company going into liquidation what happens software

[Sketchrender]

unfortunately the company I work for in going into liquidation.

we have two max floating licences.

can I buy them?

 

I can buy the vray licences but max don't know.

I hope so otherwise I am screwed.

left with nothing no wages redundancy nothing.

 

all will have to applied for to the government and will take 8 months.

 

thanks

 

 

phil

[Jeff Mottle]

unfortunately the company I work for in going into liquidation.

we have two max floating licences.

can I buy them?

 

I can buy the vray licences but max don't know.

I hope so otherwise I am screwed.

left with nothing no wages redundancy nothing.

 

all will have to applied for to the government and will take 8 months.

 

thanks

 

 

phil

 

 

 

Sorry to hear about this Philip. I can imagine things must be pretty stressful at the moment. Unfortunately neither V-Ray or Max can be transferred legally.

 

I don't have the Max license agreement in front of me, but I know for a fact that some other viz companies tried to transfer 3ds Max as part of a liquidation only to find out it's not legal. They were doubly screwed as they purchased the assets from the liquidated company only to find out they had to purchase the software again. I just read the V-Ray license agreement and it's not allowed either:

 

3.1. THE LICENSEE shall not:

 

c) Give THE PRODUCT away in any way (lease, rent, charge, donate, exchange or other) to any third parties. THE LICENSEE is not allowed to sell, transfer, assign or grant access to his/her purchased licensed copy to a third party.

 

You might be able to contact Chaos Group directly to try to work something out, but the license agreement does prohibit it.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news.

[3rddimension]

Hi Phil,

 

Sorry to hear about your firm. Things are definitely tough here at the moment. I hope things work out for you. I would definitely suggest (as Jeff did) contacting Chaos and Autodesk and try to get them to agree to something - worth a try anyway.

 

Best of luck

 

Nick

[JonRashid]

One of my colleagues managed to buy a license for max form a company going into liquidation. He had to contact Autodesk in order to do this and it was a number of years ago. Must be worth the try.

[anejo]

I think if contact the reseller that sold your company the Max software they maybe better at anwering your question about transferring the software.

[Sketchrender]

Thank you very much for the replies.

 

 

Ideally I would like to buy a machine and software from the company but, being left high and dry, there is not a lot of money going around at the moment. I am sort of hopeing the liquidator will not value the hardware as high as some might.

 

I will hold fast and see.

I have conatct the Auodesk dealers and asked them for a deal, they have been helpfull , and will ask the Auodesk peopel and see what they can do.

 

So i will hold tight.

 

Many thanks again lads, apprecaite the support.

 

phil

[Brian O'Hanlon]

Philip,

 

The company you worked for is a completely different story, and never should have failed like it did. Like everything here in Ireland, sound business management practices went out of the window. I look at David Wrights articles at CG Architect website with very renewed interest these days.

 

You can see at the rate small, self-employed companies start up and shut down, that if AutoDesk allowed transfer of licenses to occur, how much of a racket it could become. I mean, consider it like this. Nearly every time a guy got a new commission, set up a new company for the job, and buy a license from another company. Imagine too, how difficult it would be with each company claiming to be buying assets etc, tax reporting and so on.

 

I often wonder in the movie industry for instance, where they set up new companies by the bucket load for each production, how stuff like this is worked out. I mean, one is always a temporary worker as far as movie industry goes. My understanding is that in the movie industry, they even invent a kind of mock currency they use between each other, to pay for hamburgers and all kinds of stuff - an mini economy between movie making participants - until the final big pay day comes when the production goes onto screen in theatres.

 

The faster the computer visualisation industry smartens up to the new economic reality facing the world - and new concepts such as 'cloud' computing models, the better I think. Work is too dispersed globally these days, and temporary, not to re-think the whole model with regards to software licensing. My understanding of a license in the basic format, is you only acquire the right to use the product. One never 'purchases' the product, as the common speak often goes - I purchased Viz, or I purchased MS Word.

 

Update: Of course, the other thing I want to say Philip based on my knowledge of the scene is as follows. Many companies who go out of business, end up so bitter about it, they end up having contempt almost for the employees who spent the best part of their working lives, trying to help that very company to grow. In the situation in Dublin, where the said companies go into liquidation - I believe, a separate 'good' company vehicle, which a few named shareholders like yourself, should have been created - in order to 'take over' certain parts of the company you have been released from. In that way, it should be possible to organise the clean transition and use of company assets like you say. I mean, there must be millions of precedents for this in law - where for instance, you move jobs five or six times, but still sit at the same desk you always did. What I have in mind is an accounting and legal maneuvre, and if there were enough interested ex. employees of your company, with sufficient sense to do it, it should still be possible to deal with the liquidator as I suggest. Unfortunately though, I am sure, what I suggest would have worked better had the sequence been - set up the special purpose vehicle as I suggest, before liquidation rather than after. This is the land of NAMA after all - how many other accountancy maneuvers are we attempting now in D-ireland?

 

If your ex. boss had spent less time going to the gym and more actually looking out for his long time contributors to his success, things would be a lot neater today for everyone. Thanks anyhow, for sharing all of the recent news. Ta-da.

Edited April 15, 2010 by Brian O'Hanlon