The Deal with Academic Version software

[hollywoodending]

So, what's the complete scoop on academic version software? I know some companies, like celemony, offer the exact same program with the academic version of melodyne, it's just significantly lower in price. Yet other brands, such as pro tools, have "academic version" written boldly on the front of the disk, which leads me to believe that it will be a different version than the regular consumer software. So my question to you is this - are "academic versions" the exact same program as their consumer counterpart? I'm a student and this could save me hundreds on software, but is this the best choice? thanks.

[scrubs]

I'm not sure there is a blanket answer to your question. That is, you'll have to read the fine print regarding the specific software features and/or differences in the EULA (e.g. - whether you are allowed to profit from works created with student versions of the software) for "student-priced" software. Cubase student editions are the full versions of the software, at reduced prices, but I'm not sure about others.

[hollywoodending]

thanks for the heads up. I'm looking at possibly buying pro tools m-powered, sound forge 8, and battery 2 academic versions. But I think I'm gonna pay $100 for the regular version of the pro tools, just in case.

[VomitHatSteve]

Yeah, the documentation should say what the difference is.

I currently run student edition WIn XP on my PC. The big difference that I've noticed is that the EULA says I can't profit off of any software I develop using the software.

This means that any software I develop could have lawyers from Microsoft, my school, AND the place I work fighting over it!

[smtcharlie]

I agree that this will depend on the company. Many companies do sell the full product at a cheap price to students - the thinking is that (1) students don't have any money, so a bunch of students buying it cheap is better than nothing, and (2) people use and buy what they know - after graduation and the riches that follow (ahem), that same person is more likely to buy the full version of the software at full pricing.

If companies sell a different or stripped down version, then students aren't learning how to do cool stuff with all the bells and whistles in the full version.

By the way, I work for a software company doing solely academic software stuff. Not audio related.

[Dogman]

We have a few Academic versions of software at my house...my wife is a teacher, and we are/were both students. As far as I can tell, all versions are full, just different license agreements. (I have Adobe Audition, she has Pro Tools M-Powered, plus many Microsoft Products for her latest classes.)