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New License Model: Changes to the way licensing, updates, and upgrades work

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1064 comments

  • Kurt Pas

    Moving from adobe to C1 was based on two things.

    1. Tethering was at that moment outstanding in C1 compared to LR.
    2. Adobe was forcing subscriptions. I like to make my own decisions and upgrade based on actual cash flow and what new feature would additionally bring.

    And I was happy with C1 one for years. The innovated more than adobe. Quality of output and direct print was far better. I promote it as an affiliate member in the Belgian photography industries and education.

    But now days adobe is leading innovations in LR selections tools and C1 is also forcing client to subscriptions. I assume I need to re-evaluate value to money and decide what software to go for.  

    So, my personal opinion deviated from C1's view that clients are requesting the announced business model.

    1
  • Pam Arnold

    Just great! Another freaking scam. I upgraded early only to find I'm screwed in the end. The very reason Capture One got my money was to avoid the issue of Adobe like subscription service!!! Yes, I understand you're providing the opportunity to buy a perpetual license, but at what cost since your doing away with the upgrading option? And if I want any of the newest "upgrades" I have to purchase ANOTHER license??? So how often throughout the year would I have to "repurchase" a license just to keep up to date? Thanks for nothing! I guess, I too will be looking around for another photo editing program. NOT a happy customer any longer! And to all those who buy into the "subscription" format -- thanks a lot for screwing up my beloved perpetual licensing, beginning with Adobe and now Capture One. I for one am sick to death of the whole "subscription" services - period. Everyone wants to nickel and dime us; $5 dollars here, $10 dollars there, $19.99 a month for that and so on. There is only so much a month a person can afford for subscriptions! Please, quit trying to be Adobe and do an about face, dropping this nonsense. I left Adobe and if it becomes necessary will leave Capture One as well.

    3
  • Claudia Mathys
    Paul saiys "it's not relevant if you have a subscription or a perpetual license but what the program includes"

    This is only halfe of the truth!

    If you are a beginner, you have no clue what you need. So I decided at this time to go for C1 because I could buy it and didn't need to have a subscription.

    I'm still a beginner, I'd say and I need a reliable and honest "partner" to be able to get nice photos from raw pictures.
    Unfortunately C1 doesn't seems to be reliable with such a bad communication.

    Perhaps ACDSee is now the on to go?
    https://www.acdsee.com/en/products/photo-studio-ultimate/buy/

    1
  • Henk de Haan

    To keep me on board the Company has to "promise" two things:
    * bug fixes and new camera /lens do not require additional costs for 2 years after a feature release (as required by EU law)
    * the costs of buying a new perpetual license once a year should be similar to the annual subscription fee (and not only on Black Friday). As an alternative you could offer reduced price perpetual licences to long term subscribers so they can keep using the current version after ending the subscription. 


    I think that would be a sign of good craftsmanship and customer care (in stead of being a bunch of short term money counters and marketeers). 

    4
  • H S

    Many have just like me not the update CO23. Hardly new features for far too much money. A software like CO or LR you actually use all your life. You archive thousands and hundreds of thousands of images and put a lot of work and time into editing your images. Switching to another program always means losing all the editing steps. One is to a certain extent dependent on the software. When I am no longer so active in photography or retire, I still want to be able to manage and edit my images without having to spend over 100 or more euros/dollars every year. That's why the subscription model doesn't work (for me). I do need to be able to rely on software though. I come from LR like many others. But I will NOT go back to Adobe! I hate Adobe and have removed all Adobe programs from my computers. CO has burned my trust forever. I don't know if there will continue to be a perpetual license. And CO will probably get more and more expensive. And the software is not up to snuff. It also lacks support for many cameras. Am I supposed to buy different software for a camera that is not supported? Even the simplest functions like blur are not available. The red line has now finally been crossed with this announcement. I am overjoyed with Affinity and hope they see the favor! A unique fiasco here!
    Goodbye CO! 

    1
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    After autumn 2023 we (perpetual license holders) have to pay for each minor upgrade.

    Got it, Capture One wants us to move to subscriptions, as this generates higher and (maybe more important) more reliable and predictable revenue and profit.

    After autumn 2023 we (perpetual license holders) have to pay for bug fixes after a minor upgrade is released. Shame on you, C1.

    I would possibly be fine with the new perpetual license policy IF I would get free updates to the feature set of my current C1 version UNTIL THIS VERSION IS TOTALLY FREE OF BUGS. But as C1 is not known for releasing high-quality almost bug-free versions, and not known for quick remediation of bugs either, this new policy has the potential to divorce me from them.

    As much as I like the software, my trust in the C1 management has gradually fallen, which happened to coincide with the new ownership of C1.

    C1's "loyalty scheme" which they have announced (but not yet detailed) must be a very good one (and remain good in the next years) to compensate for their disloyal policy change.

    I am preparing for a potential move out of C1 (or at least stay away from upgrades as long as it is technically feasible); in the past I have tested DXO Photolab once in a while, but this year is the first time that I have actually bought a perpetual license from DXO. 

     

    1
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    I would possibly be fine with the new perpetual license policy IF I would get free updates to the feature set of my current C1 version UNTIL THIS VERSION IS TOTALLY FREE OF BUGS. 

    No software of this complexity is free of bugs so this would mean forever.

    1
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Henk wrote:

    To keep me on board the Company has to "promise" two things:
    * bug fixes and new camera /lens do not require additional costs for 2 years after a feature release (as required by EU law)
    * the costs of buying a new perpetual license once a year should be similar to the annual subscription fee (and not only on Black Friday). As an alternative you could offer reduced price perpetual licences to long term subscribers so they can keep using the current version after ending the subscription. 

    Very good proposal. This would be fair and would show C1 is loyal to its user base. I have strong doubts this will ever happen though.

    2
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Thomas wrote:

    No software of this complexity is free of bugs so this would mean forever.

    Indeed. And I know. This request only shows how pi**ed I am.

    1
  • ernst.w

    @bernhard sanders

    He forgot to add: .....for us as a company.

    Self-employed photographers can plan with fixed costs when subscribing, while private individuals are primarily interested in not being on a daily leash.

    I would have to process a few thousand images and save each of them immediately in a common lossless format in order to protect myself with a subscription against the failure of the software, whose monthly rent I can no longer or no longer want to pay. This is already not so easy, because I need completely different processing for offset printing, exposure and web. In addition, I sometimes have to color match double pages for printing. So it gets very complicated.

    Unfortunately, however, the perpetual license is also not the security we would like to have. Rights must not only be hold, but also enforced. Try launching or installing InDesign CS3. With a regular purchased license. It would already run under Windows 10, but Adobe decided many years ago that the software was older than "lifetime" and turned off the activation servers. Now try to enforce your rights against Adobe.

    The times of purchasable software that runs without an Internet connection are unfortunately over. But that is (for me) in no way a reason not to insist on a perpetual license.

    0
  • ernst.w

    @Henk de Haan
    * bug fixes and new camera /lens do not require additional costs for 2 years after a feature release (as required by EU law)
    "Warranty" is the magic word. But here too: Being right and being able to enforce it are two different things. And software manufacturers know that too.

    0
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    ernst.w wrote:

    Unfortunately, however, the perpetual license is also not the security we would like to have. Rights must not only be hold, but also enforced. Try launching or installing InDesign CS3. With a regular purchased license. It would already run under Windows 10, but Adobe decided many years ago that the software was older than "lifetime" and turned off the activation servers. Now try to enforce your rights against Adobe.

    Good point, which was already raised at other times in another thread which had C1 attention, but no real response from C1 regarding this point.

    Imo, license verification by using activation servers should be a forbidden technology, if software is provided under a perpetual license agreement.

    What if C1 will be sold to Adobe once the financial figures are good enough? Very likely the end of new perpetual licenses, and mid-term the end of activation servers.

    What if C1 goes bankrupt? End of activation servers. No access to your image edits not even to "save" your edits to tiff. Better be prepared for this event, if your edits (or metadata) is important for a user.

     

    1
  • Bill

    Wow, well over 1,000 (nearly all negative) comments here, FB, PP, Reddit, dpreview, etc.

    I am a hobbyist and clearly see the writing on the wall that CO will drop perpetual licenses shortly. Maybe not explicitly, but they will make it such a negative, confusing, costly, feature-poor experience that no-one would continue without a subscription.

    I believe CO has run out of steam for future features related to editing. Version 23 had the potential to offer some great reasons to upgrade. I haven’t heard many say they got something worth the upgrade fee.

    The iPad editing was of no interest to me when I have dual profiled 32" 4K monitors. Unfortunately I think the iPad development took resources away from the PC/Mac product.

    I thought the current system of ‘buy when you want a new version and get updates for a year’ was working fine. Getting costly, but as long as new useful features came along, it worked for many of us.

    A subscription is just an excuse that the developers can’t come up with enough significant improvements to get me to upgrade.

    My biggest fear is CO decides to turn off the activation servers for perpetual licenses and then I’ll have nothing.

    2
  • bernhard sanders

    ernst.w

    Thanks for the good points and you are completely right - for your needs. There are so many different kinds of users of C1 and they all have different approches.

    Certainly a subscription might be the best solution for you, your calculation and your workflow. But for me as an most time "amateur" a subscription on that price level might lead into a C1 prison.

    In one big photographic project i am working on i had good reasons to edit everything (some 10.000 Photos) with Adobe Bridge and doing all the metadata editing in Daminion DAM. And i am happy with that. For "private" work or if i want to squeeze the last IQ out of a RAW i have used C1 most of the time. And i am happy with that as well.

    Regarding to the issue of activation servers - as i wrote before, i have activated my copies of C1 V22 installed on Win10 on different Harddrives and after that i made system backups. Just as a precaution if something you have described  with dead activation servers happens. My photoworkstation is never online for good reasons. That means that i can re-edit everything even in years to come - if i do not move to an unsupported camera. Therefore i feel safe for my own workflow and no one can deactivate my perpetual and lifetime copy.

    The complaints and outrage here on this forum is related to the more or less unpredictable changes in the license policy by C1 and the completely uncommunicated Plan they have. Evidence: telling us that they are changing the perpetual license system AFTER lots of people have upgraded to V23.

    As you know, we all - independent whether we are professionals or amateurs - need a reliable and trustworthy partner to plan with, who listens, who is reliable with bugfixes, fair in terms of communication - and in the price region of C1 with a first class support.

     

    2
  • Terence Mendoza

    I have always considered Capture One to be not just a great alternative to Lightroom, but supported by a company with an outstanding business ethic - one that really looks after their customers.  I loved the perpetual licence offered, and the cost effective upgrade path when new versions were issued. Naturally I have recommended the C1 to numerous photographers on my courses, as I did not feel 'trapped' as in the Adobe model.

    Now all that is set to change and I feel like I have been punched in the stomach - suddenly the upgrade path for loyal supporters is going to vanish, and the new business model really sound a little 'shady'.   I will hold off upgrading, in the hope that you guys will see that treating loyal customers poorly is not a good way to retain their loyalty.  I sincerely hope you reconsider your policy as, in common with others, I really do not want to part ways with you.

    5
  • ernst.w

    @bernhard sanders
    Certainly a subscription might be the best solution for you, your calculation and your workflow.

    ;) No, it is not, not for my special needs, even as a pro. I just wanted to point aut, what Paul Reiffer means. And I would like to point out that there are different needs for different people. We never are alone. ;)

    The complaints and outrage here on this forum is related to the more or less unpredictable changes in the license policy by C1 and the completely uncommunicated Plan they have.

    Threfore You will find an older posting of mine pointing out that Capture One has prooved not to be a reliable and trustworthy partner anymore.

    The communication in this matter is more than frightening and has therefore - as expected for me - completely escalated. The intention, as in recent times, to always sell first and only afterwards announce the terms of the contract is unacceptable anyway. Even if attempts are now being made to row back a little, lost trust can hardly be restored in this way. We have an expression in German for what has happened: "Das Kind ist bereits in den Brunnen gefallen."

    2
  • Thomas Pietsch

    Congratulations when I google "captureone" I find many news about you announcement on the first page. And always the same picture, the community is disappointed and pointing to alternative.

    I do not understand why the perpetual licenses preventing you from launching new releases during the year. Or why it is necessary to change anything.
    Maybe you can also explain why you do not have any detail about then loyalty program. Is you market analysis not completed yet?

    4
  • Udo van den Heuvel

    Dear Capture One Team,

    I don't want to just bash it here. But I think it's time to address some things:

    Camera support: in fact I did the upgrade from C21 to C22 only in June 22. And now - in December 22 - I learn that there will be no more RAW support for the EOS R6 II for C22. The codec is available to you - but you simply don't care. So now I am forced to shell out 219€ for the codec alone to upgrade to C23. This is extremely unsatisfactory. Especially when you have the codec and only have to release it for C22. 

    Please - remember your virtues. Service. Of "you used to be the good guys". Have you earned so badly in the last few years? Adobe got a lot of flack for the subscription program. But - they offer it for a moderate 9,99€ / month. That's the benchmark for me. 

    That you don't give away new features - is okay. But - big but: I expect camera codecs and bugfixes even over the 1-year cycle. 

    Suggestion: November x to October x+1 there are features + bugfixes. Until October x+2 there are new camera codecs. For this you increase the purchase license to 249€. Alternative: Offer a camera codec update pack for 39€ (or so). So I am served as a customer and you continue to earn. 

    Don't sell your customers for fools. But find your inner center and balance regarding service, costs and improvements. I have no problem paying for a good product. But I don't want to feel like I'm being taken for a ride.

    In fact, I was willing to upgrade to C23 the other day (because of the features) - you successfully drove that out of me.

    Do you really want C22 to be my last Capture One ? Too bad if it was.

     

    Postskriptum: What are the "stunnin new features" we should expect with rolling releases in future?

     

    1
  • J M Smith

    Here is my response to a post on Paul Reiffer's FB channel about just read CO's FAQ's"   It reads very similar to Adobe's FAQs as they were transitioning to a subscription only model. Quote: "Lightroom will always be available stand alone with a perpetual license". That was gone within a year and then Adobe chose to not renew other licenses used in LR standalone version and it simply quit working. No one has the resources to successfully sue Adobe although the cases had merit.
    .
    It is abundantly clear that CO is creating a defacto subscription model. they will still sell you a perpetual license but it will be painful for the user.
    .
    I was an adobe refugee, I went to CO precisely because of the perpetual license. I am certain the CO had a "slug" of new users over that period of Adobe changing models.
    .
    I will readily admit I am trialing LR/PS again in response to CO's disastrous announcement.
    .
    BUT WOW
    .
    DxO Photolab is amazing. The denoise feature is shockingly good.
    .
    So even if CO's announcement really is just a huge bungled mess and the new licensing scheme is going to be great, they have opened the door for ~50% of their users (who are on perpetual license) to look at the competition.
    .
    The competition is amazing, LR has advanced dramatically (the LR/PS/iPad subscription is shockingly less expensive than CO's) DxO is amazing and C1P no longer has the premium RAW developer engine.

    3
  • Louw van Staden

    Another point to consider. With the new "business model" what are the changes that Capture One will release any worthwhile upgrades before September 2023. Just hang back a bit and wait until 1 October 2023 and then release those new features. Perpetual licence holders then need to show them the money for each new feature or change to subscription. Is that the reason that the cycle was moved forward from end October to end September perhaps?!    

    1
  • Steve Kaye

    Hello Capture One,

    I encourage you to make changes that primarily benefit your customers. Otherwise, self-centered changes will cost you business.

    Your software is critically important for me. I have my life’s work saved with it.

    So I want continued access to this software without having to buy a subscription. [ Note: I stopped using all Adobe software because they require subscriptions. I strongly disagree with this business model. ]

    Wish you the best,

    Steve Kaye
    Author, Speaker, Photographer

    3
  • J M Smith

    Here is a tool to migrate your catalogs with adjustments intact!!!

    https://cyme.io

    They have a subscription or perpetual model.  They transfer to and from CO, LR, Luminar, etc...

    PS. I have no affiliation with these folks.

    3
  • Steve Kaye

    Hello Capture One,

    I hope you are paying attention to this conversation.

    Note that I've just been told about a way to migrate my photos out of my Capture One catalogs.

    Please make changes that BENEFIT your customers.

    Wish you the best,

    Steve Kaye
    Author, Speaker, Photographer

    3
  • Barry Justice

    Seems the migration tool is Mac only,  does anyone know for sure if that is the case.  As with Steve I have all my work with C-1 and have been using it since V-7.  I DONT want to move but if I'm forced go to subscription I will move.

     

    0
  • J M Smith

    Barry,

    Since I am a Mac user, I didn't look, after your comment I went back to the site and could not specifically see a windows version.  I apologize for that.  Maybe shoot them an email and let us know...

    The interesting thing about this app (if it actually works) is it also breaks Adobe's iron grip. :)

    2
  • J M Smith

    Steve,

    It sure looks like an interesting tool doesn't it...

    Since I am now trialing LR and DxO...

    I have downloaded the trial of Avalanche and going to see how well it converts (100 Images, limit to the trial) to LR

    2
  • bernhard sanders

    ernst.w

    Thanks for your reply and i agree - but there is an other expression in Germany (not that well known) :

    Ein gebranntes Kind, welches in den Brunnen fällt, zischt

    2
  • J M Smith

    Yikes!!!

     

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  • ernst.w

    @bernhard sanders
    YMMD!

    0
  • Michael Mazzola

    wow, I just found myself browsing cyme & am strongly considering that one-time Avalanche purchase so I am freed of the capture one catalog fetters. 

    1

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