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Lifetime licenses? Why keep them?

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Greetings!

I felt this would be a good time to examine the realities of lifetime licenses. I see a lot of people asking whether the old licenses will be honored or whether there will be new lifetime licenses made available. Short answer, you're old license is no longer valid (That's NOT officially the case right now, it's MY OPINION). This is a discussion about the future direction of licensing.

For the record, James has stated elsewhere that those who recently purchased a license will receive some kind of consideration. I feel for you if you purchased a lifetime license less than a year ago and I understand why you're upset at the turn of events but that's not the fault of the people who are trying to resurrect this program so please direct any venting at the old management and don't un-reasonably hold these guys accountable.

Myself, like many others who proclaim willingness to donate or re-up their license, I've used Anydvd HD for many years (since 2007?) and, at that time, I bought everything that was offered which kicked in an additional discount on the individual prices. So, yes, I feel I got my monies worth especially considering the amount of effort required to keep this software working with new releases. I didn't and probably never will use any of the other software I bought from them and I still think I got a good deal.

This software is what you call development intensive not like say a word processor where a developer is tweaking or adding a few new features every year. I think this translates in to more work hours and more staffing needs required (relative to the word processor) and therefore the people involved deserve reasonable compensation in line with their time and effort.

Lifetime licenses are great for the consumer (like me) but let's consider what a lifetime license means to the developer. Fact is the developer can't spend the lifetime license receipts or at least not more than a small amount of it. Lifetime licenses are pyramidal, meaning when the RedFox version releases, they will sell a lot of licenses but as time progresses and the market is saturated they sell fewer and fewer. Because they never receive another dime from the customer, they need to take a significant part of that money received now and invest it to generate income to continue the operations of the business in to the future. (So they may need to hire a professional financial manager to be sustainable and they'll definitely need an attorney to be retained is a certainty.)

How do they keep the income flowing? What some companies do is release a new program every so often and reset the customer database. The old version is no longer developed and end of life, EOL. For example and this is pure speculation, under Slysoft, they could have done a reset with the release of AnyDVD HD from AnyDVD. All AnyDVD lifetime licenses still work with AnyDVD but it's just no longer developed, EOL. You want the current generation, you have to re-up for the new HD software. Similarly when Ultra HD is introduced they could perform such a reset. Under that scenario, your lifetime license might be valid for 5 years or so. Still that's probably not too bad for $100 up front or $20/yr. so who would complain really?

In conclusion, although I love my lifetime license as a consumer, I suggest ditching lifetime licenses and going to an extended term discounted license say 5 years. Lifetime licenses are a difficult business model to sustain and don't make sense for development intensive software like this.

I'd like to hear your opinion. Thanks

Sabertooth

How about you give up yours and leave us out of it?
 
[QUOTE="Sabertooth,
Lifetime licenses are great for the consumer (like me) but let's consider what a lifetime license means to the developer. Fact is the developer can't spend the lifetime license receipts or at least not more than a small amount of it. Lifetime licenses are pyramidal, meaning when the RedFox version releases, they will sell a lot of licenses but as time progresses and the market is saturated they sell fewer and fewer. Because they never receive another dime from the customer, they need to take a significant part of that money received now and invest it to generate income to continue the operations of the business in to the future. (So they may need to hire a professional financial manager to be sustainable and they'll definitely need an attorney to be retained is a certainty.)
[/QUOTE] I would ALWAYS WANT LTL'S &
I would almost bet u that more ppl bought/used timed vs LTL since the timed license's began until they seen ALL the benefits of the lil Red Fox because anyone new to this program that might buy does a usage of vs cost of which to us vets is a no brainier and proceed from there & I'm thinking even more "newer" users now will go with a timed because of the Antigua Incident and fear of it happening again but myself and probably most Longtime vets will ALWAYS go w/LTL's if available & I really hope they will be offered again.
 
I don't think there is any other company I've bought from that has the brand loyalty and trust of the vast majority of their followers. Whatever Redfox offers, my position is that if it is in their best interests to do it that way, I will gladly support them. I don't want this company going under.
 
I was referring to Redfox - sorry for the confusion.
When you type "this company" in to the redfox.bz website it should be 100% obvious to anyone with a brain cell or two that you mean redfox.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
 
I don't think there is any other company I've bought from that has the brand loyalty and trust of the vast majority of their followers. Whatever Redfox offers, my position is that if it is in their best interests to do it that way, I will gladly support them. I don't want this company going under.

How about you give up yours and leave us out of it? Seems like it's mainly people who never had one are happy to give up the ones we bought on day ONE of the offer. We supported and purchased when asked to do so!
 
How about you give up yours and leave us out of it? Seems like it's mainly people who never had one are happy to give up the ones we bought on day ONE of the offer. We supported and purchased when asked to do so!

I have no idea what you are talking about.
 
How about you give up yours and leave us out of it? Seems like it's mainly people who never had one are happy to give up the ones we bought on day ONE of the offer. We supported and purchased when asked to do so!

I dunno about you,but I got my LTL in 2004,and I'll gladly give it up to see the new company survive!
If you have any complaints about your LTL not being honored,you should contact Giancarlo Bettini.....or the Hollywood moguls who caused the shutdown of SlySoft.... :D
These guys (and gals?) are stepping forward to try to revive a dead project so that we can keep using AnyDvd HD to backup our stuff,which should be a fair use right in the 1st place!
And of course they need money to feed their family,just as we do.......just be happy that they give the finger to the multimedia companies by starting all over again.
At least,now you have the option to use AnyDvd HD again in the future,be it for an additional fee.....otherwise,you could frame your LTL and put it on the wall to look at,thinking about past times... :D
 
Why not allow only the people who had already purchased a lifetime license to buy a new one if they wish in the new company at a fair price and all new customers are limited to say 2-5 years or so.

Regardless of how all this works out I for one will buy a new license from this new company without giving it a second thought and I think most all will agree if they admit to it or not......
 
The new options should be like this 1yr, 2yr, 5yr or LTL license (being offered to LTL holders). I for one would still like the LTL options others may disagree but that is not my concern. As mentioned some have a budget and if they are given that option I am sure most if not all LTL holders would make this purchase without hesitation to support the company and then they should also have a Donation model to keep R&D going that is separate from the software purchase. That is how they should remodel the new company this way buyers have options but then they still have donations to keep R&D going.
 
I think we just need to give RedFox some time to come up with, what will hopefully be, a sensible licensing and price structure. I was one of the unfortunate ones who bought an LTL for AnyDVD HD just 8 months ago but their product is excellent and I want to see it continue. If I had of purchased the LTL years ago, it wouldn't be an issue at all, as I would have felt that I got value from it. However, I'm optimistic that RedFox will make sensible discounts and/or a period of free use for those with an existing LTL, especially those that just bought one. Fingers crossed!
 
I am an old geezer, not too physically well and living on a very small fixed income.
I stopped using DVD discs a while back, backing them up and putting them away.
My laptop is connected to my flatscreen, my 13 TB of external HDDs to my laptop.
I use the backed up file (.IFO) to click on, and watch the movie in Windows Media Player, and all my files are available without any more physical work than opening the right HDD with my mouse onscreen, then selecting the movie.
So my new Lifetime Licenses for ANYDVD and CloneDVD are gonna be a huge expense, because to remove the annoying adverts from my DVD while keeping the menu requires CloneDVD. I remember how the awful cigarette anti-ads scared my young daughter when she saw one...I hate them (as a non-smoker) for their awful exaggerated facts and featured dead-people theme and lack of any rational point. Plus trailers are soon outdated and just flotsam on my screen ...I hate the time it takes to get to the movie.
And I can't bear the return of inserting DVDs over and over, and removing them, which requires my walking when I am unable to do so easily.
I hope that the one time fee for a year will be the system, as I can do that easier than a monthly fee which usually is higher over a year in cost.
I love business as it makes the world go round with cool stuff, but I hope the idea of Lifetime Licenses being gone is not done lightly, and a yearly fee, if going that way, is the chosen system of payment.
I won't mind if the holders of Lifetime Licenses are given some space until the end of their licenses comes ...maybe a few months grace?... but I couldn't justify that, so why would Redfox?
I love the Software for so many reasons, and I see why we want well-paid developers working for us (so to speak).
 
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For my first post, I have to say how happy I was to see this new website name, since my longstanding Slysoft forum user name was RedFox. So now I'm WhiteFox!

Anyway, I have also bought LTL for all the products since they first came out, an have been putting all my thousands of DVD/BR on QNap NAS servers to stream to Dune players in the house. The joy and ease of using all the Elby/Slysoft products has always been one of the best things about using my computer for me personally.

I understand it is hard for people who bought LTL to now realize that when a company no longer exists, they are holding a worthless license. It is the same with any company or product. Try getting support on Jasc Paint Shop Pro, or your Blockbuster video store, or value for your Enron shares. It happens.

I celebrate, wholeheartedly support, and will purchase new licenses however the new team needs to have it work out for them.
 
As long as there ain't given a site notice, I surely will wait to renew my three LTLs. And paying exclusively with Bitcoins is absolutely no option at all.

Lots of posts here are such childish and infantile to read. Unbelievable! And those fanboys are trying to euphemize the reality as it is.
 
For my first post, I have to say how happy I was to see this new website name, since my longstanding Slysoft forum user name was RedFox. So now I'm WhiteFox!

Anyway, I have also bought LTL for all the products since they first came out, an have been putting all my thousands of DVD/BR on QNap NAS servers to stream to Dune players in the house. The joy and ease of using all the Elby/Slysoft products has always been one of the best things about using my computer for me personally.

I understand it is hard for people who bought LTL to now realize that when a company no longer exists, they are holding a worthless license. It is the same with any company or product. Try getting support on Jasc Paint Shop Pro, or your Blockbuster video store, or value for your Enron shares. It happens.

I celebrate, wholeheartedly support, and will purchase new licenses however the new team needs to have it work out for them.
I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this but playing devil's advocate some old customers might say that the product only got as far as it did and the developers only earned a living from it because of them. Or even that there's no real proof that the whole starting a new company in a new location wasn't partly done as a way to get the old customers to pay again.

--
Brian G. (In the UK)
 
Greetings!

I felt this would be a good time to examine the realities of lifetime licenses. I see a lot of people asking whether the old licenses will be honored or whether there will be new lifetime licenses made available. Short answer, you're old license is no longer valid (That's NOT officially the case right now, it's MY OPINION). This is a discussion about the future direction of licensing.

For the record, James has stated elsewhere that those who recently purchased a license will receive some kind of consideration. I feel for you if you purchased a lifetime license less than a year ago and I understand why you're upset at the turn of events but that's not the fault of the people who are trying to resurrect this program so please direct any venting at the old management and don't un-reasonably hold these guys accountable.

Myself, like many others who proclaim willingness to donate or re-up their license, I've used Anydvd HD for many years (since 2007?) and, at that time, I bought everything that was offered which kicked in an additional discount on the individual prices. So, yes, I feel I got my monies worth especially considering the amount of effort required to keep this software working with new releases. I didn't and probably never will use any of the other software I bought from them and I still think I got a good deal.

This software is what you call development intensive not like say a word processor where a developer is tweaking or adding a few new features every year. I think this translates in to more work hours and more staffing needs required (relative to the word processor) and therefore the people involved deserve reasonable compensation in line with their time and effort.

Lifetime licenses are great for the consumer (like me) but let's consider what a lifetime license means to the developer. Fact is the developer can't spend the lifetime license receipts or at least not more than a small amount of it. Lifetime licenses are pyramidal, meaning when the RedFox version releases, they will sell a lot of licenses but as time progresses and the market is saturated they sell fewer and fewer. Because they never receive another dime from the customer, they need to take a significant part of that money received now and invest it to generate income to continue the operations of the business in to the future. (So they may need to hire a professional financial manager to be sustainable and they'll definitely need an attorney to be retained is a certainty.)

How do they keep the income flowing? What some companies do is release a new program every so often and reset the customer database. The old version is no longer developed and end of life, EOL. For example and this is pure speculation, under Slysoft, they could have done a reset with the release of AnyDVD HD from AnyDVD. All AnyDVD lifetime licenses still work with AnyDVD but it's just no longer developed, EOL. You want the current generation, you have to re-up for the new HD software. Similarly when Ultra HD is introduced they could perform such a reset. Under that scenario, your lifetime license might be valid for 5 years or so. Still that's probably not too bad for $100 up front or $20/yr. so who would complain really?

In conclusion, although I love my lifetime license as a consumer, I suggest ditching lifetime licenses and going to an extended term discounted license say 5 years. Lifetime licenses are a difficult business model to sustain and don't make sense for development intensive software like this.

I'd like to hear your opinion. Thanks

Sabertooth
 
I'm with you on the 5-Yr licenses. Don't know how a developer ever managed on the previous Lifetime One-Time pay income. It's a great program and I'll support any way I can.
Quiltkey
 
I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this but playing devil's advocate some old customers might say that the product only got as far as it did and the developers only earned a living from it because of them. Or even that there's no real proof that the whole starting a new company in a new location wasn't partly done as a way to get the old customers to pay again.

--
Brian G. (In the UK)

Brian, I understand everyone's concerns...but lots of software (other than shareware) that used to be a one time purchase (antivirus, MS Office, etc.) has been moving to a annual subscription model. There is no way for any of us to know what the real story is regarding Slysoft's closure, but the bottom line is that it is gone.

Now, there is a chance to have a continuing, well performing product with a new subscription model, or James and all the other developers/supporters could just go away, close this site down also, and leave the only alternative as the blue monkey. For those that feel that they got screwed by this happening, there is no way to dissuade them from what they feel or believe.

There is a new way that things are going to work now, and people will have to either choose to support it, or continue being upset and frustrated. Either outcome is valid. I am choosing to continue supporting the team who made AnyDVD/HD work so well for so many years.
 
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