Spyder4Pro activatation

<p>I bought a Spyder4Pro on the weekend, and was very shocked to see it has a very strict activation policy requiring my name and email. I've searched and found no mention of this very strange requirement.</p>

<p>My concerns are that I thought I was buying a piece of hardware, not software or a service. They say I can calibrate computers at one location and up to 5 laptops. This is fine for my needs anyway, but when I buy the hardware from them, why should they care if I go up and down the street offering free calibration for everyone? My dad doesn't really have any interested in a colormanaged workflow, but why can't I calibrate his display to show him the difference, it could even have resulted in another sale.</p>

<p>For that matter, I gave them money for a product. What right to they have to my name and contact information.</p>

<p>What if I want to resell the device once it's activated in my name?</p>

<p>What happens when the company goes bankrupt and there's no activation sever anymore. Is this just a product rental for the life of the company? What if they decide next month they no longer want to support this model and you need to pay a per calibration fee, there's nothing to stop them from doing that. </p>

<p>Obviously the product is not for me and it's going back to the store (clearly opened because of the packaging design so now the store has to eat a loss), but why doesn't anyone else seem to have any issues with this. I realize there's a lot of people who won't care, but there is just no mention I can find.</p>

<p>Lots of software products have activation, I'm OK with that. I have no idea why a piece of hardware would require software activation when the software is useless without the hardware.</p>

<p>Andrew, I agree, I have no issue with software activation. But this software is basically a glorified driver. And since it is useless without the hardware, the hardware is the best security dongle ever.</p>

<p>I wouldn't buy a monitor or a camera that required software activation to use either.</p>

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<p>What happens when the company goes bankrupt and there's no activation server anymore?</p>

 

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<p>It's precisely to avoid bankruptcy caused by loss of sales when everybody shares the odd calibrator that someone was daft enough actually to <em>buy</em>, that they - quite rightly - protect their interests and their bottom line this way.</p>

<p>The hardware is useless without the software. It's long been Datacolor's policy to register their products when you install the software to use the hardware, I've done this with Spyder 2 and Spyder 3. I don't see how you can use the hardware without their software, so it's only reasonable they restrict the use of the software to the terms of the products.</p>