chuckebaby
I would throw caution at buying any version of Sonar that uses the online/server authorization.
Not only is it illegal to transfer Cakewalk licenses but if cakewalk turns the servers off, there will be no way to activate it.
I don't expect Cakewalk to do that because I do believe they want to do the right thing.
I think they already have turned off the servers. I had various versions on Steam up through Sonar 2016, and then I didn't renew for 2017, because I'm just a poor hobbyist. Later, in November, when they had the "sale" on the 2018 update preorder, I bought the update as a Christmas present for myself, thinking yay, I could install again in December when I had more time. So I log in in December and see I missed the announcement (and missed the 2-week window to refund the money which is all Steam allows). I install anyway and get a #SteamUI_JoinDialog_KeyRequestFailed_Text error on launch. A buddy who does game development work said that sounded like they couldn't reach Cakewalk's servers to give me a new auth code.
Problem is, that's also ruined my ability to even log into my 2016 version, even if I rollback to an earlier Sonar version, and even if install from scratch on another computer that never had it on there (so there's no registry issue).
I'm sure people at Cakewalk
wanted to do the right thing. But Cakewalk doesn't really exist any more, as far as I can tell. I made an email case #361511 on December 11th that may or may not still be open, but nobody's answered it or my ping later. Certainly they haven't logged into their product support account on Steam in over a month, either. I think all the support people are gone, and if you can still get into your software at all you're luckier than me.