Waves Announces The Return of Perpetual Licenses
Earlier this week, Waves shocked the music/audio community by announcing a stop to plugin sales, in a move to a subscription-only model known as Creative Access, with two plans available for customers to choose from. They announced Creative Access platform which offers a Waves Essential and Waves Ultimate plans.
Waves Essential offers access to over 110 plugins at $14.99 per month, while Waves Ultimate offers over 220 “industry-leading” plugins for $24.99 per month, with Essential also receiving select new plugins while Ultimate will receive new plugins on a regular basis
Many Waves users were shocked and questions whether or not they would continue having access to their perpetual licenses for the expensive plugins and bundles they purchased. Waves addressed this concern on Twitter in a response to a user (@happy__yorkie) who wrote, "The hell…. I just bought many plug-ins from you guys…are they a waste now?" to which Waves (@WavesAudioLtd) responded, "You continue to own them, at the latest version you bought or updated to prior to the launch of Waves Creative Access. You can continue to use your plugin/bundle licenses and software, on all systems and host applications that are compatible with the versions you own.
After respectfully listening to your concerns, I want to share with you that we are bringing back the perpetual plugin license model, side-by-side with the new subscriptions. You will again be able to get plugins as perpetual licenses, just as before.
In addition, those of you who already own perpetual licenses will once again be able to update your plugins and receive a second license via the Waves Update Plan—again, just as before. This option, too, will be available alongside and independently of the subscription program.
We are currently putting all our efforts into making perpetual licenses available to you again, as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you can keep up-to-date on this webpage, where we will post real-time updates as they are available.
I would like you to know that we are committed to you, our users. We listened to your feedback, and we will continue to listen to you. Waves is a company filled with users and creators, just like you, and we are all as passionate about the products as you are. With this in mind, we will strive to find the way to make things right by you, and hopefully regain your trust.
Thank you for your feedback and continued support—I wish you all the best,
Meir Shashoua
CTO and Co-Founder
Waves Audio"
