Transferring ownership of old VMS

yowzer wrote on 7/8/2011, 5:26 PM
I've upgraded to VMS 10 HD and thought I'd give my VMS 9 to some friends who are delving into videography. The VMS 9 is registered in my name of course, but I'm wondering how would I go about transferring it to my friends? I have no need for it. And by the way, the Sony site explanation is so ambiguous regarding this it's beyond frustrating.

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 7/8/2011, 5:39 PM
If you only paid the "upgrade" price for VMS10, then VMS9 is still tied to your account, and can't be sold. I believe that you can sell it only if your VMS10 was paid full price, as a full copy and not just an upgrade. See, an upgrade ties the two copies, while separate independent copies are just that.
yowzer wrote on 7/8/2011, 7:03 PM
I bought both versions outright. Neither one is an upgrade. 9.0 was purchased from sony directly. 10 I bought from an eBay retailer.
Kimberly wrote on 7/9/2011, 7:32 AM
I have heard this question before. The usual suggestion is to contact SCS Customer Service.

You might take a look at the My Account/My Software page and verify all of your software is listed. There is a link at the bottom of the page to add software purchased from vendors other than SCS, in your case the eBay retailer. There is also a link to recover serial numbers associated with another email account. Not sure if you can use this to transfer the ownership to your friend, but you might check it out.

A couple of things to remember:

The software that is registered to you is linked to a) Free Updates, and b) Paid Upgrade offers. Once it is not linked to you, the other user will get these services.

Once the software is installed and registered, it "knows" the machine id where it is installed. So there may be an issue if it gets installed on too many computers. A lot of people legitimately install on their desktop and laptop, but they edit on a single machine at a time. If the software shows up on, say, 3 computers, that could be an issue. So you may want to confirm how many installations are available for the next user.

Regards,

Kimberly
Chienworks wrote on 7/9/2011, 12:35 PM
Not true. SonyCreativeSoftware has no such thing as an "upgrade license". There's only a full license no matter whether you upgraded or crossgraded or or bought academic or bought new. The only difference is the price you paid. So, you can certainly sell your old license after you upgrade to a new version as they are two separate licenses.

However ... each license is only eligible for one upgrade discount. So, if you've used your old license to upgrade to the new version and then sell that old license, the new person who purchases it cannot use it for an upgrade discount. That's the only restriction. Of course, if your old license wasn't used for an upgrade discount then the new purchaser can get a discount from it.

I've done both of these; i've transferred a "upgrade used" license and an "upgrade unused" license to other people, both worked just fine.
yowzer wrote on 7/9/2011, 6:17 PM
Thank you, Kimberly and Chienworks. All good advice.