Buying Final Cut Studio 2 secondhand?

the answer is in the Software License Agreement (SLA) which can be found here:
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf

haven't downloaded the whole pdf right now but a quick google turned up this:

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*3. Transfer.* You may not rent, lease, lend or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License.
All components of the Apple Software are provided as part of a bundle and may not be separated from the bundle and distributed as standalone applications.

Updates: If an Apple Software update completely replaces (full install) a previously licensed version of the Apple Software, you may not use both versions of the Apple Software at the same time nor may you transfer them separately.

*NFR (Not for Resale) Copies:* Notwithstanding other sections of this License, Apple Software labeled or otherwise provided to you on a promotional basis may only be used for demonstration, testing and evaluation purposes and may not be resold or transferred.

*Academic Copies:* If the Apple Software package has an academic label or if you acquired the Apple Software at an academic discount, you must be an Eligible Educational End User to use the Apple Software. "Eligible Educational End Users" means students, facuor working at an educational institutional facility (i.e., college campus, public or private K-12 schools).

the procedure is to follow the terms stated above ... its not unclear.

the selling party must provide you with all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, original media, printed materials and the License ... all of it must be original not photo copies or duplicate disks etc ... if the seller keeps copies of the software in form then he has defaulted on the SLA

there's obviously no way you can enforce the sellers full compliance, but so long as you get all the original discs, the original serial number document/stickers and a valid receipt of the transaction then then you're going to have pretty good claim to the license. not much more you can do than that.

Hey John

The software ships with a couple of stickers with the serial number printed on it ... thats what you need to successfully install and register the software, so make darn sure those stickers are part of the package you receive from the seller. Installing and registering will alert Apple to the change of ownership.

There's no specific procedure outside of that that I know of.

Cheers
Andy

The software only requires the serial number which should come with it - otherwise it is useless.

Whether you register it or not is up to you, but my understanding is that if you register it, any previous owner will be removed.

Make sure you don't buy an Upgrade unless you already have a suitable Final Cut product.

You did the right thing,. The seller , the buyer (and e-bay) ought to be slapped for that.

I always thought it was just like de-authorizing a computer like you would in iTunes in order to un-license the software. However it's done, I'm willing to bet it's not very hard. Also, $300 seems extremely suspect. Totally doesn't sound legit to me.