I recently purchased EQ6 for my wife and am furious to learn of their licensing practices.
At the end of the post I will include links to blogs and posts by other users discussing EQ6's licensing.
My blog explains it all:
EQ forces EQ6 users to pay a $40 surcharge if they format and reinstall more than 4 times. They try to make themselves look good by claiming that most software companies only allow installation on one PC while they allow installations on four.
What they do not explain is that this is comparing apples and oranges. Most software companies, even Microsoft itself, allow users to reformat their hard drive and reinstall programs on the same computer as many times as they wish. In fact, I have been looking for a company other than EQ that doesn't allow this! It is true that most companies permit their software to run on only one PC at a time but that is a different issue.
I don't want to run 4 copies of the software, I want to be able to reformat and reinstall when I please!
Consider Janis's experience (see the blog entry link at the end of this post). Her laptop is running slow; it is "bogged down." Many computer users have experienced this- many of us reformat at this point. If you are running EQ6, well, you are going to have to start coughing up $40 after the 4th time this happens. This is extortion!
My goal isn't to get users to stop using EQ's software. My goal is to get EQ users to tell EQ to stop licensing their software this way. Software pirates will end up pirating EQ's software sooner or later just for fun. EQ is punishing its honest users.
There are countless other ways to license software and the developers at EQ are certainly aware of them. If you are an EQ user please encourage them to find a new method. If you are not an EQ user, I suggest either buying EQ5 or Quilt-Pro. Sooner or later you might just find yourself in the same position Janis was in, with Ann from EQ emailing you telling you how exceptionally generous they were to have already given you what they have and extorting $40 from your wallet.
Here is Janis's blog entry. I found it when looking for other user's experiences with EQ6: