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Don't ever buy any expansion in ROLAND CLOUD!!


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I just sold my Jupiter XM including JD800 and Voice Designer expansion. The two expansions cost me over 300 bucks. When I wanted to transfer the expansions licenses to the buyer I was told by Roland support that it's not allowed even though it's clearly stated in the Roland Cloud EULA: "Transferability. You may transfer the Software on a permanent basis as part of the sale or transfer of the hardware system on which the Software is loaded, provided that You retain no copies of any version of the Software."

This is nothing but fraud. These expansions can only be used with the corresponding hardware! So when I sell the hardware I am stuck with the software which will be unusable for me then. I really begin to hate this company and it's cloud bullshit for it's non-existing customer service. With Arturia or Native Instruments and others it was never any problem to transfer licenses to buyers when the related hardware was sold. So be aware if you ever want to buy one of these expensive expansions in the Roland cloud. You will be stuck with what you bought forever, no matter if you still own the related hardware synth in the future or not. 

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LIFE IS SHORT, GO GET THE GEAR YOU WANT ;-)

 

 

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This is so ridiculous. I am done with Roland Cloud. Never had such issues with Arturia or Native Instruments.

 

Statement of Roland Cloud support:

 

„You can transfer the JD-800 model expansion software that's installed on the hardware by not resetting the hardware prior to sale, and the new owner could continue to use that install until they did a factory reset or wanted to install further software, but the license itself is non-transferable. After the sale you would also have to uninstall the software on your computer and refrain from reinstalling it.“

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LIFE IS SHORT, GO GET THE GEAR YOU WANT ;-)

 

 

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Just when I was getting over my disdain of this company due to their policy of not selling hardware parts to the “general public”, only having them available to certified repair shops; and once again loving my restored VR-09 with third-party parts for little bar gigs, and really enjoying my new JX-08…this post makes me want dump all things Roland again. :grrr:

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I "got off of my cloud" last year when I was due for renewal. Never could justify the cost -- especially considering how many hours I lost overall on various bugs and installation issues. I really like the ProMars and System 100 a lot, but not to the point of continuing with that broken subscription and download model.

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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17 hours ago, TomKittel said:

Roland Cloud EULA: "Transferability. You may transfer the Software on a permanent basis as part of the sale or transfer of the hardware system on which the Software is loaded, provided that You retain no copies of any version of the Software."

 

What contradicts the message from support is that the above says "permanent." When support says "the new owner could continue to use that install until they did a factory reset," that's not permanent. 

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For grins I went to Roland's webpage and the May 20th 2020 version of the EULA is up.   Go there and do a search for the word "transfer"  not looking good.    Things like sale of hardware doesn't include the software,   prior written notification for transfer, and other goodies.    This is looks like some software EULA that basically you never owned anything you just had limit right to use it.   Here's the link:  https://www.rolandcloud.com/Policies-EULA-TOS

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Unfortunately, it's pretty common for software to not transfer with hardware. For example, patch editors, whether purchased separately or shipped with the unit. This has annoyed me for years when reselling stuff, as it diminishes its value to the next owner.

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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Roland can get stuffed.

 

When i first saw Roland playing with this cloud thing i knew they were seeding their own cloud burst. A strong consumer backlash wind may blow it away.

 

Hah even Johhny Ray & the 4 lads predicted it in 1951.

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On 4/2/2022 at 9:20 PM, Docbop said:

 This is looks like some software EULA that basically you never owned anything you just had limit right to use it.   Here's the link:  https://www.rolandcloud.com/Policies-EULA-TOS

 

The relevant section is "You may not: Copy, sell, rent, lease, sublicense, transfer, distribute, display, or otherwise transfer the Roland Cloud Service, or any component or portion of the Roland Cloud Service, without the express prior written consent of Roland." 

 

So in that case, I think if enough people put pressure on Roland to give said prior written consent for situations where hardware is being sold with software whose license was purchased, and works only with that hardware, perhaps Roland would agree that was reasonable. 

 

Legally, though, perhaps software in general should have a carve out where you could sell a license. Then you still wouldn't own the product itself, but you would own the right to use it. Selling the license would simply transfer the right to use the product, not the product itself.

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I hate it, but this is pretty common with music software. In the world of VSTs, companies which do allow transfer of licenses are praised extensively for it because it's so uncommon.

 

That said, I do remember reading one publisher's explanation of why they have this  rule and it actually made some sense.  I forget the exact details, but it was something like this:

1) Realize that the cost to make some of these instruments can be enormous. For example, just to make a small library involving some orchestral instruments can cost hundreds of thousands if not more than a million dollars with the cost in paying the players, plus the cost of the venue, the equipment, and then the laborious task of editing. 

 

2) For a small company, these costs truly are huge, but even a very large company can't be in the business of spending millions of dollars and not recouping it. 

 

3) These kinds of products have to be sold with royalty free licenses. It just wouldn't be at all reasonable to try to sell these sorts of products with some kind of stipulation that you couldn't use the sounds in your recordings or performances, and it would also not be practical to try to have some kind of system where royalties are required. 

 

4) All that understood, consider what is obviously a more extreme example but one which nevertheless helps illustrate the point: say that Usher bought a given library and made a track from it which then might sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies, radio plays, all of the plays on Youtube, etc. Now say that Usher sells that library to Bruno Mars, who does the same, and then the same library goes to Adele who does the same, etc. Over time that library may be featured on songs selling tens or hundreds of millions and all the company that made it got out of it was $500 one time back when it was first purchased. 

This is obviously not the same kind of thing one might expect if someone is using such software for their weekend cover band or for their hobby in their living room, but the fundamental point is that the industry view is that if these kinds of software can be transferred from one person to the next, there would be a prohibitively high value in lost sales and it would mean that making more such libraries would be hard to justify financially. 

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hmm, interesting points - perhaps some sort of "trade-in" scheme for the new licence holder? Where they present the old licence and receive say a 70% reduction on the new. Developer is still getting some value-add on the product old licence holder is happy, new holder is reasonably happy...I mean I cannnot see it ever happening, but there are ways developers could address this and still make money.

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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5 minutes ago, miden said:

hmm, interesting points - perhaps some sort of "trade-in" scheme for the new licence holder? Where they present the old licence and receive say a 70% reduction on the new. Developer is still getting some value-add on the product old licence holder is happy, new holder is reasonably happy...I mean I cannnot see it ever happening, but there are ways developers could address this and still make money.

 

Some vst publishers have a system where a license can be transferred up to 1 or 2 times and there's a relatively small fee for it.

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3 minutes ago, Lazerlike42 said:

 

Some vst publishers have a system where a license can be transferred up to 1 or 2 times and there's a relatively small fee for it.

yes indeed, IK Multi-Media for one...20 euros (last time I did it), which is, to me, a fair cost.

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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46 minutes ago, Lazerlike42 said:

....

This is obviously not the same kind of thing one might expect if someone is using such software for their weekend cover band or for their hobby in their living room, but the fundamental point is that the industry view is that if these kinds of software can be transferred from one person to the next, there would be a prohibitively high value in lost sales and it would mean that making more such libraries would be hard to justify financially. 

And if they can't transfer them, it becomes hard for the end user to justify financially.

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I made it a policy a couple of years back to no longer buy from vendors who do not allow resale. It's obscene, really. And as someone who has for most of his career been primarily a sole developer wearing a gazillion hats doing extremely challenging work for below-par rates (due to the industries involved), I'm not very sympathetic to the music software firms' justifications either. Not to mention that the same arguments apply almost 1:1 to hardware. But then, some would like to outlaw resale of manufactured goods as well.

 

I have no issues with vendors setting their policies on number of resales, license transfer costs, etc. That's fair business practice. And I patronize such vendors. The interesting thing is that I have found an inverse correlation in quality vs. resale-allowed. But that's based on my own tastes, of course, as some of the not-fot-resale products are loved by many others. And even though I doubt I would ever sell anything from VSL, I appreciate that they allow it, and it improves my trust in them.

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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1 hour ago, Lazerlike42 said:

I hate it, but this is pretty common with music software. In the world of VSTs, companies which do allow transfer of licenses are praised extensively for it because it's so uncommon.

 

That said, I do remember reading one publisher's explanation of why they have this  rule and it actually made some sense.  I forget the exact details, but it was something like this:

1) Realize that the cost to make some of these instruments can be enormous. For example, just to make a small library involving some orchestral instruments can cost hundreds of thousands if not more than a million dollars with the cost in paying the players, plus the cost of the venue, the equipment, and then the laborious task of editing. 

 

2) For a small company, these costs truly are huge, but even a very large company can't be in the business of spending millions of dollars and not recouping it. 

 

3) These kinds of products have to be sold with royalty free licenses. It just wouldn't be at all reasonable to try to sell these sorts of products with some kind of stipulation that you couldn't use the sounds in your recordings or performances, and it would also not be practical to try to have some kind of system where royalties are required. 

 

4) All that understood, consider what is obviously a more extreme example but one which nevertheless helps illustrate the point: say that Usher bought a given library and made a track from it which then might sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies, radio plays, all of the plays on Youtube, etc. Now say that Usher sells that library to Bruno Mars, who does the same, and then the same library goes to Adele who does the same, etc. Over time that library may be featured on songs selling tens or hundreds of millions and all the company that made it got out of it was $500 one time back when it was first purchased. 

This is obviously not the same kind of thing one might expect if someone is using such software for their weekend cover band or for their hobby in their living room, but the fundamental point is that the industry view is that if these kinds of software can be transferred from one person to the next, there would be a prohibitively high value in lost sales and it would mean that making more such libraries would be hard to justify financially. 

 

 

Yamaha has said similar when talking about the cost of developing and maintaining their keyboard that the software is the most expensive and time consuming to produce.    

 

I remember in early days of home computers and people selling their old computers would load them up with a ton of software legal and (ilegal) copies.    That made made a so-so computer into a good bargain because of the software.  

 

Tesla does the same thing from what I've read, there are expensive software based features people are pay for and when they sell the car those feature don't transfer to the second owner.   The digital world has its own set of rules and trying to view something digital like it's physical just doesn't work. 

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1 hour ago, conundrum said:

And if they can't transfer them, it becomes hard for the end user to justify financially.

I think this is true for many people, but not all - and to be honest probably not most. The average person - even the average musician - buys something and either runs it into the ground or replaces it but doesn't give much thought to selling it. They might trade it in when making a new purchase, but they're usually not buying with an eye for maximizing value 6 or 7 years down the line. Yes, there are some people who think about this stuff when buying new gear and those sorts of people happen to be the sorts of people like us who go on internet forums and discuss stuff like this, but the average person? I don't think they think about this. 

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