Your thoughts re licensing problem please
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On 12/03/2013 at 03:25, xxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have a rather unusual problem with licensing that I'd be grateful for some comments on. I don't want to identify any individual so I'm keeping it as anonymous as possible (you'll see why).
In April 2012 a user bought a licence for my X-Particles plugin, sending us a C4D serial as required. In May, he said he had to change his Mac, could he have a new serial? We didn't check (though we should have) the new C4D serial he sent us against the old one, but just sent a new serial to him. Those two C4D serials were not, in fact, identical.
In the past couple of days he has sent us a request for another new serial, saying that he changed his mac again and had to reinstall everything. This time we did check the C4D serial he sent, and it was different again from the previous two. I challenged this, and got a reply that admits he is using a cracked version of Cinema and that it uses a different serial whenever he reinstalls it, which is why he has to ask for a new plugin serial.
My feeling about this is that he has already had two working plugin serials which he has presumably used for almost a year. We issued these in good faith, there was nothing hinky about the C4D serials he sent us to suggest they were being used in a cracked version of Cinema. The way I see it, it's not our problem if he is using illegal software and can't get new plugin serials every time he installs a new crack.
He is saying that he always buys the plugins he uses (yeah, right) and that he is 'confident we understand his explanation'.
My proposed course of action is not to provide a new serial and to refuse a refund if requested - after all, he's used it for a year.
Does anyone have any comments - would you do this or something different?
Cheers,
Steve
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On 12/03/2013 at 05:00, xxxxxxxx wrote:
Yeah, I also have some customers like that. They try it over and over again. As far as I know (I didn't do much research on it, though), the cracked versions either require no serial or they come with a KeyGen. The few KeyGens I had a look at actually generated the same few serial codes over and over again, so it should not be a problem for him to use the same code for the next installation (not to mention that he could also just write it down).
If he can afford a new Mac machine once a year, he should be able to pay for his licenses (Cinema and plugins), too. I totally agree with you, I wouldn't give him any more license keys, either. That will probably drive him to use a 'persian' copy of X-Particles, but who cares? You already got his money
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On 12/03/2013 at 05:04, xxxxxxxx wrote:
My thoughts exactly, I'm very glad you concur though
You'd think he would just use the same serial each time, wouldn't you? Still, as you say we've got his money... and he isn't getting it back, either!
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On 12/03/2013 at 07:02, xxxxxxxx wrote:
Unbelievably, we've now had a second one do the same thing! I wonder if word is getting round the pirate community?