Brands , Image Line , SAath
Can I sell, give away or transfer my FL Studio or Plugin license?
The simple answer here by Image Line is – NO.
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The End User License Agreement (Section 6) clearly states we (Image Line) don’t allow license transfers.
Here’s why:
- We make this deal with our customers (more technically, a service agreement): We give you Lifetime Free Updates and in return you are not allowed to sell your software or account. That is a service agreement we have stood by since 1998, and so we also expect you to honour your side of this agreement.
- Our Lifetime Free Updates policy means that a 2nd, 3rd and even 4th hand license owner, has access to all future versions of FL Studio, without limit. Consequently, the 2nd hand value of an FL Studio license is ALWAYS as fresh as the day you bought it. So someone could use FL Studio for 10 years, getting free updates and support, then sell it at current market value at the end of the period. Over time the number of 2nd hand licenses in circulation would grow to the point it would likely kill our business, and so, FL Studio.
- When you buy 2nd hand software from other developers, you end up with an outdated, or soon to be outdated version. There is a strong possibility you will upgrade in future. We only get to sell FL Studio to our customers ONCE so there is no possibility of upgrade/update fees like there is with other software.
- We don’t use any hardware protection (key/dongle) or ‘phone home’ license checks, only a registry key. This means it’s impossible to prove that the transferring customer stopped using the software and deleted their key after the transfer sale. We do this because we don’t believe in burdening customers with complex and unreliable copy protection schemes.
- We are reasonable and offer fully functional & time-unlimited trial versions that allow people to test our software, before they buy. There is no reason to buy the software to ‘test it out’.
- For each change of ownership there is support involved to new owner (downloads of installer & extra samples, tech support of forums & tickets). An FL Studio Lifetime Free Update license represents almost unlimited potential for these sorts of hits on our support system and a loss of income for us.
- We offer our software at affordable and fair prices.
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Many customers who stop using FL Studio for a year or two take up their Lifetime Free Updates later and become active again.
NOTE: Apple, Google and Microsoft do not allow the transfer of App purchases between customer accounts in the EU, or anywhere world-wide. We believe the situation is similar to our case as Apps are sold with Lifetime Free Updates. The sale of a lifetime updated app directly impacts on the developers ability to maintain their income, since there is no chance of upgrade purchases.