The educational licensing policy problem

[max_schoenherr]

hi, today i published a brief BIF related tutorial. at the very end i commented on the current licensing paradigm for "students" and "educators". my 1 year educational license of maya 2022 ran out in april. the 3 year educational license from earlier days (maya 2020) is still running, but not for much longer.

this is not a real problem for me. but it is for tens of thousands of students interested in learning 3D computer animation. imagine a 13 year old girl who watches animation movies and maya tutorials. she wants to follow the tutorials with a student license. she can't. why not? because with the new licensing policy you need an academia email adress which is somehow linked to this kind of art and technology. autodesk does not handle this but uses a third party evaluation company. there is no way around it, no direct contact channel to autodesk for this topic.

i personally think that this is the absolute wrong way to go. the 13 year old girl will switch to blender. the flow of 3D interested folks, away from max and maya, will strengthen the brand of blender. which is not a bad thing at all. but it's bad for autodesk.

cheers,

----maximilian

[damaggio]

I don’t understand where is the problem for tens of thousands of students learning 
Maya with so many free tutorials online. The 13 year  old girl can watch any tutorials she wants.

[max_schoenherr]

i think i pointed the problem out already. how can the 13 year old replicate tutorials without the student license? it's like swimming in an empty lake.

[mspeer]

Hi!

Every company has their own methods how to handle licenses or product versions that can be used for learning purposes. Some offer special learning editions with limited features, others offers student licenses where you even need to pay a certain fee.

Please keep in mind that also "free" versions causes costs and every developer can freely choose if he provides something like a learning edition and what the limitations are.

In the current case there are 2 options:

1) Use the trial version for 30 days

2) Get a Maya Indie license.

(I know an Indie license costs money, but you need to invest money for almost everything you want to learn and compared with many other interests a Maya Indie license is in the lower range.)

[max_schoenherr]

hi again, schön Dich zu sehen 😉

we talked about this issue already a year ago. the indie license is good for teachers like MHS – if they're interested in creating commercial work apart from offering free lessons on youtube. for the 13 year old girl, however, the indie license is not affordable. she'll look around and pick blender. blender is a sweet and mature product.

i'm aware of other companies' handling of introductory or learning licenses. substance was easygoing, but since adobe acquired the french company, the license has became costly. and i very well remember autodesk's policy until a year or two ago when it was easy to get a student license without the academia restrictions. it didn't allow batch rendering, but it offered all the NURBS modeling tools as well as arnold, MASH and BIF.

i didn't post this topic for personal reasons, but to create awareness for a problem. several of "my" students complained about it and have switched to blender. programs such as autoCAD don't have that problem because there's no real competition. but for maya, there is.

[LeoWarrenADSK]

Hi @max_schoenherr,

An academic email address isn't necessary - documentation such as a student ID or a status letter, like the one here, would be accepted.

Verification FAQ: https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/industries/education/docs/...

[max_schoenherr]

thanks, leo, and thanks for the two links. i'm aware of both of them. others might find it hard to google them, especially the first one.

as to my experiences: 

• i received about a handful of messages (and read several online discussions) in the last 2 years talking about the problem with the new educational license procedure. if the girl of 13 in my example is attending a middle school which has no official animation/CGI class, she won't get an educational license.

• MHS asked for a continuation of the educational license via the official autodesk website. my youtube channel, that is. no reply in a year. the application is still pending or forgotten. not a problem for me, as i said before. a collegue of mine recently said, autodesk should actually pay successful youtube teachers for making their product(s) more popular.

let's see if others can share their opinion here. that's why i click the like button, but not the accept button.

[Rockstar1]

Are Udemy.com , cgmasteracademy.com and wingfox.com no longer acceptable tutorial providers for accessing the 30 day trial? They are asking people to list an approved educational provider for even the trial software.

[Rockstar1]

To use the 30 day trial software for educational use without a verified educational partner, you'll be forced (lie?) to select the "Using for Business" option. The forms will ask a few questions to gauge what you'll be using the software for and who you work for. Once completed, you can download it.