academic version question

T

Ty Fancher

Active member
i was reading a previous post about FCP's academic version for commercial use. If I read that right, an independent movie made with the academic version cannot be sold. Is this accurate? Sorry if this is the wrong forum...
 
Sure you can use it to make a movie that you sell. The only difference between the Academic version and normal version is that you cannot upgrade it to newer full releases. FCP 6 to FCP 7 for example. Other than that, no restrictions.
 
that's not right. you CANNOT use an academic verision to make a profit. It's meant for schools, teachers, and students only as a learning tool. If you do, you're violating the end user license agreement.
 
Seriously that doesn't make any sense. Do teachers make profit? Yes, could they make the profit without using the software? No. Are they violating the license agreement?
 
thats why the academic version of Adobe Prod. Premium CS3 costs $600 and the full version costs a little over $1600. There's a $1000 difference for a reason.
 
teachers are not billing for the content they create on reduced packages.
Academic vesrions are meant as demos, to teach people the interface and to reel them in as a sell on the product they can start billing on.
While this marketing tactic works with beer sampling and snackage at sams, it does more harm than good in this arena. People either just start billing on a cheaper copy of the full prgram or cuss the limitations of a dumbed down program and go purchase the competition.
By this, nobody has sold more FCP systems than Avid cobody has sold more cheap copies of an avid program than FCP.
Adobe has this all figured out. They now offer photosho online. You can do anything ya like with it. if you'd like to save, purchase. Thats a demo. Thats throwing it out there to sample with no strings attached. Only a fine siftware can offer that. Buggy NLE systems would only be advertising bugs this way.
 
Of all of my friends who graduated and went on to produce there on content on their academic versions of FCP, None have been fined, or had any negative repercussions for their (albeit license agreement Violating/Nullifying) actions.

There are no water marks, there are no tells. You cant upgrade (which is frustrating since FCP2 came out only a month after i got my FCP academic) but other than that its a fully functioning version. It's an ethical decision.
 
jrmiller_entertainment said:
that's not right. you CANNOT use an academic verision to make a profit. It's meant for schools, teachers, and students only as a learning tool. If you do, you're violating the end user license agreement.
Click to expand...

And who honestly gives a crap?! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What is Apple going to ask if they can come look at your computer and your project files to figure out what version you used? Their software is a TOOL, nothing more, nothing less, and if you get a job done with that tool you can do whatever you want with it. It's none of their business what you do with it. Nor can they prove it.

We call these types of "laws" or "agreements" USELESS because they are completely unenforceable.

Now, before someone flames me, you won't find a more ethical businessman than me. Let's just say I know some people and could have used CS3 for free easily, pirated versions, but because we're using CS3 on this project and making money on it, I bought the full version of CS3 for $1,650 because I think that's only fair, since people are working hard to make that software, Adobe deserves to make a profit for running a great company, and that's just how I am. I have the full version of Final Cut Studio 2. I have Adobe Lightroom that I paid for. Final Draft 7. Stock libraries, etc. I have about $4,000 in paid software, and no pirated software, and I pay for my songs on iTunes or from Beatport or another paid service. I don't ever pirate movies, TV shows, ANYTHING in general. Because I don't believe in it. I believe in people being paid fairly for their work and doing my part to ensure the future of these programs, industries, etc.

That being said, it only goes so far, if I can't find your song on iTunes, and I can't find it anywhere else, I have no problem pirating it because you obviously suck at business and suck at the Internet. You have a paid customer, me, who doesn't care about paying $1 for your song, even $2 if that's what you want to charge, yet you've chosen not to make it available to me in any way I can pay you for it. That sucks to be you. I'll find it somewhere else and download it for free. You just lost your opportunity to make money. If it ever becomes available on iTunes, even though I already have the song, I'll buy it. I did that with every other song I had from Napster from back in the day, I just purchased the actual versions from iTunes. I don't mind, it's only 99 cents, and it's also only fair. But I don't like to be screwed with and if these artists are too stupid to figure out how to use iTunes I don't have the patience for that. I'm not going to buy their whole CD for $15 because they don't want to use iTunes. The only way to teach those people is to pirate their music so they lose sales and figure out how to enter the 21st century.
 
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JonathanLB said:
you won't find a more ethical businessman than me.

That being said, it only goes so far, if I can't find your song on iTunes, and I can't find it anywhere else, I have no problem pirating it because you obviously suck at business and suck at the Internet.
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LOL :2vrolijk_08:
 
Sorry I'm pretty adamant about that one. I'll spend 30 minutes trying to find your song legitimately, I don't use Limewire for anything, it's a pain in the butt to me anyway. I'd rather pay and get a full quality version easily and know I did things the right way! Seriously. But if I search the Web and cannot find any legitimate copies of your song, it's literally not for sale anywhere, what am I supposed to do? I'm just not supposed to listen to that song? No way. I get a song caught in my head I have to hear it, it's like an addiction, I won't be satisfied until I can hear that song. There is one time I bought the whole CD, it was for Hyperdex-1-Sect, but that's because it was a small LP and I found it used, and I couldn't even find it on Limewire, haha.

There was ONE instance where I pirated a movie, and didn't and don't feel bad about it. That was Equilibrium, with Christian Bale. First off, I FLEW to Seattle from Portland, OR, to see that movie, and stayed with my dad who was there on business, then drove back with him to Portland. So I paid for it once in theaters. It was NOT SHOWING anywhere in Oregon, whatsoever. I'm sorry that studio sucks so hard at distributing such a good movie, but they obviously do. So I downloaded the movie so I could watch a few of the best scenes again. The quality was pretty bad. When it came out on DVD I obviously bought it, in fact I ended up with two copies on DVD. I paid my dues. They didn't lose any money because of me having a pirated copy, and that's what it's all about.

I think I also at some point had a pirated copy of The Phantom Menace, a bootleg version, but I saw that movie 50 times in theaters, paid for 48 of them (theater manager gave me 2 free), so I contributed something like $285 to the box office gross of that movie, bought a few thousand dollars in merchandise, and have four copies of the movie total, one collectible VHS box that's signed by a few people, another normal VHS, and two DVD copies. I've spent about $75,000 over the years on Star Wars, so I can't say I feel bad for having a pirated copy of TPM, considering I saw it 50 times in theaters, not exactly like I would have seen it in theaters more if not for the pirated copy since I only downloaded that out of curiosity. The quality was too insulting to watch, so I never did, but I watched a few good scenes as I recall.

The whole point of why piracy is bad is because you are cutting into the revenue that would be generated. If you aren't going to show your movie in theaters within my STATE, and I still fly to see the movie once in theaters, I can't be faulted for pirating your movie because I haven't cost you anything if I still buy it on DVD (twice!). Furthermore, with a song, if I'm not going to buy the whole CD for that song, which I'm not, and I'm perfectly willing to buy that track but you don't offer it, so then I pirate that track, NO REVENUE has been lost because of my actions. You, however, have caused a revenue loss by not allowing me to purchase the track, i.e. no supply where there is demand. That's not my problem. The point of piracy laws, and the ethical issue behind piracy, is all financial. You are causing a company financial harm. If there is no financial harm caused, the intent of the law is void.
 
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JonathanLB said:
But if I search the Web and cannot find any legitimate copies of your song, it's literally not for sale anywhere, what am I supposed to do? I'm just not supposed to listen to that song?
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Exactly. You don't have the right to steal someone's property just because you can't buy your own.
 
Haha, you're seriously being silly. It's not property, it's INTELLECTUAL property, it's not the same at all. It's only the same when you're damaging the financial potential of that intellectual property, which you clearly aren't if you are unable to buy it in the first place.

I don't need to defend my choices, I spend a lot of money on intellectual property every year, I have almost 3,000 DVDs and spend probably an average of at least $10,000 on entertainment every year. One of the songs I "pirated," or that someone sent me over AIM, doesn't even exist in the United States. It's a foreign song and I found no way to buy a CD even, let alone purchase it online. I heard the song on a YouTube video, I thought it was funny, and I wanted to listen to it. I don't think I'm hurting an artist when that artist has no commercial ability in this country yet, and I bet the artist would agree. They'd probably blame their label or manager for not making it available to worldwide audiences.
 
JonathanLB said:
Haha, you're seriously being silly. It's not property, it's INTELLECTUAL property, it's not the same at all. It's only the same when you're damaging the financial potential of that intellectual property, which you clearly aren't if you are unable to buy it in the first place.

....
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Consider the fact that some film distributors might release a DVD of a film that has already peaked in its boxoffice draw in some parts of the world but delay releasing the DVD in other regions where it's still drawing the audiences into the theatres. Let's say you live in the part of the world where the DVD has not been released yet. Are you saying you claim the right to second guess their business decisions and obtain a pirated copy of the disk because they choose not to make it available where you happen to be?
 
It doesn't matter, really, who you're hurting. It's certainly not up to you to decide.

You can't always get what you want. You certainly don't have right to everything just because you want it.
 
JonathanLB--

Where I can download your reel? I want to use some of your shots in my stuff. I won't pay for it though because I can't find it available for sell anywhere. That leads me to believe you just suck at business.

So just post a link if you can, or I'll search around the internet for it. I'm sure you agree that I can steal it and use it since it's not easy to find or you don't want to make it available for me.



Michael.

PS. Using an Academic copy of software for commercial purposes violates the EULA. When you install and use the software you're agreeing to the terms and conditions therein. If the company somehow found out you had violated the EULA it is in their rights to sue for compensation. It's a legally binding contract, but not typically worth the effort for a company to go on a witchhunt finding violators then tying up the legal system with lawsuits. Unless you're the MPAA. Then they care.
 
JonathanLB said:
I don't need to defend my choices, I spend a lot of money on intellectual property every year,
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Of course you don't have to defend your choices to pirate music, because nobody here would ever be able to "find a more ethical businessman than" you. :shocked:

Just because you are able to convince yourself you have the right to something doesn't actually mean you have the right to it.
 
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