I'm sure I can't be the only one here that is seriously disgusted at the fact of cakewalk now being free. For something that thousands of us literally paid hundreds of dollars for over the years. INCLUDING lifetime updates. Just to have another company step in and give it out for free... It is not right by any means and for anyone that says it is, think of it this way. if you bought a car and a company went and took over that company that you bought the car from. Then decides, HEY lets give it out for free! I am very sure you would be hauling @ZZ back to that car lot demanding your money back. This is NO different.

Bandlab acquired the software. They can do anything they want with it, they own it. If they want to give it away, that is they're right. It is not in any way wrong. You got what you paid for. You agreed to the terms. Now you're upset at other people's good fortune?
 
There's an old story about an employer who hired some guys out early in the morning. Then he hired some more at noon. Then he hired some more an hour before closing time. At the end of the day, everybody got the same pay. Some of those who had worked all day complained that it wasn't fair. The employer said, "Friend, you got paid what you were promised. Take your money and go. I want to pay these others the same, even though they only worked one hour. Is not my money mine to do with as I please?"
 
 

No I'm not upset at anyone's good fortune. WHAT I AM upset about is the lifetime updates that so many of us bought into . Just to be screwed over by them a YEAR later. This was Cakewalks way of screwing over the customer  AT THE END of the DAY. Leaving all of us guys that PAID for it. Yea sure there are some lucky folks right about now enjoying a nice new free daw. But that doesn't make excuses for what Cakewalk did to its paying customers. I think it is time for a lawyer to step in on this. Screw this... I'm done.......

Don't you get it? The old company died in November, this new DAW has Zero to do with the old company that you think screwed you over. People need to get over this "I'm a Lifetime Member" thing. 
It's sort of like a "I'm Superior to all the rest who are getting it free"  Sorry man, we are all created equal, even Monkeys..  

DrBoom,
 
Bummer in one sense for sure if you missed the boat like me on many occasions. Buying hardware for $3000 before they reduced the price to $1600 a week after I bought it and no refund. Probably everyone here has purchased something for outrageous cost to have it go 75% off on a ground hog’s day special and out of the window for any refund or adjustment.
 
Assume you got the third party programs with the purchase you made. These are worth a lot and not included in the free offering.
 
For me, the offering from Bandlab is quite generous and sincere. None of us are owed a free upgrade path to the guts of Sonar Platinum or any core improvements they are working on. They could have easily stabbed us for a couple hundred dollars to transition, but they went a step way beyond in the mode of decency. Offered an olive leaf so to speak with the sacrifice in their court. The rebranding and additions have to come out of manpower hours that are not being compensated for. The company not getting a penny to offer any one of us the rebrand for no charge.
 
Feel your point, and it is real, legitimate.
 
Different set of rules now with the death and resurrection of Sonar. These guys have gone beyond the crude business model and offered something that gets respect in my book.
 
John

It's Bandlab's prerogative to burn, shred, mutilate or give away this code base since they bought it.
You're not out anything. Use it.
 

Cakewalk never screwed anybody. The Lifetime thing was an attempt to make Sonar viable. It was Cakewalk's idea. Unfortunately, Gibson pulled the plug. They are the only logical object of anyone's anger. Their poor management is what caused this, not Cakewalk, not the quality of Sonar as software, and surely not Bandlab. They are saviors in this whole drama. So, direct your anger where it belongs. And it's nobody on this forum, or Cakewalk, or Bandlab.

For the life of me I cannot fathom why anyone would be in the slightest bit bothered that Sonar is now free. When you bought it, things were different. It was a paid product, and the owners had no intention of making it free. Now it's owned by someone else, and that person wants to make it free. Nobody's ripped you off, or pulled wool over your eyes, or pulled a rug from underneath you, or disrespected you or anything else. 
 
Honestly man the whining and moaning at Bandlab is starting to seriously p*** me off. It's pathetic. Grown adults whimpering like kids and acting like some major injustice has been perpetrated. Before Bandlab came on the scene you had NOTHING regarding any kind of definite future for Sonar. It might have just died and been swept into the trashcan of history forever. It got saved at the last minute by a company which sounds like they have a great attitude and who frankly, may well make a success out of Sonar where Roland and Gibson failed. And what happens? The hissing and scratching starts. Nothing is good enough. Bandlab's plan isn't tailor made for my tastes so I'm going to stomp and bang my fists and act like the whole world's against me. Right now we have people whining that 32-bit isn't going to be supported, people whining about there not being an offline activation and people whining that it's going to be free (which has ZERO effect on anything they do with the program). 
 
I know this is going to sound like a cliche but this is one of those moments when you just have to take stock of your life and think about what most of what the human race has to put up with on a daily basis and thank your lucky stars that a piece of software being given away free is the kind of thing that's liable to ruin your day. Damn. 

Lots of folk come to these threads and write about being Cakewalk users since it was delivered on floppies. Some complain about how much they have had to pay for upgrades over the years. Well, what I have paid for Cakewalk products since the DOS days doesn't even come close to the thousands I have spent on Computers. I have a dinosaur exhibit in my garage that cost more than a new car. A really nice friggin car.
 
My point is simple. I have no problem at all that the software I paid a significant amount of money for is now free; because the alternative was for it to be worthless. Abandonware like all the other crap that fills the drives on those old computers.