Carbon - How to renew? Perpetual or subscription?

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by mlange

Thanks for asking - I own two perpetual licenses (one Ultimate and one Studio) that were owned long before buying the Carbon.

I purchased my Carbon used. Prior to executing the sale Support told the original owner no Avid software was allowed to be transferred to me as the used Carbon purchaser. This was later proven inaccurate, but in spite of their in-house inaccuracies, nothing has ever been presented to me by Avid.

Ah,,,I see. Well of course I do not know what Avid's policies are regarding software and used hardware.

[digiot]

Originally Posted by mlange

Thanks for asking - I own two perpetual licenses (one Ultimate and one Studio) that were owned long before buying the Carbon.

I purchased my Carbon used. Prior to executing the sale Support told the original owner no Avid software was allowed to be transferred to me as the used Carbon purchaser. This was later proven inaccurate, but in spite of their in-house inaccuracies, nothing has ever been presented to me by Avid.

I was told that the reason there is Carbon-specific license is so that it stays with the hardware! So if you buy a used Carbon the Protools license stays with it. Of course the original owner would need to fill out the transfer of ownership paperwork.

[digiot]

Originally Posted by K Roche

Humm ? I think that is not actually entirely accurate. I think some are confused and some are not..
WELL in all honestly I think I understand what is going on BUT maybe I am just delusional

I think there are two aspects to the confusion

One created by AVID ,, and one created by the customers themselves

The one created by AVID : is likely them changing a couple things in both options and nomenclature..

Starting with the initial offering with a Carbon purchase of a PT Regular" 1 year SUBSCRIPTION license ( that had the ability to convert to a PT regular SUBSCRIPTION license to a PERPETUAL license which they labeled "Perpetual Parachute"

Also at that initial offering (if one already had a Perpetual PT license Reg or HD,,,, (AND a current annual "Updates and Support plan" ) one could forgo the the Parachute license altogether and instead get a one year extension on their current "Update and Support plan" ............make sense so far ?

Also at some point Avid decided to change the name of a Pro Tools HD license to Pro Tools Ultimate

Then Avid decided to offer an additional PT Ultimate license to those purchasing a Carbon and retroactively to those who had previously purchased Carbon

Then they decided to change the name of PT Regular (actually just called Pro Tools) to Pro Tools Studio.


Then they dropped the PT Reg. "Parachute" altogether and NOW offer Carbon with a Perpetual PT Ultimate license with a 1 year "Upgrade and Support plan"

AND NOW it also seems that Avid does not have a working link for people who still have the original Parachute license, to Renew it .

AND for some unknown reason AVID is now calling those old Parachute license the "Carbon License" AS IF it were attached to a Carbon automatically WHICH IT IS NOT because if you never chose the Parachute license then you will not have the Carbon License option showing in your account as a Renewal option

OK now for how the customers are causing confusion (And I have stated this multiple times before in many such threads )

#1 for some reason people cannot seem to understand the difference between an annual SUBSCRIPTION license RENEWAL and an annual Updates and Support plan RENEWAL
# 2 People also (either through ignorance or laziness) misstate the name of what they have or what they are asking about --- And also they keep calling the " annual Updates/Support plan a SUBSCRIPTION.
#3 OR they do not use the actual full name of their product when asking for help

a perfect example is




Now only because he at least gave the prices was I able to tell he was actually talking about the Ultimate 1 year Updates and Support plan "Renewal " and the PT Studio 1 year Updates and Support plan Renewal as opposed to SUBSCRIPTION renewals

And he also did not make it clear as to weather or not he ever had the Parachute license (which is now also being called the "Carbon license"

So I think the both AVID and the customers have conspired multilaterally to cause the confusion

I'm not sure you are correct with all that information. It's not how it all worked out for me. But instead of confusing people more I will let Mark Corbin explain it all once and for all. There are so many conflicting posts in multiple treads I hope he can just explain all it in a new tread!

I personally have an expired Carbon License that has no easy way of just getting up to date. Yes I also have an Ultimate license but that should have no impact on me not being able to update my Carbon License. And yes there is a specific "Carbon" license!

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by digiot

I'm not sure you are correct with all that information. It's not how it all worked out for me. But instead of confusing people more I will let Mark Corbin explain it all once and for all. There are so many conflicting posts in multiple treads I hope he can just explain all it in a new tread!

I personally have an expired Carbon License that has no easy way of just getting up to date. Yes I also have an Ultimate license but that should have no impact on me not being able to update my Carbon License. And yes there is a specific "Carbon" license!

Well I was relating from memory so I could be mistaken on the order of one or two events But I am pretty certain I have most of the gist of events correct. Is there a specific event I stated ,, that you think is incorrect ?

For example because I chose the 1 year extension on my current Ultimate Perpetual Annual "Updates Support" plan
AS opposed to opting for the Carbon bundled Reg/now Studio 1 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION license

I have no option for a Carbon Studio license in my account

[mlange]

Originally Posted by digiot

I was told that the reason there is Carbon-specific license is so that it stays with the hardware! So if you buy a used Carbon the Protools license stays with it. Of course the original owner would need to fill out the transfer of ownership paperwork.

Yep - that's what is said NOW. All of our efforts were done according to the directives given by Avid Support reps throughout the used sales process. All TOA forms were submitted properly, too. After many weeks it actually took the originating Avid dealer interceding on our behalf to get the crazy transfer completed by Avid, and he had nothing to do with the used sale!

Thank God for Chad Evans, audio ninja extrodinaire!

The seller is a really great guy who mixes here in town, too, so at *every step* along the way we were tag-teaming the CS responses and contradictions. It was during this time that Avid support said (among other things) that 1) the Carbon hardware couldn't be sold as used, 2) and later "ok - the Carbon can be sold as used, but not the software" Avid stuck to "the license could NOT be transferred under any circumstance" so we said to transfer the hardware. Later Avid's narrative changed to say the original Carbon seller had "decided to do something different" - that was patently false because he was told by Avid that he could not transfer the license, no matter what.

I feel for everyone's pain, and I still feel like we were shorted the Carbon's license. YMMV

[alhardy]

I believe it's too complex, it should be simple and straight forward with a button inside our account that says "renew support".


Anyway this is what I gathered from customer support:

Please be informed that Avid does not offer renewal for Pro Tool Carbon Subscription.

Pro Tools Carbon Renewal is only available through your preferred reseller as "Pro Tools | Carbon ™PT Software Renewal.

And then, when I told them it was a bit anachronistic they added:

The Pro Tools Ultimate can renew from Avid but the Pro Tools Studio parachute with Carbon can be only renewed from the reseller.


Please Avid, make it easier. I emailed Vintage King to see if they can supply me with the license... stil la big pain