mirror and figuring out why people aren't holding onto and finding value in their plugins, they start to regulate the transfer system.

[Havok]

Posted in the FB group:

LICENSE TRANSFERS / NFRs:
...............................................
The fact that we are currently giving out NFRs in many cases when licenses were supposed (and expected) to be transferred definitely is a mistake on our end, and we will fix this asap.

I personally apologize for the inconvenience and confusion this may have caused!

Weirdly enough, I couldn't even find out exactly who started this internally and how and when, but we'll fix it. For past and future transfers, of course.

Our support agents recently started to enforce a rule that was in place for a while in theory (according to our system & data analysis), but had not been applied in the past.

I only learned about this from you guys in this group raising concerns about this in this fb group, and while I didn't like the tone of every single reply to the related threads here, I do appreciate you guys pointing out what was a mistake indeed.

Glad we could catch it quickly this way, and we'll start to work on improving / correcting things right away. Thanks for reporting the mistake here!

We'll need some time now to change (back) the system, especially for automated license transfer, so please be patient with us.

But be assured that if you bought or will buy a second hand license it will be transferred as a full license, and you will be able to sell it again later as well.

In urgent cases please hit up our online support (only via the web site, not via facebook!), they will help you get full licenses in case you received an NFR by mistake.

Dirk / PA

PS: please feel free to share this info / message in other groups or forums as I won't do an "online tour" now to every forum and post out there. Thanks for your help!