Why SERIF delete the V1 from App Store?

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

You must think I'm an idiot.

Not at all. I'm simply pointing out that @Chang ZhiPing is ignoring what several of us have mentioned several times now about the impossibility of compelling Apple to share the necessary purchase information with Serif, thus making the suggestion of doing that unrealistic.

[thomaso]

40 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The only thing @Chang ZhiPing needs to understand is what has been said in several posts now; that being that Apple will not share personal customer information with Serif or with any other outside vendor selling apps through its stores. This is true for all countries, not just China.

I don't think it's THAT simple. To make DRM (Digital Rights Management) work for a software, there has to be a way to prove a purchase, correct?

If a purchase receipt is a legally valid/valuable document, then an App Store customer can use it to prove to Serif that a purchase was made.
If the receipt is not a legally sufficient document, then there must be another way for a customer to prove a purchase.

In any case, if Serif has the interest in DRM they must have an interest in its working, too.
The customer / users don't need DRM at all, they just want too use the software.

Thus, it appears to be a matter of Serif to accept a receipt, in whatever form/medium/transmission – regardless whether delivered by Apple or by a customer.

[R C-R]

16 minutes ago, thomaso said:

To make DRM (Digital Rights Management) work for a software, there has to be a way to prove a purchase, correct?

The proof has to come from the store where the item was purchased. Serif has no way to verify that unless the product was purchased from their store because (again!!!!) as a matter of policy Apple will not provide that proof to Serif, nor to any other company selling apps through the Apple store.

20 minutes ago, thomaso said:

If the receipt is not a legally sufficient document, then there must be another way for a customer to prove a purchase.

How? Like I said, it is trivially easy to create a bogus Apple Store receipt, so the only way to tell if it is valid or not is by comparing the info in it to what is in Apple's database, but Apple will not share that info with third party vendors like Serif, so there is nothing Serif can do about this.

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

So if the receipt has a transaction code and date+time on it.
And the receipt and date+time and account number to the transaction code would be proof enough.

The receipt Apple sends is just an email with a textual description of the transaction info. I assure you that it is trivially easy to create a fake one & submit that to Serif as 'proof' that the app was bought through the MAS. The same applies to any other app sold through the MAS, including the cheapest & most expensive ones.

23 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

Also why would anybody go through such lengths to create a bogus receipt for an old version of a not that costly license?

It only takes about a minute or less to create a fake, easy enough for many people to do that to save the $50 or so it would cost to buy a real license, or to do that for each of the V1 apps to save about $150 or more.

23 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

And also complaining publicly about it.
If I was a fraudulent person I sure wouldn't be doing it like this.

???  Nobody is suggesting that @Chang ZhiPing is trying to do this. It is just that there is no way to verify that a MAS receipt is real or not without Appl's help, so the suggestion of using that as proof of purchase won't work.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

comparing the info in it to what is in Apple's database, but Apple will not share that info with third party vendors like Serif, so there is nothing Serif can do about this.

That is a step which does not require to share the entire data base or all data of a certain client. They just could confirm that a certain person has purchased a certain product or not. It's up to them to define what data are required in their eyes to define this person as unambiguous individual.

Again, in my idea Serif does have interest that their dealers work technically failure-free and in a workflow which does not make customers complain or desperate.

Your strict separation between Apple versus Serif in this case – as if they would not be business partners but rather enemies – would mean in consequence that Serif could never be sure that their software sold by Apple was legally purchased by a client using the software. If only Apple can confirm a purchase AND never does share purchase info we simply can use an illegal software and simply say it was purchased. Asked by Serif we say "we purchased at Apple", asked by Apple we response "at Serif".

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, thomaso said:

That is a step which does not require to share the entire data base or all data of a certain client. They just could confirm that a certain person has purchased a certain product or not.

Apple has made it very clear that as a matter of policy they absolutely will not share any personally identifiable info about MAS purchases with any outside vendor for any reason.

27 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Your strict separation between Apple versus Serif in this case – as if they would not be business partners but rather enemies – would mean in consequence that Serif could never be sure that their software sold by Apple was legally purchased by a client using the software.

??? Serif submits the Affinity apps it wants to sell through the MAS to Apple, & only after it has been approved for sale through the MAS is it offered for sale there by Apple. There is no other way to buy it through the MAS. So it does not matter that Serif can't verify that the purchase was made through the MAS. Apple does that on Serif's behalf.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

Apple does that on Serif's behalf.

Sounds Serif is the boss in this situation. – My guess was: since Apple does not deliver a serial number but Serif does I was wondering what would happen if one has illegal access to a Serif serial number and replies on a possible Serif request to have it purchased at Apple. Would Serif then be able to prove the purchase if they don't get information by Apple? … However, I just notice I don't know enough about the technical details / I never purchased an app in the MAS …

[R C-R]

Just now, thomaso said:

Sounds Serif is the boss in this situation.

How so???? Serif is in no way the "boss" of anything Apple does other than to decide if they want to sell through the Apple stores or not. That's it.

They cannot get Apple to help with anything involving the fraudulent use of the serial numbers Serif provides to users buying through the Affinity Store, nor is there any reason to ask for that. Apple has no more knowledge of that than Serif does about who bought their apps in the MAS.

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

However, I just notice I don't know enough about the technical details / I never purchased an app in the MAS …

That explains your uncertainty about how the MAS works, I guess, but please trust me that Serif has no way of knowing who purchased anything from the MAS. Apple simply will not share that info with Serif or with any other outside company. It has been this way since day one when the MAS was first opened.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

but please trust me that Serif has no way of knowing who purchased anything from the MAS.

Technically, not true in some cases since (I think) 1.9 when Serif implemented My Account within the applications. If the user purchases from the MAS (or the Microsoft Store) and chooses to sign in to an Affinity Store account from within My Account in their application, Serif knows that the user is running that app, and either knows (or could know) where they purchased it.

Of course, signing in to My Account is optional, and users may choose not to do it. Or they may choose to sign out. But for users who choose to sign in, and remain signed-in, Serif can know.

[Leigh]

I've checked with our developers and they've made no specific changes for Chinese users and V1. 

On 2/26/2023 at 2:01 PM, Chang ZhiPing said:

... because I am now live in China, ......

When you originally purchased the apps were you in China or a different country? Perhaps your App Store Account Settings were set to a different region at the time of purchase. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7589487

[pharmerpk]

I have posted a thread with the same grievance. It's not exclusive to China as my Apple ID is a US account. 

And I find that there's no point asking for explanation/help here as we will only see people defending Serif because they don't have the problem. 

I ended up purchasing V2 because there's no recourse from Serif. It is my last purchase from this shady company. 

[thomaso]

20 hours ago, pharmerpk said:

It's not exclusive to China as my Apple ID is a US account. 

And I find that there's no point asking for explanation/help here

I agree that various posts about what will not solve the problem may appear rather confusing or useless than helpful. (Serif can't / Apple doesn't, … never did, … will never do).

This post contains two links to possible solutions, e.g. via the known and apparently global localisation issue occurring in the Apple App Store when users move / switch their country in their Apple ID: