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Selling product keys


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I recently came across someone on Facebook who said they have several Affinity product keys to sell. The notion of someone having 'several' product keys triggered my suspicion, which led me to question this person's honesty. I'm also unsure if selling product keys is a legitimate thing to do anyway. It would be helpful to know if this guy is acting in good faith, or if Affinity needs to take action.

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From the ‘en-gb’ version of the Licence Agreement page:

Quote

The Licence granted to you is limited, non-transferable and non-exclusive.

As it’s ‘non-transferable’ you aren’t even permitted to give it away, let alone sell it.

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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2 hours ago, Alfred said:

As it’s ‘non-transferable’ you aren’t even permitted to give it away, let alone sell it.

Not so (at least in the EU, and after Brexit this probably still is the case in the UK): https://www.linklaters.com/en/insights/publications/tmt-news/tmt-news-november-2012/eu---usedsoft-v-oracle-ecj-approves-sale-of-used-software

Law trumps licence agreements.

I should add that I am still looking for a copy of PagePlus X5 Arabic to see what it is like. I have no interest in a pirated copy. But if I see a copy on Ebay which appears to be legitimate I will be buying it.

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  • Staff

Hi @Lusus,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

Could you please email affinity@serif.com, providing us with as much information as you can regarding this?

We're looking to confirm these licenses have been obtained in a legitimate manner, many thanks :)

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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  • Staff

Many thanks for this information, I have 'hidden' your post as it contains personal information - however I have forwarded this to the relevant team and we'll take any appropriate actions necessary.

Many thanks once again for your report :D

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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Its a tad ironic that a moderator/staff member, with an avatar taken from the Fallout Shelter game, responds to my post about potential infringement of intellectual property rights. But then for all I know he might have been involved in developing the game 😉😄

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  • 4 months later...

As @LondonSquirrel pointed out already:

In the whole EU (and Switzerland) for example you are allowed to sell used software by law, and it's not possible for companies to rule out that right in license agreements.

There are some factors to consider though, e.g. it can't be a pirated copy (surprise😮), you need to destroy your own copy upon sale, it can't be rented software and maybe a few other factors.

Affinity can though, in their AGBs, prohibit you from giving / selling your account data to 3rd parties. So you are legally allowed to sell your license key but you may not be able to sell your serif.com account as they might have ruled that out in their AGBs.

So you can, but below I'll explain why it might be inconvenient.

-------------------------


But there is a question left: how does the buyer then obtain the software packages? As I've seen you need to login in order to download it. You might be able to download a test version freely and register it then, I don't know.

All in all it's a lot of hassle for a very good software that is so affordable. Software development costs money, consider this.

For me this means: Do what you want to do the big A and their annoying subscription model but leave them fine folks at Affinity their daily bread haha

Don't take any info as a fact, do your own research, check local laws, don't hold me responsible! Correct me with sources if I'm mistaken.

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5 hours ago, tiiimo said:

But there is a question left: how does the buyer then obtain the software packages? As I've seen you need to login in order to download it. You might be able to download a test version freely and register it then, I don't know.

Anyone can download the software. Without a product key it will only run in Trial mode.

With a product key you can turn it into a standard retail version, but you also need to know the email address that it was originally purchased with, as that is another part of the registration process that cannot be changed.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Anyone can download the software. Without a product key it will only run in Trial mode.

With a product key you can turn it into a standard retail version, but you also need to know the email address that it was originally purchased with, as that is another part of the registration process that cannot be changed.

Thanks for the info, right I forgot that one! An email address can be data I'd rather keep private ;)

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You're welcome.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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