Linea Sketch revokes lifetime licenses

Linea Sketch originally offered a one-time "lifetime" purchase, promising access to existing premium features as well as free future updates, but the developer later switched to a subscription model, replacing the lifetime purchase with a one-year subscription.

Background

Linea purchase policy that promises feature updates for lifetime purchases

Linea Sketch is an iOS application by iconfactory, originally offering a free universal download with premium features. The free tier including subscription reminders and watermarks. The original purchase policy included an option for a one-time purchase:

If you’d prefer get these Premium features without a subscription, we're also offering a one-time purchase that unlocks the new features, as well as new ones in the future, without recurring payments.

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Customers with an active Linea Premium subscription or a one-time purchase will automatically get access to the new features.

Lifetime license revocation

On the 7th of April, 2020 the company released the version 3.0 update under the same application bundle, with the following release note

NOTE: Linea Sketch v3 is now a free download. Subscribing removes banners, periodic reminders to support development and watermarks on exported artwork. Customers who purchased Linea Sketch v2 in 2019-20 get one year free!

Effectively replacing the lifetime purchase with a single year of subscription.

The company justification for not allowing users to use the previous version of the application was inability to promise the application functionality in case of an operating system update:

It is very likely that future changes to the operating system will break the ability to export your existing sketches entirely. If and when that happens, all of your valuable work would forever be lost.

It also included a suggestion for further actions in case of disagreement:

If you still don’t agree, then feel free to export your work and move on.

Consumer response

Some users noted that with the automatic app-updates enabled they lost access to the premium features without knowing it:

Version 2 auto-updated and now I'm stuck with watermarks and a little nag message. Stupid move. I liked version 2. Been using it since version 1.0. All my artwork is kind of useless with that watermark unless I pay. If I knew this was going to happen I would have exported everything while I was still on version 2. I've been told that they announced this in December on their blog. Too bad I don't read the blogs from every developer's apps I use.

Others criticized the company's approach to communicate the change:

This is not about people being unwilling to pay for good software. This is about a series of terrible decisions that culminated in people who did pay for good software getting screwed.

Lifetime purchase option

The company still offers a lifetime purchase option for the new application version, which still could be revoked at any time since the lifetime purchase option is not defined in the terms of use and the company has the right to revoke the license at any point in time:

8. Termination You agree that the Iconfactory may terminate your access to the Application, at our sole discretion, without cause or notice, and without penalty, at any time. The Iconfactory may also at any time discontinue providing access to Linea, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to Linea or any portion thereof may be effected without prior notice, and you agree that the Iconfactory will not be liable to you or any third party for any such termination. Upon termination, your right to use the Application will immediately cease. If you wish to terminate your account, you may simply discontinue using the Application.