Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

Hi everyone.

I’m seeing a fair amount of speculation, uncertainty, and in a few cases actual misinformation out there regarding Pro Tools perpetual licenses. Please permit me to chime-in here to reaffirm the facts, and hopefully put to bed all of the incorrect info.

On April 26, 2022, Avid stopped selling new perpetual licenses for Pro Tools. However, if you currently own a perpetual license, then your license is not affected by this. Not at all.

Owning a perpetual license means exactly that – you own it. We take that very seriously. Your Pro Tools perpetual license is yours in perpetuity. Avid is not secretly changing it to a subscription, nor “coming to take away your license”, nor hindering you from accessing your perpetual license in any way.

In addition, Avid did not stop supporting existing perpetual licenses. Support for your license did not stop, and is continuing.

If you have any questions about your own particular situation, we’re happy to help. Ask us questions in the comments below. We'll do our best to answer them as quickly as possible. Or if you have a very specific issue with a license, please consider opening a Support Case [HERE].

If you're still not quite sure what this all means, and are looking for some general info about Pro Tools licensing, go [HERE].

Thanks everyone for your time.

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

as it happens this is a timely post as I am currently trialling 2022, but have a perpetual for version 11. Am I able to upgrade this?

Thanks

Simon

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

Hi Simon - Yes, if you have a Pro Tools 11 perpetual license, you can use that license to upgrade. You may purchase a Perpetual License Upgrade (reinstatement) code from an Avid authorized reseller.

Please see the Pro Tools Tiers FAQ for more info.

Cheers,
Charles

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

For clarity, you mean this as a separate sale?
You have mentioned elsewhere there are no plans for Avid to stop selling perpetual licenses bundled with hardware.

This is where Avid's communication gets murky.

So:
"HDX Core" bundle with perpetual Ultimate?
Carbon with perpetual "parachute" Studio?

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

Correct, Chris is speaking to existing owners since there has been
concern expressed by them about the software they have purchased.

Also HDX Core is still bundled with a perpetual license and Carbon has still Perpetual parachute license.

Cheers,
Charles

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

It still seems really odd to me that Avid encourages those with lapsed permanent licenses to get them up to date, but refuses to sell any new ones.

Well, reinstatements got reinstated eventually. I guess there’s a small chance Avid might reintroduce new perpetual licenses if the subs numbers start to drop.

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

Thanks Charles -- exactly correct.


Hi, and thanks for wanting to dive a bit deeper there. I am indeed only referring to people who own their individually purchased perpetual licenses.

I’ve been monitoring dozens of forums and social sites... and a lot of folks have been asking questions that made me realize there is murkiness on the customer side as well. Some folks were incorrectly thinking that perpetual licenses are tied to only one version of the app at a time, and that a new perpetual needs to be purchased every time they want a new version upgrade. Other customers were telling me that they heard from outside communities (probably reddit) that Avid was secretly cross-grading licenses from perpetuals to subscriptions, which was not only incorrect, but hurtfully incorrect. Still others were simply not reading the documentation carefully, and filling-in the gaps with completely incorrect assumptions.

So, I wanted to make things as clear as possible.

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

I remember Avid was asking to surrender perpetual licenses for subs and people would do it unintentionally and lose their perpetual license. Is this not correct?

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

There were reports of that. Whether that was poor wording and perception on Avid's side or lack of understanding on the users side? Could be either. There was a period where Avid was heavily pushing subs to perpetual users and that included surrendering the license.

Re: Existing Perpetual License Owners
 

There were actually multiple dialogs you had to click through before you got to the purchase of the crossgrade (one is attached as an example).