I just downloaded the new filmora 12 and the lifetime license that I've always had,
it doesn't work anymore. I hate having to make a video like this you know when I started using
filmora about five years ago I was definitely one of their biggest fans so much so that I have
three lifetime licenses these lifetime licenses meant that I had to pay more money up front but
that meant I would have access to all the future software updates down the road it said so right
on the website until now let me take a minute to introduce myself in case you don't know me my name
is Daniel Batal, I'm a YouTube content creator and on my channel I help people make better videos put
them onto YouTube and help them grow an audience around that content I was actually filmora's
very first brand ambassador and I've made over a hundred videos about filmora teaching people
how to use that software I've actually driven tens of millions of views to those videos and
I've even had thousands of people buy their own filmora licenses well because I told them
they should now as a YouTube content creator who works with sponsors I never want to say anything
bad about a sponsor that I've worked with it just makes a Creator sound spiteful or resentful as if
something went wrong behind the scenes and they're using their platform to somehow exact Revenge but
I find myself in a position where I also have an obligation to the thousands of people out there
who have purchased a license to that software based on my recommendations and it's been quite a
few over the years now filmora has undergone a lot of changes over the years since I bought it way
back in version 8. back then they only had a few licensing options to get access to the software
they had the free version which was really more like a free trial version you could use all the
features but it had a watermark on export and you had to buy some sort of license or plan in order
to remove that Watermark there was also a one-year subscription-based plan that one also got rid of
the watermark but it was a recurring fee that was cheaper but you had to pay that year year after
year in order to maintain access to the software they also had another option that they like to
tout as their best seller that was their lifetime license it wasn't a subscription-based plan like
their other options it was literally an actual license this was a one-time fee and as it was
labeled lasted a lifetime this was the option I purchased I also purchased another lifetime
license so that I could run the software on my Mac operating system now if you had purchased a
lifetime license to filmora back when I did it was pretty clear to anyone looking at the options that
Fillmore was offering free updates and if you had any question what free updates meant they
spelled it out right at the bottom of the web page all software updates are completely free
period and that was a great deal that license allowed me and a lot of other people I recommended
it to to update the software every time filmora went from filmora 8 to filmora 9 to filmora 10
to filmora 11 until we got to filmora 12. now to be fair to filmora I've said all along to every
user that I've ever talked to that the more they asked for new features and tried to get filmora
to do more that eventually Fillmore was going to stop offering this lifetime license and when
filmora 10 was introduced in November of 2020 that's exactly what happened they removed the
lifetime license and they changed that out and introduced what they called a Perpetual plan
no more licenses just plans now the Perpetual plan allowed you to get updates but only for
that specific version so if you had purchased a Perpetual plan for filmora 10 you would get
all of the updates until they moved into a newer version such as filmora 11. and they made that
really clear right from the outset next to these plans they actually had a tiny information bubble
that at the time I thought was completely innocuous but over time turned out to be a
lot more ominous than expected it said this plan does not include upgrades to Future versions of
the software Beyond filmora 10 but it does include updates to filmora 10. did you catch that subtle
changing of the words there they started using a word that they hadn't used before suddenly new
versions of the software weren't called updates some were called upgrades little did I know that
this subtle change of wording in this plan that I had never signed up for would come back to haunt
me in the license that I had bought years prior now during my first year with them as their very
first brand ambassador I would have multiple conversations at any given time with people who
worked for the filmora team regarding things like the videos that I was making for them any changes
in the licensing that I might want to make people aware of new promotions are things that might come
down the line that Fillmore was either promoting or trying to make the users aware of one of the
biggest questions I got from a lot of people when we first saw these Perpetual plans take the place
of our lifetime licenses was were our lifetime licenses now somehow in Jeopardy but thankfully
the filmora team explained to me and all the other users out there even though they no longer offered
that particular license we were still all allowed to update I mean upgrade to the newer versions
and we all did for me that license allowed me to update all the way from filmora 8 through
filmora 11. now I stopped working with filmora years ago as a brand ambassador but we left on
really great terms I always liked the company and I like the product now Fillmore had offered me a
deal to stay on as their brand ambassador moving forward but one of the things I always worried
about is I didn't want to be known as a filmora channel there's a lot of reasons for that but one
of the reasons was what if filmora somewhere down the line made a decision that upset a lot of the
users if people were upset with filmora for some reason that would probably mean that me and my
channel would end up paying the price right along with them that's what we call foreshadowing folks
so you can imagine my surprise when I opened up filmora the other day to work on a project and
I was met with something very unexpected when I opened up the software a pop-up window appeared
that said my one-time purchase plan of filmora no longer applied to filmora 12 because filmora 12
is a major version that requires a paid upgrade I was confused partly because they were asking
me to pay again for access to the software when they should know that I have a lifetime license
but also the fact that they were referring to my lifetime license as a one-time purchase plan that
wasn't even the name of any plan I've ever heard of Lifetime Perpetual but one-time purchase plan
was a whole new language I'd never seen before I had to double check to make sure I was actually
signed in to filmora because sometimes what happens is when you update the software and
you're not signed in it doesn't recognize your license or who you are so it will go right to a
prompt of trying to get you to purchase a plan until you've signed in but I was signed in and
filmora should be able to see my license so then I kind of immediately guessed that probably some
of the information had been confused and that filmora somehow thought my lifetime life since
was actually a Perpetual plan that only applied to the previous version so I went to the wondershare
website logged into my account just to make sure that all my licenses were straightened out
and sure enough they were all listed as lifetime licenses so then the next thing I thought was well
maybe that pop-up was just something to prompt me to potentially upgrade to some new bundle they
were offering with extras beyond the software I always felt that those extra things probably
should be included for people who held lifetime licenses because they were technically updates
to the software but I understand that Fillmore was trying to figure out ways to make more money
so there it was so I ignored that initial pop-up that showed up in filmora 12 and closed it out
I started editing with the software and then the unimaginable happened I went to export my
project when I was done I was met with another pop-up window this one said please purchase
filmora to remove the image watermarks and enjoy more premium features I started talking to other
lifetime license holders that I knew to see if they were running into similar issues one of my
fellow creators who I know really well and who also has a lifetime license had shared with me
a screen capture of a conversation he'd had with filmora where they kept referencing Perpetual
plans no matter how many times he told them but I have a lifetime license not a Perpetual plan
it's like they weren't hearing them now the more I investigated the worse it got I went over to the
filmora channel where they had posted a video about the new filmora 12 update and I actually
asked them in the comments section are you guys really charging lifetime license holders for
the latest update and although they responded to every other comment around mine they kept
ignoring me their very first brand ambassador it was like I didn't exist so I ended up going
online and grabbing a screenshot of the original filmora website from way back when when I actually
purchased the license using a website that was called the Wayback machine they store previous
versions of websites over time so no matter how many times that website changes you can always get
a snapshot look back into the past and see what that website looked like then it definitely said
we should all be getting free lifetime updates I have to be honest I was pretty shocked I suddenly
felt like me and everyone else that I knew who had a lifetime license suddenly was lied to all
these years what's worse that inadvertently made me a liar as well I had told millions of people
over the years go buy filmora get the lifetime license that will allow you free lifetime update
States pay once and never pay again I was upset I was angry so I went on to Twitter and I tagged
the good people at filmora and I was pretty blunt hey filmora when you tell users years
ago that purchasing a lifetime license means all software updates are completely free you
should probably mean that lots of angry lifetime license holders like me realizing you just threw
all of us under the bus with the latest update lots of other confused and angry filmora users
jumped right into that conversation on Twitter but you know who didn't filmora but here's where
the story gets even crazier the very next day I get an email out of the blue from filmora they
had been listening all along they just didn't want to respond in public here's what the actual email
said hello Daniel it's been about two years since our last collaboration I'm reaching out this time
on behalf of wondershare trying to address your concerns about our latest filmora 12 which you
posted on Twitter today yes great they wanted to resolve this issue we're also seeking a new
partnership wait what they came right out of the gate offering me money now for what why now why
do we require paid upgrade for Perpetual plan on filmora 12. first the upgrade is not obligatory
filmora 9 users can still keep the old version we actually provided about 10 updates for this
version and these updates were free as promised wait filmora 9 users why are you talking about
filmora9 that was years ago don't you mean filmora 11 that's the version most people
are updating from and why are you talking about a Perpetual plan me and the rest of the people who
are probably upset right now don't have Perpetual plans we have lifetime licenses secondly the cost
of software development is always increasing to provide competitive pricing we have turned to
subscription plans since 2020 while still keeping the Perpetual plan considering some users demand
many software developers do not provide Perpetual licenses now yes I'm well aware of that and I've
talked about on my channel how you probably would change pricing along the way as the
software developed but we're not talking about people who had Perpetual plans from 2020 we're
talking about people who had lifetime licenses from long before the email continues thirdly we
provide a big discount for any non-subscription plan holder who might want to upgrade it only
costs 29.99 to upgrade with one month free access to effects plugins worth 20.99 now he's referring
to people like me as non-subscription plan holders so he does understand that we have
lifetime licenses the Daniel we had a very pleasant partnership before from filmora 9
to filmora 10 including several product review videos and an undisclosed amount that we agreed
upon your promotion efforts brought us valuable users and we also witnessed the growth of your
YouTube channel filmora witnessed the growth of my channel but certainly didn't cause it my channel
grew because I made learning about editing videos fun and easy I could have done that with any video
editing software and I did including products like movavi who were the very first video editing
software sponsors on my channel I am wondering if we can start a new partnership on filmora 12.
again with the money why do they keep bringing up money in a new partnership we haven't talked in
years are they trying to buy my silence because typically if you sign a deal with one of these
sponsors it comes with wording in the contract that won't allow an ambassador to say anything
negative about the sponsors they work with we are open for discussion if you have any further
thoughts I have a few thoughts one you can't buy my silence and two you seem to keep tap dancing
around the problem that me and a lot of other lifetime license holders are dealing with my full
response was pretty short and right to the point that's not my issue I have three lifetime licenses
lifetime not Perpetual these are two completely different licenses while I logged in and while
filmora recognizes I have a lifetime license it's telling me and the thousands of other people who
have purchased your products because of me that we all need to update as our licenses do not cover
the new version this was their final response hey Daniel thank you for your reply our team wants to
clarify the license issue you mentioned further first we would like to note the difference between
a software update and upgrade oh boy here we go update upgrade didn't I tell you those words were
going to come back to haunt us please see a part of an in-depth explanation about the difference
that was Inc included in the terms and conditions page for filmora 9. filmora 9 quote the license or
may add its sole discretion decide if licensee can get software updates and or content updates
free of charge or the licensee has to pay for the updates the license does not permit the license C
to obtain and use the software upgrade and or new license software version this means our customers
including yourself can continue editing in the current version however the lifetime license
doesn't include software upgrades to Future versions such as from filmora9 to filmora 12.
and there you have it the acknowledgment I had been waiting for all along filmora finally uses
the words lifetime license they are absolutely aware of what license I hold but they keep going
on to quote terms and conditions from filmora 9. terms and conditions I might add that didn't
even exist when I bought my lifetime license years earlier considering you are familiar with filmara
that's an understatement we would love to invite you to test the latest version of filmora with
other professional users your feedback is very valuable to us as we continue helping creators
grow their YouTube and digital Presence by making significant improvements and adding Advanced new
features in filmora 12. we sincerely look forward to hearing from you warm regards the wondershare
team well wondershare team you're hearing from me now you've clearly drawn your Line in the
Sand and I have to tell you this latest decision is a really bad look in my opinion it seems like
you're using the end user license agreement that you've quietly changed in the background over the
years to throw a lot of lifetime license users under the bus but what's worse is you did it in
a way that made us all feel that we didn't matter to you to me it seems like a money grab plain and
simple you seem to be changing the rules today and hoping that no one will notice that they were
different back when they purchased those licenses years ago if I were you and I am not I would
consider honoring all of those lifetime licenses purchased long before you offered a Perpetual plan
and making sure that people with those lifetime licenses can not only update to filmora 12 but
to update to Future versions that you start to create down the line I'm certainly not perfect
and I make mistakes all the time too but I feel like this is the right thing to do and if you do
it I'm sure users will most likely forgive you but if you don't I'm afraid that a lot of your
lifetime license holders might actually choose not to upgrade and go on to find other video editing
softwares that have more features than filmora and something that they can really put their faith in
for me personally I'm going to go on to use some other video editing softwares and I'll probably
talk about those softwares here on my channel because as much as I've always liked filmora there
are a lot of other great video editing software options out there and some of them are completely
free I've enjoyed our time together filmora and I wish issue nothing but the best moving forward
but for now it seems like you've decided for a lot of us that our lifetime with filmora is over peace