Hesitant to Use Academic Discount Due to Lack of Transferability

I read somewhere that Logos resources purchased with the academic discount cannot be transferred to another user. Can someone please confirm that this is the case?

If this is true, it presents a problem for me. I have always made it a habit of selling (or giving away) books that I no longer use, so this policy would exclude that practice.

Accordingly, I have thus far limited my purchases of Logos resources (excluding community pricing and resources with no academic discount) to that which I can buy from others at a reasonable discount from their regular price.

Of course, not everything I am looking to purchase is available in such situations, but at least I retain the option to transfer anything in my library.

And I admit that part of the reason I take this approach is more psychological/ideological - I don't feel the same sense of ownership of my library when transferability is restricted.

I don't know that anyone else who has the academic discount takes the same approach as me, but in my case, it seems that Logos would make out much better if they allowed the transfer of resources purchased with an academic discount. This way I would just purchase everything directly from them rather than from other people.

If Logos is concerned that those with the academic discount might use it to make a quick buck by selling what they buy (though I doubt anyone could make very much off a scheme like that), why not just impose a one or two year minimum holding period on resources purchased with the discount and limit each customer to only one of each product at the discount?

I think a policy like that would deter most cases of abuse that might arise from allowing transfers.

Thanks.

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Comments

Garrett Ho

I believe that academic purchases can be transferred. To prevent it from being abused, Logos has policies for purchasing. If I recall correctly, multiple copies of base packages cannot be purchased using the academic discount. It is one per person. I don't know if it is the same with individual titles.

But, feel free to wait for official verification. I don't think there is anything to be worried about. A polite and appreciative call to customer service might also get you a non-academic discount.

Jack Caviness

I read somewhere that Logos resources purchased with the academic discount cannot be transferred to another user.

An email to dan@logos.com might be in order here. Doubt that Logos reads the General forum on a regular basis—too many threads to follow.

Sogol

Okay. Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I will shoot Dan an e-mail.

Clifford Kvidahl

Okay. Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I will shoot Dan an e-mail.

Sogol,

If you cannot reach Dan, or do not hear back from him, I may be able to get an answer for you.

Cliff [cliff.kvidahl[at]logos[dot]com]

Sogol

I still haven't been able to get a response from anyone at Logos about this question.

Can anyone help?

Dan Pritchett

Rules, regulations and policies are no fun.

We try hard to have an atmosphere of freedom. One in which we are serving our customers and having great relationships where we are open and honest with each other. We live in a world where one size does not fit all, and where we still want to give personalized service.

We don't like rules. We like relationships.

Yes, it is getting more and more difficult to maintain individual relationships with our users as we grow—we now have well over one million registered accounts, and believe it or not, we still try our best to keep things feeling small and personal, and treat each user as a unique and special human being, that we want as personal a relationship as possible, with.

To directly address the issue at hand—Academic Discount Program purchases were not designed to be transferrable.

The Academic Discount Program was designed for many reasons that I won't go into in great detail here, but one was to help financially strapped students get the resources they needed at a time when finances were tight, and when their professors were requiring them to buy many books for their classes. ...and yet, even this is a point of contention for many of our customers.

Consider that our customers have varying levels of income all around the world in all stages of life and career. A young Bible college student being sponsored by her rich parents to go have a great time at an expensive school may also be getting spoiled by her rich grandmother with gifts of cash. She has no financial needs at all, yet enjoys special pricing for books she won't even value as much as the next person. On the other hand, a pastor of a new church in the middle of nowhere Africa has saved up for three years to finally be able to afford a Scholar's Library, and it is his most prized possession on earth and he cherishes it above all earthly things and thanks God daily he was blessed enough to be able to finally make the purchase.

Why should the student with no need get a better deal than the pastor with great need? It is a complex and imperfect system. Need is just one part of the equation, and not the main part at that.

Here's where the challenge comes in.

Think about the traditional print world where many students don't want to keep their books after the class. Perhaps they were forced to get the books their professors required and they weren't too excited about it to begin with. They try to snag the library copy, or try to start with a cheap used copy then sell that once the class is over. The used textbook market is the publisher's worst nightmare. That's why they keep coming out with updated versions and continue to raise prices. They can't afford to sell one copy of the textbook and have it passed around to 100 different students that all participate in that book financially, but keep the publisher locked out of it forever.

In the same way, we have found that many students would like to purchase books for Logos and then return them or resell them when the class is over. This is a drain on our resources and a distraction from the design of our discount program. We created the program to help people save money and enjoy a self-service option that reduced our operating and handling costs. We could create a very comprehensive and complicated system and set of policies to handle all situations that may arise, or we could just simplify things and explain that was not the design of the program.

At this time, we have chosen to go with the simple approach and explain to everyone that Academic Discount Program purchases were not designed to be transferrable.

Sogol

Hi Dan and Cliff,

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and helpful response.

Though I would have loved a policy that allowed transfers of academic purchases, I understand your position, and am especially thankful that you took the time to fully clarify the policy. I'm sure it was no fun for you having to deliver unpopular news, so thanks for having the courage and integrity to do so.

Once again, I appreciate the time you devoted to addressing this issue.

All the best to you both.

DMB

Dan's answer has GOT to be the nuttiest marketing promotion rationale I have ever read.

Let me understand.

Logos has a significant motivation to 'hook' students for life. What's a lifetime payback? Priceless. It's a luxury that most companies dream of.

But, as Dan notes, the proposed lifetime customers might become 1-year customers (for specific book/s by the way). Just can NOT risk that!

Now, I'm no dummy. Close to it, granted. But 'maybe' a 5-year hiatus on re-sells? But instead Logos goes for a lifetime? For up and coming leaders of believers.

I'm sorry. Dan's scored another win for the nuttiness award.

EDIT: I'm sorry; the more I think about this, the stranger the explanation gets. I'm a lot like Matthew; as soon as I'm 'finished' with my books, I'd happily pass them on gratis. I already do that for my hardcopies. I don't have any 'academic' discount resources. But I did calculate my AVERAGE price-off Logos.com for my library. It's neck and neck with the academic discount. And I can happily give to someone. The seminary guys/gals can't. Wow.

ChelseaFC

I love Logos and I can understand this policy even if I don't agree with it. At least it clear from here on out.

However, I will say that quite a few students will be turned off by this policy. Especially if their seminary doesn't require Logos. My seminary does not. I've raved about this program to others, but it'll be a tougher 'sell' to students now. (I get nothing out of it anyway).

Even in the reselling market you at least have the right too sell the books if you want too. There has to be a better middle ground that will benefit the student (if they wanted to resell) and Logos. Although I'm not sure what that is...I'd have kept my base package regardless, but I feel for those who don't have a choice in the matter.(I guess that includes me now).

Just my two pence.

Cheers-Marcus

Mark Barnes

In the same way, we have found that many students would like to purchase books for Logos and then return them or resell them when the class is over. This is a drain on our resources and a distraction from the design of our discount program. We created the program to help people save money and enjoy a self-service option that reduced our operating and handling costs. We could create a very comprehensive and complicated system and set of policies to handle all situations that may arise, or we could just simplify things and explain that was not the design of the program.

At this time, we have chosen to go with the simple approach and explain to everyone that Academic Discount Program purchases were not designed to be transferrable.

Folks, I think we're over-reacting here. Dan has been very careful in what he has said, and what he has not said. Just because something wasn't designed for a particular purpose doesn't mean it can never be used for that person. Remember:

We don't like rules. We like relationships… believe it or not, we still try our best to keep things feeling small and personal, and treat each user as a unique and special human being, that we want as personal a relationship as possible, with.

I take this to mean that if you're a student who has just finished your degree and want to transfer your purchases to another student, then that won't be allowed. On the other hand, if you're a pastor who got several items with an academic discount when you were in college several years ago, and have added to that library since, and have now retired from the ministry and want to transfer your purchases to your son who is going to seminary, then even though the academic program isn't designed to allow transfers, it's worth giving Logos a call and making use of that personal relationship Dan speaks of. No guarantees, of course, but definitely worth a call in the sort of circumstances I've outlined.

Jack Caviness

On the other hand, if you're a pastor who got several items with an academic discount when you were in college several years ago, and have added to that library since, and have now retired from the ministry and want to transfer your purchases to your son who is going to seminary, then even though the academic program isn't designed to allow transfers, it's worth giving Logos a call and making use of that personal relationship Dan speaks of. No guarantees, of course, but definitely worth a call in the sort of circumstances I've outlined.

And that may very well work given Logos' commitment to customer service, but it still leaves too much uncertainty in the process. Policies developed when Logos was a small business sometimes need to be revisited when the company has grown to more than one million registered customers.

Robert Wazlavek

... even though the academic program isn't designed to allow transfers, it's worth giving Logos a call and making use of that personal relationship Dan speaks of. No guarantees, of course, but definitely worth a call in the sort of circumstances I've outlined.

I get what you're saying. However, it's the bold that's the problem. With an issue like this, people need a guarantee. Logos cannot expect a customer to pay thousands of dollars on a library, and then say, "Well, maybe we'll allow a transfer in your case, but then again, maybe not. Depends on how we feel at the moment. You may or may not be able to further God's Kingdom by passing on your resources. You may or may not see your property disappear into a void upon your death... even though you've paid for these resources just as you would pay for a print book."

I say that facetiously of course. But I'm sure you understand my point, that this policy goes against Christian principles and the very business model they use in saying our libraries are just like print libraries but electronic. What's the point of owning a license to a book if I am the only one ever allowed to use that particular book attached to that particular license? Might as well just loan me the electronic resource. Part of the right in owning a license to use anything (be it books or music or whatever) is being able to pass on the ownership of that license to another. Because of Logos policy, some of us have paid thousands of dollars for essentially lifetime loan books that we were initially told we own. And again, as I mentioned earlier, Logos policy concerning this is not presented upfront and made clear to customers who might make use of the Academic Discount.

What's saddest is that Dan basically said, "Too bad, we like publishers more than you." to Logos customers by what he said, regardless of how nice he said it. All that which he spouted about the publishers being put out of the loop and unable to make money anymore is sad and all... but we as customers have to pay for it (excuse the pun)? We get duped by being told we own something, when the reality is that the policy plays out in our "owned" electronic libraries being figuratively burned upon our death so no one else can use them? This is done with spreading the gospel being important to Logos? So they'd prevent us from being able to transfer our libraries when possible to help spread the gospel? And the reasoning we're given is because some students cause a loss to publishers? What a load.

Aside from argumentation like above, I would suggest that if spreading the gospel really is important to Logos, those going into professional or full-time ministry should have a discount without strings attached, period. I recognize that Logos is a business. But at some point, Logos has to ask themselves some questions and make some decisions. Is God, Christ, and the gospel number one to us, so that we'll take every hit when necessarily to further the Kingdom? Do we trust God to ensure that we, Logos, stay afloat if we do choose this attitude? Or are we first a business that cannot place total trust in God to ensure our stability, growth, and long life?

JT (alabama24)

I would suggest that if spreading the gospel really is important to Logos, those going into professional or full-time ministry should have a discount without strings attached, period.

I agree with much of what you have written, and am disappointed in some of what Dan has written. I understand that the concern is the creation of a "used e-book" market which would undercut their business model. Perhaps there are licensing agreements with publishers for these discounts as well. The academic discount makes sense on a number of levels. Generally speaking, students are very short on money. The discount helps them to get Logos when they otherwise might not. Furthermore, if a student starts buying and using Logos in school, they are likely to become a "life long" user. This is beneficial to Logos. If, on the other hand, students could buy a $1000 package for $800 and then sell it to another student for $600 in 4 years, it becomes a losing proposition for Logos and the publishers.

I don't think, however, that your quote above is fair. I assume that the bulk of users are those who are in ministry related vocations. There are many others who are tentmakers - are they not deserving of a discount? If discounts are given to all these people, who is left to buy Logos at "full price"? Dan's illustration of the "rich student" and the "poor missionary" are good ones. If we want to help the "poor missionary" (or tentmaker pastor, etc) it is incumbent upon us to help them out. When helping these individuals out, it would also be wise stewardship to help them take advantage of the seasonal discounts available, as well as pre-pub & community pricing. Of course, it would be much easier for us to help these individuals out if we could actually purchase gifts for those users directly (hint hint Dan [;)]).

Bob Pritchett

I'm sorry for the concern this thread has caused. It seems like issues like this one erupt every once-in-a-while as a side-effect of our desire to not have policies.

I hate policies. Policies are straight-jackets that prevent organizations from doing the right thing for individuals. Policies force organizations to treat individuals as a single, adversarial entity, rather than as people with special needs and concerns. Policies empower front-line staff to avoid listening and to shirk the responsibility of making decisions.

We try to have as few policies as possible.

Dan did not outline a policy. Dan said that the program was not "designed" for license transfer. He explained the logic, and the specific scenario we were concerned about. We do disclose that we license a single user, but he didn't say anything about inheritance, he didn't say there were no exceptions.

For 20 years we have been trying to do the right thing for our customers, trying to be generous and flexible. I believe we have established a great track record and a strong reputation for excellent customer service. (If you don't think so, please email or call me immediately. bob@logos.com; 360-527-1700. I'll take care of whatever you're concerned about.)

We're not throwing that away with a single forum post, or phone conversation. (And it's frustrating to me how quickly people take one small statement and jump to amazingly distant conclusions -- as if, after 20 years of customer-first orientation, we've suddenly had a personality change and decided that throwing away that reputation is the way to be even more profitable! I think some people are watching too many Hollywood movies where the businessman is the bad guy... <smile>)

We have well-over one million user accounts. While the majority of our users are among the greatest people on earth, there are some people -- out of over one million! -- who try to take advantage of us (and, I imagine, other businesses). Many companies create policies in response to, or to defend against, specific abuses. For example, a clothing store might require tags to be attached when clothing is returned in order to ensure people aren't "borrowing" clothes for a one-night event and returning them the next day. An electronics store might charge a re-stocking fee on opened flat-screens TV's to discourage their purchase for just watching the Super Bowl.

But these policies, designed to prevent abuse, always catch a few "innocents" too. That's why we prefer guidelines to policies, and discretion by our customer service agents. We want to always do the right thing for the customer. (Sometimes this means an agent will make the wrong call -- they're people, and make mistakes -- but we back that up with a policy of easy access to managers and the president of the company. Nobody ever gets unfairly caught by a policy at Logos.)

Every policy we do have (few) and every restriction we promote (the end user license agreement, etc.) exists as a backstop against abuse; on our side, though, none of these is a handcuff that prevents us from doing the right thing, and it is in our continuing interest to do that.

I don't want to open another long discussion on how digital licensing is different from the purchase of physical goods, but I'll hit the highlights:

Physical manifestations of intellectual property (books, DVD's, etc.) are resell-able because the physical object is purchased, and thus can be re-sold. This fact is priced into the original purchase price of the object, and transaction "friction" prevents the whole world from just buying one copy and passing it around. It has to be physically transported, moved between parties, accumulates actual physical wear and tear, etc.

Digital intellectual property is rarely sold; it is licensed. Most licenses are for limited use by the original purchaser only. This is because there is little to no friction in sharing something that doesn't have to be physically moved; there's no technical reason that 50 people couldn't share one Netflix license, and all watch streaming movies off one $8.99 /month subscription. It is a license which prevents this. (This is also why you can have thousands of movies streamed for $8.99, but pay $15 or more for a DVD of a single movie.)

In the same way, we're able to offer many expensive reference works in bundles with list-price discounts approaching 90% because the publisher knows that the content is licensed to a single user. Everyone knows that some of these books have limited use, and that people may be "done" with some of them shortly. That's priced into the deal. If you could immediately transfer the book you were done with to someone else digitally, without even the friction of taking it to the used bookstore, we'd sell a lot fewer copies of the expensive reference works. Theoretically a single license to a book could be owned by a college library, and students could check it out digitally in blocks of 5 minutes, allowing an entire class to use the same book in one evening.

This is why we don't license libraries, why we discourage re-sale, etc. And it's why the few publishers who do license digital books to libraries introduce "artificial friction" in the form of limits on the number of lends per license, or a two-week minimum check-out period for a digital check-out, etc.

My long-term dream is that Logos can offer something like the $8.99 / month Netflix subscription -- all the Bible study materials you could want for an incredibly low monthly price. In that model we wouldn't allow account sharing or content resale, But we'd offer incredibly inexpensive access to everyone. You wouldn't need a used-copy at half price; you'd get everything for less.

We aren't there yet, though, and presently we sell things at varying discounts. Some prices are close to print, some are 90% less than print, and sometimes (academic discount) we offer certain users / scenarios special deals.

In general, we license individual users. In general, we price on the expectation that we're selling to one person without transfer. (Remember, we're offering ongoing service, support, software upgrades, etc. We have ongoing costs, and if every copy was actively used forever we couldn't sustain that. Most users do not transfer their licenses, and many eventually -- by change of interests, profession, school, or vertical-status -- stop needing ongoing support.)

We recognize that some users, however, are making a large investment. It may be objectively large -- thousands of dollars in resources -- or relatively large -- a big investment for them, based on their income.

These users want to know that their investment is wise, and that they can transfer it at death, or in other necessary circumstances. They aren't trying to "borrow" the books for a class, they aren't trying to re-sell the same copy five times, they aren't passing a copy of a single text around a class, etc. And so we try to always do the right thing for these users.

The bottom line is we have the minimum policy to protect ourselves from expensive abuse. We have some policy to avoid creating a legal entitlement to abuse. But we are driven by doing the right thing, and even our policy enforcement tends to be after-the-fact and in response to the worst abuse. (We had a user who returned _every_ purchase a few months later, for years. We eventually -- in my opinion, long after every other company would have cut him off -- stopped selling to him, with an apology that we couldn't make a product he was happy with.)

In some ways it would be easier to just make some policies and post them. "No refund after x days. No resale until y years. No installing on more than z machines." etc. But while they might give clarity on the web site, the policies would turn into straight-jackets for our users. They would turn into excuses our staff could use to end calls quickly and avoid listening to individual customers. They would turn us into the big, monolithic, money-driven, people-insensitive organization everyone seems to worry about.

But we aren't that yet, and I don't want to be that. So instead I'll just keep coming back here to the forums (and to my inbox!) to put out the occasional fires, and hope that our persistent, continuing, excellent, one-on-one service will win out over paranoia about what might happen in the future when the people at Logos lose their minds and retreat to an evil corporate lair on a hollowed-out volcanic island where they plot ways to antagonize the million users who built the company. :-)

-- Bob

JT (alabama24)

Thanks Bob for your gracious reply. [:)]

Milford Charles Murray

Thank you, Bob! *smile* You are truly -- and much! -- appreciated!

Peace to you! ... and .......... Always Joy in the Lord!

Kristin Dantzler

Thanks for providing an excellent clarification. As a member of the Board of Trustees of a University and Seminary, I am always concerned for our students. This clarification removes this as an issue from my perspective.

Into Grace

Thanks Bob for your gracious reply.

+1 [Y]

ChelseaFC

Thank you Bob. This is what I needed to hear. Thank you for your clarity and for looking out for your customers. I can confidently and happily move on now.

Cheers,

Marcus