That’s not what I’m saying, but it doesn’t matter.
Blockquote The text you quote was not written by me, but by Ben. This can lead to confusion.
Sorry about that; I didn’t pay enough to attention to how the editor auto-filled. I’ve edited the post to fix this.
Anyway, nothing’s wrong here. All is well. Greetings to all.
Yes, Score still works in DosBox and ScoreBox.
Problem: If you don’t already have a licence there is no legal way of buying one.
Locked in the ultimate sandbox…
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Did Avid recently change the Sibelius Perpetual licensing? I needed it for a job a year and half ago, and my version was so old it wouldn’t open the files from my co-workers, so rather than have to deal with asking them to backsave, I just got a new (academic) license to be compatible on that project. I have the “Perpetual” version with updates through April 2026, so I’m pretty sure it must have come with 3 years of updates at the time.
I just looked at their site and all of the “Perpetual” licenses only come with 1 year of updates now. It doesn’t look like it’s even possible to purchase a longer update plan:
Does anyone know when that pricing plan went into effect? That revenue structure may be completely unrelated to the PE purchase and Justin’s termination, but it is interesting that they no longer commit to providing 3 years of updates and support. If that plan went into effect on 7/1/2024 (hypothetically as I don’t know when it did, but that’s 2Q after PE purchase) then they are committed to updates and support for previous 3-year purchases through 6/30/2027. Of course, updates and support the final year could be minimal. Since everyone now is only on a 1-year plan, they could give an “end of life” announcement as early as 7/1/2026 and discontinue it on 7/1/2027, or 3 years past whenever the pricing structure change occurred.
This of course could just be speculation on my part with no grounding in their actual plans for Sibelius. It could simply be greed, as they know people will continue to pay for yearly updates once they are in that ecosystem, but I did find it curious that they no longer offer a 3-year update and support plan. It does pave the way for a 1-year exit plan if they ever want to kill it off.
Did you check this page? But only if you already have a perpetual license of course.
https://www.avid.com/sibelius/upgrades-and-renewals
Jesper
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Ah, whoops, I guess it still is possible to get a 3-year license. Never mind then!!! Please disregard the rampant speculation 
Yeah, but maybe only if you already have a perpetual license of course.
Jesper
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In any case, if they are still accepting payment for 3-year plans, we’re on at least a 3-year timetable before any potential “end of life” situation. Updates might be minimal, and frankly I expect they will be if Justin’s position was terminated and he wasn’t replaced, but things will keep chugging along over there for a while. The entire Sibelius budget is probably a rounding error for a PE group like STG anyway.
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Isn’t that why we’re here?
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The renewal plan is just necessary if you wish to update your version of Sibelius (to day, we are in the 2024.10 version), and if you need to contact the technical support.
See below capture of the window of my Avid Account ; the renewal plan is paid every year, because I have chosen to benefit the updates. But, If I had not paid for the plan, I could have continued to use Sibelius in the latest version I had. (2023.8).
So, your current version of Sibelius should work fine, as the licence is not subject to any subscription. Which version do you have?
I already posted an image of my plan showing it doesn’t expire until April 24, 2026, but that wasn’t the point of my post. I thought they had discontinued the 3-year renewal, which led me to speculate they didn’t want to keep it on the books for more than 3 years. Jesper pointed out that I was wrong about that and it was still possible to get a 3-year renewal. I certainly have no intention of ever renewing it again, as I’ve never liked working in Sibelius (I was on Finale for 25+ years), and have only used it when forced collaborate to on large projects, or that’s what the publisher required. For opening any potential student work, I’ll just tell them to backsave it as a Sib 2026 file or whatever it’s called when my license runs out.
Yes, indeed. In Sibelius we should remember to take this precaution when recording: record for the receiving version, not the sending version.
But the easiest way is undoubtedly for your students to send you an XML file, so that you can open it in Dorico.
I certainly don’t want XML because I want to see what they did, rather than deal with conversion issues into my settings. PDF is fine. My transposed score reading is fast for big band so I don’t really care if it’s transposed or concert. I do have a couple of students on Dorico, and the comments feature is great for adding critiques, so I can just send the file back.
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Three-year cycles are only when you renew an Update and Support plan, not on a fresh license. As such, the perpetual licenses for legacy users give that 3-year option.
Why I’m still doing Sibelius support, I don’t know. Force of habit I guess.
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I stopped paying my annual subscription to Sibelius one year ago as I was using Sibelius so little that I have pretty much forgotten how to use it.
… they are still on my pay roll - I have used it may be once a year in the last 5 years.