[Mooncatt]

I was just going through the change log for Topaz DeNoise and found a rather substantial sounding change to the licensing. The up side is the free trial is no longer time limited, but the trade-off is it will watermark your photos. The downside is it looks like this will potentially apply to paid users that let their yearly licence expire.

DeNoise 3.0.2 - DeNoise AI - Topaz Discussion Forum

Changed how trial flow works
– Trials are now gone, you can now use the app without being logged in
– While not logged in, or if your license is expired, your image will save with a watermark
– Users who own the product should be able to use it offline without a watermark given they’ve logged in once and don’t log out

When asked for clarification in the comments, this was posted by a Topaz representative.

If you have an upgrade license active right now then you own this release (3.0.0), and all subsequent releases for this minor version (e.g., 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.0.8, etc). If your license expires while 3.0.1 is out, but then we release 3.0.2 you will still own it since you owned 3.0.1. However, if your license expired while you owned 3.0.2 and after that we released 3.1.0, you would not own 3.1.0 because it is a minor version bump ahead. In this case you still can own and use 3.0.X versions like normal with no watermark, only 3.1.X and above would have a watermark.

So whatever minor version you are on, that's yours for good. My concern is how future upgrades would be handled if you don't have an active licence. If your licence expires and you get a notice that a newer minor version or full version is available, hopefully it'll be blatantly obvious that you'll start getting watermarked unless you buy in again. I can see this being easily overlooked by someone too eager to update and suddenly get watermarked. I don't use their other programs, but I suspect the same applies (or soon will apply) to them.

[vonBaloney]

If you don't renew your license, you should simply never download a version beyond what you've paid for (and it won't auto-upgrade you since you aren't upgradeable). And even if you do download and install a newer version to check it out, you can always get rid of it. They have the version that you own as a download link in your account perpetually it seems.

[Mooncatt]

If you don't renew your license, you should simply never download a version beyond what you've paid for (and it won't auto-upgrade you since you aren't upgradeable). And even if you do download and install a newer version to check it out, you can always get rid of it. They have the version that you own as a download link in your account perpetually it seems.

It's good that they keep your eligible version. My concern was someone not realizing what they are about to do, thinking they were just downloading a bug fix. I admit I possibly could've made such a mistake. I thought when the licence expired, I was limited to the full version number. I.e. Any 3.X.X version. If my licence expired on 3.0.X, and I saw 3.1.X available, I thought that was included as a bug fix. I'm use to version's being the leading digit, and anything after the first decimal being a bug fix of some sort.

[vonBaloney]

It's good that they keep your eligible version. My concern was someone not realizing what they are about to do, thinking they were just downloading a bug fix. I admit I possibly could've made such a mistake. I thought when the licence expired, I was limited to the full version number. I.e. Any 3.X.X version. If my licence expired on 3.0.X, and I saw 3.1.X available, I thought that was included as a bug fix. I'm use to version's being the leading digit, and anything after the first decimal being a bug fix of some sort.

Probably still has notices about being a trial, etc. Any danger is minor and temporary...

[RobA_Oz]

My Sharpen AI free-upgrade year finished recently. When the upgrade notice appeared, it was quite clearly stated that it was a paid upgrade, and the on-screen link led me to the website, rather than simply downloading the upgrade. They offered a 15% discount if I upgraded early, by the way. My Denoise AI year hasn’t finished yet, so it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any difference in the approach. I decided to go with the paid upgrade as they claimed an improved speed in processing, which so far they seem to have lived up to.