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Can a Affinity Designer/Photo license be deactived?


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Hi all,

Last year we bought a license for Photo and Designer for an  external employee because he agreed working for us. But since more than half a year he is no longer working for us anymore. So we like to use his licenses for one of our own computers.

That is the reason why I like to know if a license can be deactivated by the owner so it becomes useless on on computer and can be activated on the other one.

When deactivation is not possible, we will buy new licenses for Designer and Photo and later Publisher.

Thank you very much for your time and efforts spend on my request.

Chris

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If the license was bought through the Mac or Microsoft store, I don't think there is any way to deactivate it or transfer it to another user. I don't know what might be possible if bought through the Affinity store.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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When purchased from Serif directly, there's a file that contains the license information. A user could certainly deactivate it on their computer, for example before selling the computer to someone else, by deleting that file. However, that user could also reactivate the license using backup copies of the file.

So it sounds like @Bad_Wolf would need some centralized way that Serif could deactivate the license from their end, but I have no idea if that's possible.

-- 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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I don’t think any of the licences are transferable. If @Bad_Wolf is the licensee then he can simply install the software on another machine which is covered by his licence, but if the “external employee” is the licensee then an additional purchase would be required (and in such a case the question of deactivation of the original licence wouldn’t apply, anyway).

Alfred spacer.png
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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Thank you all for your replies. Indeed, last year May we paid additional (new) license for both Designer and Photo. What we did was and is completely legal.

Over a few weeks we need Designer and Photo on a machine we do not use much, but we will buy new licenses for the two. We consider those versions we bought last year May as lost. Anyway, the employee does not have the license keys and we bought from my Serif account. So theoretically, piracy is not possible.

To avoid these unpleasant situtions in the future, we no longer buy licenses for machines which are not ours.

Thank you all very much for your insights and ideas. I really do appreciate your help.

Chris

 

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@Bad_Wolf

I think you need to carefully re-read @Alfred's post above!  He wrote:

6 hours ago, Alfred said:

If @Bad_Wolf is the licensee then he can simply install the software on another machine which is covered by his licence

In other words, since you already own the licence, which covers as many computers as you own and control, as I read what you have written you do NOT need to purchase any new licence in order to install the software on to the "machine we do not use much".

Win 10 Pro, i7 6700K, 32Gb RAM, NVidia GTX1660 Ti and Intel HD530 Graphics

Long-time user of Serif products, chiefly PagePlus and PhotoPlus, but also WebPlus, CraftArtistProfessional and DrawPlus.  Delighted to be using Affinity Designer, Photo, and now Publisher, version 1 and now version 2.

iPad Pro (12.9") (iOS 17.4) running Affinity Photo and Designer version 1 and all three version 2 apps.

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25 minutes ago, Bad_Wolf said:

we no longer buy licenses for machines which are not ours

You can’t properly be the licensee for machines which you neither own nor control.

Alfred spacer.png
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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Hello Emmrecs01 and Alfred,

We bought the licenses because that employee said he wanted to work  for us but he hasn't the money for buying the licenses (its in Botswana Africa). So because we thought he was sincere and willing to work for us, we bought him the licenses. He did not keep his side of the bargain and just worked for himself.

He won in the short term but will loose in the long term. He cannot re-install any of those programs because those programs where licensed but the license keys are still in our possession.

Thank you both  again for your replies and advice.

Chris

 

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On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 7:46 PM, emmrecs01 said:

In other words, since you already own the licence, which covers as many computers as you own and control, as I read what you have written you do NOT need to purchase any new licence in order to install the software on to the "machine we do not use much".

 

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 8:08 PM, Alfred said:

You can’t properly be the licensee for machines which you neither own nor control.

As Alfred says, installing your license on a machine you neither own or control is in breach of the EULA.

If you wanted an "external employee" to be able to use the software all you could have effectively done is gifted the "external employee" a copy by buying it for him, which is, technically, what you have done. (If you do not want to be seen as in breach of the EULA)

This will mean you no longer have any rights to the license and cannot use it anywhere else.

Since the license is non-transferrable, even a good "external employee" could not have legally transferred the licence back to you (once their work was done) if you had initially gifted them a copy.

When working with "external employees" it will probably just be easier to factor in the cost of the additional (and non-recoverable) software license(s) needed, if you specifically need them to work with certain Affinity apps.

 

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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