Zeta+2, can I sell unregistered copy?

[tecknot]

Hello everyone,

I was reading the forums and came across one interesting thread in the Instruments forum:

As it happens to be, I own two copies of Zeta+2, one copy registered and one not.  I was wondering if I could sell the unregistered copy since "...it is a legacy product from the old Cakewalk company," and as I understand it, the "old Cakewalk company," no longer exist so any license agreement is no longer binding.  So, can I legally "sell" it or not?

Please advise.

Kind regards,

tecknot

[Jim Fogle]

My GUESS is you can sell it but the buyer will not be able to register it.

[Bass Guitar]

If it is on a CD and you have the serial numbers that is all that matters. Seems to me Zeta would not be registered on the internet. 
Selling software second hand probably breaks some old rules but I doubt something that old would be considered of any value to the original vendor. As you say, that might have been Roland or Gibson. Or it might have even been the original 12Tones Cakewalk people. 
 

And if you’re giving it away I really don’t think that matters at all. 

[mettelus]

I am inclined to agree with the above. IIRC, Z3TA+2 just needed the S/N and Registration Code to activate (no online requirement). What bound that to your account specifically was if you did an online registration of it (which was an option during installation or done directly with the Cakewalk registration server). If you never registered that one copy, then it is not tethered to anyone's account. Check your legacy account to be sure it is not listed there.

[tecknot]

Thanks guys.  I will proceed with caution.  The copy does show up in My Products in my account, but there is not registration number nor do I have any record of one.  Perhaps the fortunate recipient will have luck with registration through Cakewalk Support.  We will see.

Kind regards,

tecknot

[mettelus]

This is also not a situation where you are trying to pull a fast one in any way. It is a one-off situation where you are trying to do someone a favor. I have reached out to vendors for similar in the past and they have accommodated such... it is those simple acts of kindness that define someone more than money ever could, in addition to the significant impact it could have for the recipient.

[Stupid side note (and spoiler alert actually)] This theme is the reason Les Miserables is my favorite novel. Early on, the Bishop takes Jean Valjean in and feeds him as a guest (when no one else would), and the next morning Jean Valjean steals his silverware! When the police bring him back and ask the Bishop if he had been robbed, the Bishop goes back inside, brings forth a pair of silver candlesticks, hands them to Jean Valjean and says, "I forgot to give these to you." The brilliance was the Bishop did not lie, he just refused to answer the question and implied one, but that simple act of kindness changed Jean Valjean's life forever.

Edited November 7 by mettelus

[sjoens]

So in the end yer saying they were less miserable?! 

[Starship Krupa]

On 11/6/2025 at 8:55 PM, sjoens said:

So in the end yer saying they were less miserable?! 

So much less so that they apparently started calling themselves the less miserables.

Like the untouchables, less misery instead of lack of touchability.

Seriously, considering the plaintive cries I've read on this forum regarding z3ta+2's availability, it seems like an installable copy could be a rather valuable commodity.

Edited Wednesday at 05:42 PM by Starship Krupa

[Bass Guitar]

My friend has a 64 Fender Princeton it is Brown. No reverb just tremolo like my 72. 
 

It is 100 % original never been modified. He bought it in 1972 for $50. 
It is now valued at between $6,000 to 9,000. 

And now I see people buying old music gear from the 80’ for stupid prices. This is junk some of us tossed in the trash 10 years ago because it sounded terrible to us. Like Peavey guitar amps. 

But software has a short lifespan and even if it had good sound quality it becomes left in the dust by changing OS and formats. Of all things musical that we have invested money into, software definitely has zero re-sale value. 
So don’t laugh at all of us who are still hanging on to our old hardware synths of which two I own are from 1992. 
 

They are becoming worth more as time goes buy while that Software synth you paid $100 for in 2005 is now probably worth nothing and no longer works in your 64 bit Daw. 
 

Sonar and Reaper seem to be the only ones that still support Dx. I think you will see a day that they will be forced to finally abandon it. 
 

I stopped using them a few years ago. Even in Vegas all of their plugins are DX so I now use 3rd party VST instead. 
Defiantly I’ve stopped using 32 bit for at least 5 years now. Just not worth taking the risk of issues. 

Now we are watching the end of VST 2 . 
 

But my 1990 hardware will always work fine until they stop making interfaces with 5 pin midi. 

 

Edited yesterday at 05:25 AM by Bass Guitar

[Amberwolf]

You might be surprised at the "value" of old software; there are people that have "gone retro" and are actually designing and building new ISA type computeres so they can still run ancient software and hardware with DOS and Windows 3.1, etc.  Quite a few are doing this for music or other artistic endeavours.  

 

[Bass Guitar]

I had a free app called STeem that was an Atari emulator but it only works on Windows XP. 

All the software I used for almost 15 years was now available for free on Tim’s Atari world website. I guess that all the developers were long gone. But one was the same version of Cubase I had previously purchased for I think $300 back when. It had a note saying Steinberg approved of the free version as a historical  artifact. 

[Chaps]

I haven't browsed it for quite some time but there's heaps of free old music software at the Internet archive.

https://archive.org/details/software