Filmora is no longer supporting user's Lifetime licenses.

[Brooksie359]

On 12/26/2022 at 5:07 PM, 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.

Fortunately it doesn't matter if they technically use a weird word play to get around their initial agreement. False advertising doesn't care about these types of misleading wordplay as if they advertised something that would lead customers to believe one thing but gave them something else it's considered false advertising most of the time. It's the same thing with eula and how even if they have a cop out in the eula it doesn't protect against false advertising. If you advertise something as getting all future updates for a software any reasonable person would assume that meant everything especially when the license type is even called lifetime license. Basically everything they did from marketing to advertising would lead a customer to believe they would get all future updates and not that they would only get updates of a certain naming convention. I would be fairly certain they are going to be hit with false advertising if anyone brings this to court. 

[AlTech]

13 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

That's not true at all. Lifetime licenses can be a good tool for the early stages of business development.

I find that it only causes headaches for those involved or the developers make a run for it once the product is stable.

13 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Lifetime licenses are a mutual beneficial deal - the company gets an early and fast influx of cash

Sure but the amount that they have to charge to make the lifetime license attractive is also in and of itself unsustainable.

 

A lifetime license should start in the 3 digit range, in many cases they are actually in the 2 digit range.

 

There are some companies that do genuinely good things with lifetime licenses that sell them at a reasonable price for a cash influx. Protonmail infrequently auctions lifetime licenses (they end up selling for 5 or 6 figure amounts), they never sell them normally on their website, and the proceeds go to charity.

 

13 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

and the costumer

*customer

13 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

profits later down the line (if the venture is successful) with "free" updates when the software transitioned to a subscription or pay-per-update model. Honouring this deal will cost the company a negligible amount.

If they are ultimately successful. Gambling their future success is not the best idea tbh.

 

A lot of the points you discussed can be achieved with pay per major version upgrade model.

13 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Showing the people who supported your brand from the very beginning the finger (some of them even being brand ambassadors) is certainly not the right thing to do.

It is if they've outstayed their welcome.

13 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Wondershare are simply altering the deal in their favour.

We have yet to confirm whether Wondershare actually did or not because nobody has confirmed whether Filmora X and 11 were offered for free to Filmora 9 lifetime license users.

 

Also, Filmora's license agreement from Filmora 9 is actually on Wondershare's side. I'm paraphrasing but it essentially allows Wondershare to charge for any update (not upgrade) that they want. Updates in Filmora language are bug fix updates and point releases, upgrades are the major version updates.

 

The youtuber in this thread who got DMCAed read the license from Filmora 9 in a recent video.

 

You can't expect free updates when the EULA says Wondershare will decide what updates you get for free.

[Brooksie359]

4 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

I find that it only causes headaches for those involved or the developers make a run for it once the product is stable.

Sure but the amount that they have to charge to make the lifetime license attractive is also in and of itself unsustainable.

 

A lifetime license should start in the 3 digit range, in many cases they are actually in the 2 digit range.

 

There are some companies that do genuinely good things with lifetime licenses that sell them at a reasonable price for a cash influx. Protonmail infrequently auctions lifetime licenses (they end up selling for 5 or 6 figure amounts), they never sell them normally on their website, and the proceeds go to charity.

 

*customer

If they are ultimately successful. Gambling their future success is not the best idea tbh.

 

A lot of the points you discussed can be achieved with pay per major version upgrade model.

It is if they've outstayed their welcome.

We have yet to confirm whether Wondershare actually did or not because nobody has confirmed whether Filmora X and 11 were offered for free to Filmora 9 lifetime license users.

 

Also, Filmora's license agreement from Filmora 9 is actually on Wondershare's side. I'm paraphrasing but it essentially allows Wondershare to charge for any update (not upgrade) that they want. Updates in Filmora language are bug fix updates and point releases, upgrades are the major version updates.

 

The youtuber in this thread who got DMCAed read the license from Filmora 9 in a recent video.

 

You can't expect free updates when the EULA says Wondershare will decide what updates you get for free.

If they advertise it in a way where a reasonable consumers would assume they get all updates for free then the eula doesn't matter that it says they get to choose which updates are free as it would be opposite of what was advertised. You would have to look at the advertising more closely to be sure but again I hate it when people think company can put things in eula that get them out of a false advertising claim as it rarely does. 

[HenrySalayne]

11 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

A lot of the points you discussed can be achieved with pay per major version upgrade model.

Which would also be the fairest model, if developers would finish version N and proceed with actually new stuff in version N+1. So it's up to the customer if feature upgrades are worth the cost or not. But we all know that's not going to happen nowadays...

11 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

A lifetime license should start in the 3 digit range, in many cases they are actually in the 2 digit range.

Following what logic? A "lifetime" license - as the name suggests - should be more expensive than a perpetual license. IMHO three times seems like a reasonable middle ground. And it makes a HUGE difference if your customers are paying for a perpetual license or three times that amount for the very same product. You get the money now and you have to deliver way down the line - exactly what a young business desperately needs: funds.

It would take considerably longer with only perpetual licenses to get the same funding.

 

 

[divito]

13 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

We have yet to confirm whether Wondershare actually did or not because nobody has confirmed whether Filmora X and 11 were offered for free to Filmora 9 lifetime license users.

It's referenced in Daniel Batal's original video, and there are many comments, and tweets from other users corroborating that Filmora lifetime purchasers (9 and previous) were treated as intended, when they were able to upgrade to Filmora 9, 10 and 11 without issue.

[vertigo220]

2 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Which would also be the fairest model, if developers would finish version N...

Agreed, and that's a whole other problem and one I've run into. I purchased a different video editing software a few years back, then found a serious issue with it that made it borderline unusable. I reported the issue to the developer, but it was never fixed within the major version. Not sure if it was fixed later than that or not, because I didn't have access to future updates (something I knew at the time of purchase because it was actually clear, unlike in this case), so I was stuck with an essentially nonfunctioning product, and because of that, despite spending a fairly large amount of money on it, I've only used it once. The main lesson I learned on that one was that I should have just paid more for another product that was well-known and very well-regarded instead of trying to save some money going with something cheaper since it's not something I needed to use except occasionally, and trying to save money ended up just costing more. So that's a big potential problem with perpetual licensing, one that fortunately doesn't seem to happen very often, but that people should also watch out for.

[AlTech]

3 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Which would also be the fairest model, if developers would finish version N and proceed with actually new stuff in version N+1. So it's up to the customer if feature upgrades are worth the cost or not. But we all know that's not going to happen nowadays...

Because products priced like that are expensive and people want cheap software that lasts forever.

3 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Following what logic? A "lifetime" license - as the name suggests - should be more expensive than a perpetual license. IMHO three times seems like a reasonable middle ground. And it makes a HUGE difference if your customers are paying for a perpetual license or three times that amount for the very same product. You get the money now and you have to deliver way down the line - exactly what a young business desperately needs: funds.

It would take considerably longer with only perpetual licenses to get the same funding.

 

 

 

[Obioban]

Time to switch to Final Cut Pro. Free updates and Upgrades.

[EhhZeke]

So an update from Wondershare in my email today. Even though my lifetime was not removed it seems they are back tracking...

 

 

[mr moose]

On 1/8/2023 at 7:45 AM, EhhZeke said:

So an update from Wondershare in my email today. Even though my lifetime was not removed it seems they are back tracking...

 

 

 

TL:DR  they found themselves in so much legal shit in too many countries they decided to backpedal faster than a pedalo heading for a waterfall. 

[jimrage]

On 12/26/2022 at 5:04 PM, byAsh said:

They recently changed this from calling new versions "software updates" to "upgrades" so they don't have to honor their lifetime licenses they previously sold.

I just managed to get Filmora to cave and give me a license of version 15 by showing a wayback screen capture of their website from a time after I bought my lifetime copy. As you can see it says "upgrades" not "updates" so even the ridiculous argument they were making in the quote above are baseless.