I actually am a student (albeit for not too long anymore), so this is rather a matter of curiosity than trying to find out if I can cheat the system. When/if an application has an educational version, which is sold at half price or whatnot of the non-edu version, does this license terminate/assume that I upgrade to a non-edu version when I lose my student status? When buying an edu version off of, say, eBay and I'm no longer a student, is that technically a criminal act or is it just borderlining? Not speaking of any specific title, is there an example out there where the edu version differs from its non-edu equivalent (in terms of functionality)?

Depends on the license. You'll have to read your End User Agreements.

It varies from application to application.

For example, with Pro-E, the save format is incompatible between the educational and non-educational versions.

Some FEA software has much lower limits on part complexity for the educational version.

Aighty - digging up this thread to further discuss some legal ambivalence issues.

The first one was: When buying an edu version off of, say, eBay and I'm no longer a student, is that technically a criminal act or is it just borderlining? Adding: what about having a student do it for you?

The second one I encountered recently goes something like this: "original keys" for the ultimate edition of a popular operating system are on sale on ebay for 15 quid (UK pounds). These ship from Vietnam. They are "guaranteed" to be unique and work with both 32 and 64 bit versions and are explained to be obtained from the MS authentication system on demand (which supposedly is the guarantee of uniqueness in this case). Customer feedback is few, but 100% positive. Legally speaking, which slot does this fall into - fraud, borderlining or official distribution.

As I see it, there are a few possibilities to explain this price and the sources where these keys could come from for £15:

- an inside source in MS distribution center (possibly regional) -> a legitimate key generator
- an illegitimate key generator
- the price difference could be a regional quirk (it is Vietnam after all)
- they've hacked MS
- the seller is a scammer
- edit: or the seller is, yarr!, a pirate and intercepted a ship full of OS discs

I'd appreciate some discussion on these topics as I really don't have a solid opinion. But I'd like to develop one.

[Edited by - irreversible on February 26, 2010 6:03:19 AM]