FCP on ebay

A young friend of mine is thinking of buying a copy of FCS2 on ebay. Her viewpoint is that the difference between FCS2 and 3 is so slight that it's not worth paying the extra for 3. With FCS2 selling for less than $200 and FCS3 going for around $5-800, I find it hard to argue with that viewpoint.

But I have a couple of concerns/ questions.

Firstly, are any of these sales legal ? The sellers often state that "they have completely removed the software from their machines." Does that mean anything at all ? Presumably they would have registered their copies when they first bought them - so how can they "de-register" them ?

Secondly - surely most of them will be FCP 6.0.0 or 6.0.1. Does anybody know if the upgrade to 6.0.6 is still available ?

As always - thanks in advance for any responses.

Mike

>With FCS2 selling for less than $200 and FCS3 going for around $5-800, I find it hard to argue
>with that viewpoint

A lot of changes in FCS 7 were under the hood. The issue is compatibility. You can't install FCS 2 on Lion without some hackery.



www.strypesinpost.com

A LOT of stability and efficiency / speed changes with FCP 7 vs. 6.

Not sure where the 6.0.6 update is. Perhaps the person she's buying it from would have it downloaded?

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

...disagree. FCS3 is a much needed upgrade to FCS2.

I bought a version or 2 of software on ebay. The only versions I would ever purchase is FACTORY SEALED RETAIL. BE CAREFUL not to get Academic.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks everybody. Always sound advice. And Yes, Joey, I knew about the Academic trap from older posts here.

Reading between the lines, I guess the answer to my first question is: "It all depends" !

There is nothing wrong with Academic versions of FCP. They were the same application. The only differences were that you could not buy just the update of the next version. You had to buy the whole new application. This was the same for the NFRs that were given out. They also could not be updated to the next version and you either bought the new version or got a new NFR.
Steve

steve-sharksdelight

And since there isn't going to be a new version.. that's an interesting point.

What Steve said is exactly right. The Academic version is identical to the full retail version, but without the upgrade option. But my understanding is that the EULA for the Academic version also prohibits any re-sale. I'm sure somebody will correct me if that's wrong - but it does suggest that all sales of Academic versions on ebay are actually illegal.

As FCS2 and 3 are now EOL it's possible that Apple won't be too concerned and won't take any legal action. But it makes me uncomfortable.

BTW, Jude - aren't you in Perth ? Are you surviving the heatwave over there ? I read about 40 degrees C.

Mike

Yeah - wow they are mentioning the heat here over there? That's odd. It often gets over 40 degrees here in summer. usually six or seven days per summer. It was 41 today, but of course I went from my air-conditioned house to my air-conditioned car to my air-conditioned office, so the only time I suffered was when we walked to a cafe for lunch - five minutes tops. We can't do cold here, but we really know how to deal with hot.

40C is over 100F, right?

Quote

"What Steve said is exactly right. The Academic version is identical to the full retail version"

LEGALLY you're not allowed to use an Academic version for Commercial work which is why I do not recommend it. It's for LEARNING / TEACHING. I would stick with the FULL RETAIL PKG to keep everything on the up-&-up.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.