Filmora is no longer supporting user's Lifetime licenses.

[darknessblade]

SOO they are trying to pull a teamviewer, where just like teamviewer they are trying to squeeze as much money out of their customers even though said users bought a lifetime license.

 

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

25 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I view lifetime as being the lifetime of the particular product itself.

Even if you want to use that definition (which I don't share), the product is still the same, regardless of which version you use.

[Godlygamer23]

18 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Nothing surprising. All these software companies do this these days. Because they can't make money off lifetime/perpetual licenses and as you can tell from the pricing, the lifetime license is just shy of 2 years worth of subscription. Meaning they are not squeezing as much as they could from their users once two years has past.

 

Technically, saying "free updates" is indeed different from "upgrades".
Updates is like having the 2020 version of a software get getting stability/security patches and the likes.
Upgrades is like going from the 2020 version to the 2022 version.

 

That said, it's still a shitty way of bypassing what they sold to no longer honor it and is just another reason to go the pirate way.

The problem I see here is there is no differentiation on their page as to what "update" means versus "upgrade". 

 

The specific wording is "All software updates are free", so I would expect that new versions that come out are included in that, particularly with a lifetime license. 

[vertigo220]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

There are literally 3 items on the purchase page...one being a subscription for a year that's only $20 less.  You should clearly be able to clue in that you aren't likely going to get much more than 1 year worth of updates for the product, if you are lucky maybe you would get 2.

 

It's lifetime, but not your lifetime, it's the lifetime of the product itself.  The product being version 9.  It's not like they didn't issue any updates either, apparently they offered 10 updates to the version 9 software.

 

I view lifetime as being the lifetime of the particular product itself.  Maybe it's just my age showing, but I remember back in the day that some games used to be advertised as free updates or that features would be added free.  No one complained when in a few years the sequel came out.

 

The way I look at it as well, the context of this matters.  The page to purchase contains a subscription page which is pretty closely matching.  That in itself should tell the purchaser about the expected lifespan of the product itself.

It's also very possible, even likely, they do this price difference because they figure they can get the smaller amount from the person once, if they're worried about retention rate, or they can at least get a little more money than they would have if a user bought a 1-year license and never renewed. Either that, or the typical corporation policy of more money now is better than less money in the long run. That's always been my take when I've seen such offers. I've also seen, as well as bought, true lifetime offers with similar pricing, though usually it's closer to twice the cost of the 1-year license. Regardless, a different version isn't a different product. A new game is generally entirely different: different maps, different story, different combat, etc. This is the same product with a few new features added, so more like a DLC. Regardless, software and games are different industries with different structures and aren't really comparable. The fact is, they used the word lifetime, which has certain connotations. They also made no effort to clarify this only meant the major version, which strongly suggests to me their intent was to imply it was "all" updates/upgrade/whatever word you want to use, especially considering the use of the word "all" and not "most" or "all for this version." Whether or not that was what they meant, they were very clearly trying to imply it. Every single software product I've seen that offers free updates only to the major version specify this very clearly. Filmora not only did not, but they actively gave an otherwise appearance.

[divito]

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Why?

 

The way I look at it, it's like buying the Office 2020 instead of going for the subscription model and then complaining that the subscription people get Office 2022 and that it doesn't count.  Before subscription models, companies would frequently come out with new versions every year or every few years to entice people to purchase the new "perpetual license"

 

I mean if I saw a subscription cost and a cost to purchase something outright (and the yearly subscription is just $20 less, on a $60 product) I would immediately understand that the product likely will get new releases yearly or pretty close to yearly...otherwise there is no incentive really to purchase a subscription.

 

It's like people are forgetting the times where you would have to purchase new software every year or few years if you wanted the newest features...e.g. before subscriptions you had Photoshop releasing a new version every 2 years.  If you didn't really need the new features you didn't have to purchase a new perpetual license.  Same thing is happening here.  He doesn't have to move to the new version, he can simply stay on the older version.

They advertised and operated a model that they are now changing, that's why.

I have nothing against different sales models, but they are reneging on their sales promise with a new version #, after they previously allowed their lifetime license holders to access new software versions as they were released. This would be a completely different story if a lifetime license of Filmora 9 didn't give you access to Filmore 10, but only base code updates, bug fixes, and other improvements, rather than completely new features.

However, that's not how they operated. They allowed a Filmora lifetime license holder to have these new versions, and are now eliminating what their lifetime license gave them access to. They are hiding behind semantics based on their poor business decision.

Several companies have changed their model as they've grown, but most of them have correctly implemented it, by retiring the lifetime option, and allowing those grandfathered license holders what they originally signed up/paid for.

[EhhZeke]

Weird, I have used this for a long time. I even installed the Filmora 12 and it used my login I already had. Within the app it still shows "Expires: Unlimited" and does not give me the popup to pay for 12. Also when I check my account on the website and check the products it still shows "Expiration Date: Lifetime". I still keep getting updates/upgrades, including one just today. I have not paid for 12 yet but use it and have gotten updates for it. 

[EhhZeke]

6 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Just like with Adobe products, pirating Wondershare products is *always* morally correct, I'd dare to say it even is a mandatory requisite if you want the software to work lmao

I used to for sure, they I was like hell lifetime for one cost, I'm down. I barely use it but when I do its there. I cant say I have the issue others are, mine still has full access and shows lifetime and get zero popups asking me to pay or clear the watermarks. Lucky maybe, but I assume my time will eventually come.

[divito]

1 hour ago, EhhZeke said:

Weird, I have used this for a long time. I even installed the Filmora 12 and it used my login I already had. Within the app it still shows "Expires: Unlimited" and does not give me the popup to pay for 12. Also when I check my account on the website and check the products it still shows "Expiration Date: Lifetime". I still keep getting updates/upgrades, including one just today. I have not paid for 12 yet but use it and have gotten updates for it. 

I've seen it posted in a few spots that some lifetime license users haven't had issues. But I don't think there has been consensus on if it's related to when they logged in, or if Wondershare has changed anything in the midst of the news/backlash. 

[manikyath]

so.. something i dont see described anywhere in this drama..

 

did people who purchased the lifetime key for version 9 also get upgrades to 10 and 11?

are those people still able to use 10 and 11, or did this change effectively downgrade them back to v9?

 

either way... this is something you see happen in just about any small time software "lifetime license" model.. they dont specify a senisble EOL for the software, so it is assumed there is none.

in a sense, it's like buying a windows key.. it's a lifetime license, but you know the version you bought a key for will reach EOL at some point. you can still use what you have, but MS doesnt support it anymore. it's just that it needs to be OBVIOUS that that will be the case.

 

in the case that people who bought 9 got access to 10 and 11, it could be assumed that the major version bump was always included with the license, so depending on the exact wording in the license people received  at time of payment (important depending on juristiction.. changes after the fact may not count..) the argument could be made that they are not honoring the agreement.

in the case that they got 10 and 11 before, and got shoved right back to 9 after the fact.. what even in the heck is this company, and how can we class action them out of existence?

 

PS: lessons to be learned: if a company uses the words "lifetime", run THE HECK away as fast as you can. it's the snake oil of the computer world.

[Hug]

Wow this is stupid... and I really (am I allowed to say the non-homophobic F-Word?) hate this country

 

America could single-handedly wipe this off of the face of Earth by enacting laws that protect consumers, but nope

 

The old people in charge of the laws are simply business-conmen that care about bribery (no, not lobbying, it's straight up bribery)

 

If they're not getting bribed, they won't care or even acknowledge these problems one bit, but sadly they have absolutely ZERO reason to change any of this since the major corporations are the ones that make sure that laws stay the way they are so that they can make as much profit as possible, especially since nowadays everyone has been milked out of one-time payments enough that we gotta start milking people through subscriptions instead, and obviously no corporation is against this, since that's how they make money

 

Things that do not benefit society should not exist, it's as simple as that

 

This is a very scummy practice that will probably not have any legal repercussions, which it should (screw the Terms of Service)

 

The US runs on greed, and also bribery to perpetuate said greed

[Hug]

11 minutes ago, manikyath said:

PS: lessons to be learned: if a company uses the words "lifetime", run THE HECK away as fast as you can. it's the snake oil of the computer world.

Uhhh nah, Imagine Line actually has a pretty nice genuine Lifetime Free Update system, and it's one-time payment only

 

I think that it is morally correct to pirate as much as possible since publicly traded corporations are the main evil of today's society, but ones like Image Line and ESPECIALLY Valve are amazing, and deserve to be supported (and both are private, what a surprise)

[manikyath]

Just now, Hug said:

Uhhh nah, Imagine Line actually has a pretty nice genuine Lifetime Free Update system, and it's one-time payment only

 

I think that it is morally correct to pirate as much as possible since publicly traded corporations are the main evil of today's society, but ones like Image Line and ESPECIALLY Valve are amazing, and deserve to be supported (and both are private, what a surprise)

i cant say i agree.

it would be morally correct to fund honest small businesses as much as possible. pirating stuff from the big guys is still harming the free market just as much, because the big guys get money from corporate deals either way.

 

also, i would be very careful about calling valve the good guy.. valve being in private hands is a major thing for them not chasing you for your pennies.. it doesnt imply that they *will* put their best leg forward. from what i've heard talking to a human at valve is near impossible, and they are mostly just living off userbase and status quo at this point.

 

as for image-line.. they're a 5-ish employee business in Ghent pulling 30 million in profits annually.. they can stomach the cost of giving you free updates as long as the money keeps flowing.

finding some superficial finances for belgian companies is SUPER easy, so it's quite plain to see these guys arent cutting it tight, not by a long shot. their staff wages and office costs are literally 0.2% of their turnover.

it's great they can do this.. it's just a very bad example to use as a "good guy" company, because it's easy to be the good guy when you're drowning in cash Scrooge McDuck style.

[vertigo220]

7 minutes ago, manikyath said:

also, i would be very careful about calling valve the good guy.. valve being in private hands is a major thing for them not chasing you for your pennies.. it doesnt imply that they *will* put their best leg forward. from what i've heard talking to a human at valve is near impossible, and they are mostly just living off userbase and status quo at this point.

Definitely agree with this. In my limited dealings with Valve customer support, it's been a mixed bag to say the least, and I have generally been unimpressed. Beyond that, there are tons of discussion threads of various issues going back years without so much as a peep from Valve, much less having the issues actually addressed and fixed. They only care about keeping things working to the extent you can buy games and play them mostly without issues so they can get their cut of the sales. If you have an issue that prevents you from playing a game you bought and it's not widespread and therefore something they can't ignore, they really couldn't care less. They got their money. I've stopped buying games directly on Steam as a matter of principle based on what I've seen of them, so yeah, they're definitely not a good guy in my book, at least not in relation to Steam. OTOH, they have done a lot for gaming on Linux, so I give them props for that.

[manikyath]

9 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

Definitely agree with this. In my limited dealings with Valve customer support, it's been a mixed bag to say the least, and I have generally been unimpressed. Beyond that, there are tons of discussion threads of various issues going back years without so much as a peep from Valve, much less having the issues actually addressed and fixed. They only care about keeping things working to the extent you can buy games and play them mostly without issues so they can get their cut of the sales. If you have an issue that prevents you from playing a game you bought and it's not widespread and therefore something they can't ignore, they really couldn't care less. They got their money. I've stopped buying games directly on Steam as a matter of principle based on what I've seen of them, so yeah, they're definitely not a good guy in my book, at least not in relation to Steam. OTOH, they have done a lot for gaming on Linux, so I give them props for that.

this.

they can do a lot of good things without per definition having to be "good guy". i do also sort of worry about the whole steam on linux / proton thing actually hurting linux gaming 'outside of steam' in the long run.

[vertigo220]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i do also sort of worry about the whole steam on linux / proton thing actually hurting linux gaming 'outside of steam' in the long run.

Hadn't thought of it that way, but I think it will do more good than harm. Even if it makes Steam the center of gaming and pulls everything into its gravity well, gaming on Linux is one of the big holdbacks for a lot of people switching, so if it gets a significant number of people to make the transition, gaming on Linux in general will grow exponentially, so even if the percentage of non-Steam games goes down, the number will likely go up.

[divito]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

so.. something i dont see described anywhere in this drama..

 

did people who purchased the lifetime key for version 9 also get upgrades to 10 and 11?

I believe it's stated in the original video, and I've also seen it posted on other articles/forums; lifetime purchasers of 9 were able to download and use 10 and 11, hence the problem with their sudden policy/model change.

Now, there are people like EhhZeke above, and some others, that have been able to install 12 and use it without issue. But it's unclear if this was pre or post public unrest.

[manikyath]

31 minutes ago, divito said:

I believe it's stated in the original video, and I've also seen it posted on other articles/forums; lifetime purchasers of 9 were able to download and use 10 and 11, hence the problem with their sudden policy/model change.

Now, there are people like EhhZeke above, and some others, that have been able to install 12 and use it without issue. But it's unclear if this was pre or post public unrest.

are those people who used to use 10 and 11 *still* able to use 10 and 11? that's what's mostly unclear to me.

 

because if they still are, this is less of a "raze the city" topic than it would otherwise be.

 

essentially,  what the company could (should?) have done, is instead of  calling it filmora 12, just call it "filmora studio" and boom.. all previous licensing for filmora no longer applies, because different product. still douchy, but no longer questionable for the license terms.

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/27/2022 at 8:02 AM, starsmine said:

A version change is not an update. 
That would be like saying CSGO is just an update to CSS

well, yeah, but are they still updating the old version (the one that was paid for "lifetime" updates)?

 

Does that version even still work,  without paying again? 

 

 

[da na]

A good reminder you own nothing. Movavi pulled my Video Editor 15 license out from under my feet a few months ago, it was a painful realization. 

[starsmine]

45 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

A good reminder you own nothing. Movavi pulled my Video Editor 15 license out from under my feet a few months ago, it was a painful realization. 

Your licence still works here. they have taken nothing from you

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

well, yeah, but are they still updating the old version (the one that was paid for "lifetime" updates)?

 

Does that version even still work,  without paying again? 

 

 

What?
Outside of security patches and engine updates, no they are not updating, yes that old version still works just like it does here.

[da na]

Just now, starsmine said:

Your licence still works here. they have taken nothing from you.

No it doesn't. 

I cannot activate my key. I called support, they said the version is no longer supported, buy the new one. 

[Mark Kaine]

35 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Outside of security patches and engine updates, no they are not updating, yes that old version still works

hmm

?

33 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

No it doesn't. 

I cannot activate my key. I called support, they said the version is no longer supported, buy the new one. 

 which is it now...?

 

34 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

 

I cannot activate my key. I called support, they said the version is no longer supported, buy the new one. 

btw shouldn't you get a refund then since "lifetime license " was a big lie?

[da na]

22 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 which is it now...?

Bought the lifetime license. To me that means "I have this license for a lifetime" not "This license will randomly stop working 2 years after I purchased it and installed it on a total of 1 computers"

[Mark Kaine]

2 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

Bought the lifetime license. To me that means "I have this license for a lifetime" not "This license will randomly stop working 2 years after I purchased it and installed it on a total of 1 computers"

well, yeah, hence I think you should get a refund (and compensation because you now have to buy a competing product)

 

I know thats probably not realistic,  but the refund kinda is... class action suit time yet?

[Kisai]

On 12/27/2022 at 2:19 PM, Caroline said:

Just like with Adobe products, pirating Wondershare products is *always* morally correct, I'd dare to say it even is a mandatory requisite if you want the software to work lmao

Nah.

 

People who do not rely on the products for daily use are better off switching to a product with a perpetual license (eg Davinci Resolve) and it may be cheaper in the long run to use a different work around for specific use cases. Like Davinci's weakness is that it does not support NDI or capture devices that are not BlackMagic cards. So Davinci is better for my use cases, even if I have to monkey around with getting the video into a format Davinci refuses to understand, but FFMPEG does.

 

If you rely on a product for daily use and all your team members use the same product, you're better off just taking the bullet and paying for the product or quit the team and refuse projects that use the product.

 

This is why like, when people pull out the dead horse of "oh just use X product" they completely miss the point that "this is the product everyone on my team/production uses."

 

As for piracy itself, in most cases, alternative products can do the same thing as Adobe products, and the same situation with Filmora and Clip Studio (who also pulled this "perpetual license bait and switch"), if it's untenable to pay for the change in license, then drop the product and pick up something else, and somehow convince your team to ditch it. You likely will not be successful with the argument of "just pirate it"

 

Personally, and I speak from experience. I paid, full price, for Adobe CS3 and CS4 Upgrade, and I was like "the hell I will pay for another upgrade as long as I can install this". Well good thing I never bought it to run on the mac, because CS4 was still PPC, and will not install on Intel Mac's without the first version of Rosetta IIRC. Surely it won't install on a M1 Mac. Clip Studio? Won't install on the Mac at all if it installed it on Windows back when it was "Manga Studio".

 

I see no value in paying for Adobe Creative Cloud for how little I use Photoshop or Premiere, and have essentially only ever reinstalled Photoshop CS4 so I can open client files. Photoshop CS4 is completely unusable on 4K screens because some issue with the mouse cursor. I have other tools like Clip Studio and Paint Shop Pro, but the latter absolutely sucks to operate, and I wish I knew why.