How is this twisted logic? In the music industry it was the norm for a very long time, and some musicians became rich with a one hit wonder. Why doesn't the same apply to software? Other than with hardware, sheer replication is costing next to nothing.

Lol, I'm enjoying this one, hahaha

"Actually we were alerted by the Black Friday sales and it took us a couple of days to QA a release that fixed the issue. If you have unfortunately been sold a counterfeit try to get a refund and seek a license from an authorized reseller." DaVinci Resolve Product Manager

Those who are affected can still run R15.2 so what is the real issue? BMD only crippled FUTURE UPDATES. Hardly what you would call locking people out.

Defending piracy or implying that somehow BMD need to accept some responsibility for pirated dongles is just plain crazy.

Anyone who bought any other pirated product and tried to imply that the affected legitimate company are somehow acting inappropriately when protecting their income from theft would be laughed at. Software is no different. BMD and the purchasers of fake dongles are BOTH victims of a crime. So one victim (BMD) is expected to help compensate for another victim's loss? In the real world things don't work that way.

@Vitaliy No I'm not stupid.

"Even more interesting is story lasting for years before this dongles appearance, but I better avoid for now describing all details and will do it later as will see fit."

More unsubstantiated claims. Either state the facts or I call B.S.

I don’t get it, isn’t it a pretty known fact that if you buy any software not from the original manufacturer or authorized seller, you run the risk of buying a pirated software, or you run the risk of not being able to register the software correctly with the manufacture? How can you prove that the seller (from eBay) haven’t already installed a copy in on their machine or made copies to sell to others? Yes, assuming BM didn’t initially do anything about it, but as buyer why didn’t ask yourself I could eventually have a problem with the piece of software that I am just buying from someone who’s not an authorized seller? A year ago, when I was gonna buy FCPX, yes eBay had cheaper dongles of it with sellers claiming there are legitimate software. I have no reason to doubt them but as a buyer why are you not asking the simple question, where did they get it from? I ended up buying it from apple. This year before I thought about buying the BMPC4K, I have a friend who went to film school and was willing to give me tutorial on resolve. His recommendation was on getting the full version though he said the free version will be enough. I didn’t need to go to Black magic forum to know that buying the cheaper dongles from eBay could potentially be a problem because I know it’s highly possible it’s pirated. I bought a BMPCC4K because I wanted the full legal copy of resolve. I work in R&D and our yearly budget is directly proportional to sales. Budgets for new innovations have always come when sales are high. I can’t comment on BM business policies/practices or how different the free version is from the full version because I have never used the free version. But aren’t companies supposed to make a profit? Isn’t that why they go into business? Yes, there are lot of companies that buy their cooperate jets and CEO yacht on the backs of consumers high prices but it’s every consumer’s responsibility to choose to give them their hard end money. As concerns prices, I don’t see anything that BM is doing wrong and if or when they start acting like Adobe, I will drop them like how I have dropped Adobe!

From Redshark forum topic: "Actually, BMD is playing extraordinarily nice with this. As far as I can see there are no database changes and users can simply reload 15.2 if their dongle doesn't work anymore. The upgrade path has been closed off but all current software will work".

@Vitaliy Your reply indicates to me that you have no idea about the true meaning of my post. I fully understand about software hacks vs. dongles. Blaming BMD for closing off updates for pirated dongles is ridiculous.

@caveport

Do not mix stuff.

For around 1.5 years it had been dongles that worked with every version and did not have any software part.

Same time exist full cracks of Studio versions not requiring any dongles.

It is quite simple to understand that from people who did it knowingly it is medium and large firms who bough dongles, as it allow you to hide fact and simplify upgrade.

If they disable the pirated dongles I think they're going to just be hitting a lot of people who were trying to do the right thing and now they will be punished for it. Makes me think of when FTDI went nuclear and pushed a patch killing all products using counterfeits of their RS232 adapter chips and ended up killing a lot of products from big name companies who had supply chain issues where counterfeit chips had gotten into the mix. If BMD does intend to kill those dongles I feel like they should reach out to try to gracefully move people onto legit dongles. Say, if you bought one prior to December offer a 50$ license dongle or something where people can go "This sucks but that's not THAT much more might as well do it". If someone bought a 200$ dongle a month ago so they could finally use Resolve Studio legally and then you nuke the dongle because it was counterfeit. That's pretty anti-consumer and I doubt most anyone buying those dongles considered that they might be counterfeit. If they actually wanted to circumvent the licensing they could just get a cracked version and not even mess around with the cost or hassle of the dongle.

Got it!

You are saying that they don't have to have a superior product to "dump price" the competition out of the market. When the competition exits, we are left with a higher price for the product because of lack of competition.

So the fear would be that Apple stops improving and selling Final Cut Pro and the only competition left is Premier and Media Composer who are both subscription based, so Blackmagic could easily go to a subscription model without much pricing resistance.

It will be interesting to look back at this thread in a month, a year, or a decade to see how this really plays out.

I'm OK with Blackmagic changing their pricing policies on Resolve and here's why:

In order for Blackmagic to have a monopoly and charge whatever they want, they need to make superior products and drive out the competition with competitive pricing.

By the time they enviably go Darth Vader, shows their ruthless corporation pirate fight moves and exploit their customer base for massive profits, I will have had access to amazing tools I would not have otherwise had access to, at reasonable prices... and I assume I will be able to continue use the last version of these tools that I purchased outright, for as long as I want.

All in all, I'm way better off with a profitable Blackmagic than without. Who knows, they may decide to continue to charge fair prices even after they completely dominate the NLE market.

The generosity of the free version & upgrades only makes sense commercially as a strategy to convert users from other NLE's. Even a long trial version would not have been enough for Resolve as it is unusual and complex to learn.

There must be a point at which upgrades will be charged for, and free versions will be extremely limited or non-existent. That is expected in is OK.

The only question for me: will they offer a reasonable upgrade price, and will they avoid railroading users into a subscription model?

There is evidence that BM prefer to keep a low price/high value point (just look at their hardware) so I am hopeful.

Let's look at facts.

Have they EVER charged for major updates since they reduced the cost of Resolve from $300 000 ?

Since what..version 9 ? If you owned the full version of resolve sine then you've NEVER paid to have the most up to date version. And look at the features that have been added while you've been getting those free updates.

I don't even use the new audio / VFX apps. I hate that the download is so much bigger now to install features I don't even use. But it still runs fine for me. Resolve has ALWAYS been a processor hungry app to run.

The free versions are limited only in minor ways. I can't recall what they are now, but it used to be the free version was the SAME as the full version except you couldn't use multiple GPUs, it wouldn't deliver higher than HD (but i think it's 4K now) and no NR ?

But functionally the SAME machine with no limitations. I know many high end post places doing work for paying customers using the free version of Resolve all the time !!

So they made a product that used to cost mid six figures into a product almost anyone can afford, made a free version that's nearly identical and limited in a few small ways, haven't yet charged for a SINGLE major update for 5 years if you're a registered owner, so that's 5 years worth of free updates ? They've made a free version that's fully useable that isn't event number crippled and isn't watermarked...

What exactly are we complaining about ? You heard a rumour they want to switch to a subscription model ?

JB

"ruthless corporation" is a little over the top. They are ALL "ruthless corporations" to you, so why select some for special criticism? Compared to others, BMD are quite reasonable in their business model. I have had MUCH worse experiences with SONY (and other companies) over the years so I don't agree with your viewpoint.

"I ask people to get knowledge instead of standing for their unfounded opinions." Exactly my point!