I have a friend (also a student) who recently stopped her subscription to Sibelius, but was subscribed for about 2.5 years. Would she be able to use the educational crossgrade for Dorico? What evidence would be required?
I think the “legal” answer is no, she should have canceled the Sibelius subscription the day AFTER the cross grade was approved.
But I don’t know whether somebody from Dorico will see this thread and be charitable!
Are you an attorney? In not, why are you giving legal advice?
Sure looks to me like he answered the OP’s question.
You don’t need to be an attorney to read and understand simple English.
The first paragraph on Products — Music Software & Audio Hardware | Steinberg says
Many Steinberg products are available as crossgrade versions at a discounted price. To acquire such a version, you must own a software product that is eligible for the corresponding crossgrade.
The OP’s friend no longer owns Sibelius, because she stopped her subscription.
“To acquire such a version, you must own a software product that is eligible for the corresponding crossgrade.”
I am not a lawyer/solicitor/attorney. That said, if you read the statement above as an attorney, NO Sibelius user is eligible for a Dorico crossgrade!
According to the Avid EULA (https://www.avid.com/-/media/avid/files/legal/01553009800-avid-eula-march-2018.pdf?la=en&v=20180607150950) you don’t OWN Sibelius, you buy or subscribe to a license to USE Sibelius.
My interpretation of Steinberg’s requirement is that in order to be eligible for a Dorico crossgrade, you must “own” a legitimate working version of Sibelius. If you have ever had a “perpetual” license for a version of Sibelius, then you’re eligible for a Dorico crossgrade regardless of whether your most recent subscription has expired. Steinberg MAY show leniency if you can show payments for Sibelius covering more than a 12 month period, but it’s at their discretion.
I’m pretty sure that that’s what Rob meant, and it’s really not relevant whether anybody on this forum is an attorney or not.
edit: the academic side of things is separate verification. Steinberg won’t trust that you have academic eligibility just because Avid/MakeMusic/Presonus have previously sold you an academic license.
Anyone which minimal knowledge of how software is sold would interpret that “own Sibelius” is shorthand for “own a licence to use Sibelius”, because that is the only way that the software industry operates.
In fact Steinberg were initially reluctant to grant any crossgrades to subscription license holders. In Cross grading from Sibelius educational subscription - #2 by dspreadbury - Dorico - Steinberg Forums Daniel said
My gut instinct is that holders of a monthly subscription will not be eligible, since this would be too easy a route to gain access to the crossgrade price effectively fraudulently: it would be difficult to prevent somebody from signing up, say, for just one month for a cost of less than $10 and then using that to save hundreds of dollars against the purchase of a perpetual license for Dorico.
though Steinberg later changed their position slightly: The crossgrade offer from Notion - #13 by dspreadbury - Dorico - Steinberg Forums says
People who subscribe to Sibelius can crossgrade, but they must have had an active subscription for at least a year.
Indeed. I was trying to make the point that a lawyer is possibly the least best person to address this issue.
My experience of lawyers is that they generally read things as literally as possible.
Discuss 
Before we get to discussing the legal issue, we first need to discuss the question of hourly consultation fees … 
More than you can afford (and I’m sure yours would be more than I can afford!) 
And if you have that kind of money, you wouldn’t need a Dorico discount. 
(And where the heck is the emoji with its tongue stuck out? I feel cheated. 
)
So…since she had her subscription for more than a year, even though it’s not currently active, she should be able to get a crossgrade? (According to Daniel’s second comment?)
I don’t know how the Avid subscription pricing works, but can she actually prove that she USED to have a subscription for a long enough period of time?
I guess if you have a current subscription, Avid’s records will show when it started. But if not - who knows? Why should Avid bother to remember that somebody used to have a subscription but cancelled it?
Obviously only somebody from Steinberg can give you a definitive answer, but the “rules as written” don’t look very encouraging to me.
Assuming the OP’s friend had a yearly subscription, depending on when the subscription was last renewed vs when she canceled it, there may still be time left where the subscription is technically active and valid. If she just let the subscription run out and didn’t renew - well, that’s a different situation.
Why not just apply for the discount and see?
Debating it here won’t help unless a member of the Steinberg Team comments, and they will have enough info from earlier posts on this thread if they do.
Provided your friend can show evidence that she had an active subscription for more than 12 months, I think this should be OK (at least, I would personally approve this if I were looking at it, and I believe my colleagues would too). The good news is that you don’t have to provide any payment information until after you’ve been approved, so you have nothing to lose by trying.
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Thank you Daniel! I’ll pass the word along.
I was leasing a car for 2.5 years but I cancelled the lease and gave the car back.
Can I still use this as a trade-in on a new car?
Not the same thing at all, adrien, given that with a Dorico crossgrade you don’t have to hand back your Sibelius/Finale license.
you’re right you don’t have to hand it in, but you need to provide proof of having the right to use it.
Once you cancel a software subscription (which is a lease) you have nothing. No ongoing rights to use the software in any way. So asking for a competitive crossgrade, and offering a big handful of nothing is what was going on here. But no harm in asking, and kudos to Daniel / Steinberg for even entertaining the idea.
Competitive cross-grades are offered to reduce the barrier to customers transitioning to your product. They physically can’t make you invalidate your other software license even if they wanted to.