Yeah, no that's illegal. Here's what they actually sold us:
In 2015 when Substance Live Indie went live, they sold us this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150322231213/https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-live"Substance Live Indie gives you access to the 3 main Substance software Substance Designer 5, Substance Painter and Bitmap2Material 3, as well as some exclusive content every month.
Buy Substance Live indie for $299 one-off or $19.90 per month during 16 months (total cost: $318). You own the product after the 16 month payment period."
Up until June 2017 they were still selling us this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170703223359/https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-live/faq"To obtain a definitive license, you will have to complete 8 monthly payments to get either Substance Painter or Substance Designer, 5 monthly payments for Substance B2M, and 16 monthly payments for Substance Pack."
"The definitive license of a software is available 8 months after the release of the software.
You can request definitive licenses of Substance Painter 2, Substance Designer 5 and Substance B2M3, if you have enough accumulated payments.
Substance Designer 6 will be available for a definitive license in October 2017."
Then on June 2017, they changed the offer to this:
https://www.allegorithmic.com/faq-substance"When you are subscribed for more than 12 months consecutively, when you cancel you get the option to purchase a perpetual license of all the software for $49."
So if we've been subscribed since April 2015, here's what the timeline looks like for us:
August 2016: 16 months since starting Substance Live. We should now own:
- Substance Designer 5 perpetual license
- Substance Painter 1 perpetual license
- Bitmap2Material 3 perpetual license
November 2016: 8 months since Substance Painter 2 was released. We should now also own:
- Substance Painter 2 perpetual license
October 2017: 8 months since Substance Designer 6 was released. Since we bought that before June 2017's new business model came into effect, we should now own:
- Substance Designer 6 perpetual license
Today: Since we have over 12 months of months on our account, when we cancel we get the option to pay $49.99 for perpetual licenses to the latest release (I think 2019.something). If we choose not to do that, we get no license. I'm pretty annoyed that we are only entitled to one license even if we have accumulated multiple 12-month periods (I'm on 46 months), but that's the way it's worded.
So if I cancel today and choose to pay nothing (or even if I keep the subscription going), I should currently own the following separate licenses that I paid for:
- Substance Designer 5 perpetual license
- Substance Painter 1 perpetual license
- Bitmap2Material 3 perpetual license
- Substance Painter 2 perpetual license
- Substance Designer 6 perpetual license
These are the pieces of software that we LEGALLY OWN as part of Allegorithmic's pre-June 2017 rent to buy scheme. We own these. They have no right to deny us these.And if I cancel and choose to pay the $49.99, I should get the following separate licenses that I paid for:
- Substance Designer 5 perpetual license
- Substance Painter 1 perpetual license
- Bitmap2Material 3 perpetual license
- Substance Painter 2 perpetual license
- Substance Designer 6 perpetual license
- Substance Painter 2019 perpetual license
- Substance Designer 2019 perpetual license
- Substance B2M 2019 perpetual license
- Substance Source perpetual license? (not sure)