As a follow-up to my recent blog announcing the CorelDRAW Memberships, I wanted to provide additional information based on some of the questions I got so far. You will also be able to find a lot more information on the Corel.com CorelDRAW product information page, including a detailed FAQ document.

What is Update 1, and what versions of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 can I install it on?

Update 1, also known as X6.1 is the new name for what we previously called “Service Pack 1”. This update can be installed on any version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 (Full, Upgrade, Academic, Corporate license, …) and will provide the enhancements and fixes you would normally have received with a service pack, plus a lot more as part of our new CorelDRAW Memberships Program (more on this below). To install X6.1, you will need to have a free Corel.com account. You already have one if you downloaded Corel Website Creator X6 for example, or registered a previous product, and you can simply create one from within the product if you don’t.

What is the new CorelDRAW Membership Program?

The CorelDRAW Membership Program offers are additional options to those who have purchased CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6. The Standard Membership is free for anyone who purchased X6, and includes fixes plus access to the online content. The main difference with the new Membership Program is that a Corel.com account will be required as what we historically called "Service Packs" will only be available to those who have purchased CorelDRAW.

The Premium Membership, which has a yearly cost, adds a lot more including premium online content, early access to new features as well as upgrades to the next major releases at no extra cost. Pricing of the Premium Membership is about 1/2 the price of the upgrade, so that over two years, you will have paid about the same as the upgrade (in some sense, you will have pre-paid for the upgrade) plus all the additional access to the extra benefits from the Premium Membership.

Who can get a Standard Membership?

Anyone who purchased the Full, Upgrade or Education version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 as a box or as a software download version is eligible to sign-up for a free CorelDRAW Standard Membership. If you have a trial version, an OEM version or a multi-seat license version, you are not eligible for the Standard Membership (we plan to add a Standard Membership option to those who purchase multi-seat license versions in the future though).

Who can get the Premium Membership?

Anyone who purchased the Full or Upgrade version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 as a box or as a software download version can sign-up for a CorelDRAW Premium Membership. This means that if you have a Trial, Education, OEM, Not-For-Resale or multi-seat license version, you are not eligible for the Premium Membership (we plan to add a Premium Membership option to those who purchase multi-seat license versions in the future though).

With the new Membership Program, am I loosing anything from what I had before?

We are not removing anything from our existing product offering going forward, but instead are adding additional options that users who have purchased a full or upgrade box / download version can choose from. We do understand that not everyone will be interested in the Premium Membership and it is a choice that is available to you as a user. We are not forcing any of our users to become members, we want our customers to go with the option that best suits with their needs.

I purchased CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6, will I need to pay extra to get fixes (previously known as Service Packs)?

No, fixes and what we previously called “service packs” will be made available to everyone with a Standard Membership which is free. CorelDRAW X6 customers who have a multi-seat license agreement with Corel will also be able to get the fixes / service packs at no additional cost going forward.

Premium Membership will include early access to new features and major version upgrades, do you have more information?

Future updates, starting with X6.2 that we plan to launch before the end of 2012, will include fixes / service packs for both Standard and Premium Members. In addition, there will be additional early access to new features for Premium Members included in X6.2.  In addition, there will be no extra cost to get the next major release (X7) if you have an active Premium Membership. For those with a Standard Membership, you will be able to purchase the X7 upgrade.

What happens if I do not renew my Premium Membership when it expires?

The product you purchased as a box or download version is a perpetual license and will never time out. On the other side, the benefits you get with a Premium Membership (premium content, early access to new features, extra services, ...) will be linked to having an active premium membership and therefore these benefits will stop if you don't renew your premium membership when it expires. When the Premium Membership expires, you will revert back to the free Standard Membership.

In other words, early access to new features as well as access to the premium content requires an active Premium Membership. If you do not get value out of the benefits included with a Premium Membership, then we provide you with the option either not  to sign-up or not to renew you Premium Membership. If you decides not to renew your Premium Membership after the release of X6.3 sometime next year for example, your desktop software features will revert back to the X6.1 level (e.g. what is included with a Standard Membership) plus all the fixes that were included with X6.2 and X6.3.

Now regarding the premium content. You do not need to be connected to the internet permanently to use the premium content, but you need to be connected to the Internet to download it. Once a piece of premium clipart has been downloaded from our content server and is included within one of your graphics, you will never lose that clipart, even if you are no longer a premium member... it stays in your graphic and you can continue to use it. Same for the stock photos. For the premium fonts, the fonts that have been installed on your system will remain fully functional if you decide to stop your Premium Membership, but you won't get access to the fonts you didn't install before the expiry of your Premium Membership. What you lose is access to the online content, not to the local copy you have in your documents / on your system.

What about major new versions part of Premium Membership?

We want to make sure that legitimate and honest customers get the most value out of choosing a Premium Membership, and understand that if you purchased a perpetual license of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, you most certainly will want to remain on a perpetual license. This is the reason why our plan is to provide you with a perpetual X7 license to anyone with an ongoing active Premium Membership. But if you had X6 for a long time and then the week we announce X7 you try to sign-up for a Premium Membership in X6 to get X7 at a much reduced price, you will not be eligible for the X7 upgrade.

What about the CorelDRAW / Corel PHOTO-PAINT file formats?

There will be no difference in file format for the X6 cycle, which means that a file created by someone with a Premium Membership can be opened by someone with a Standard Membership and vice-versa. Users with Standard Membership will be able open, export, print and save the files from a user with Premium Membership. The only comment is that they may not be able to edit all the graphics in the file since they won't have access to the Premium-only features (we will do our best to minimize this anyway).

Do I need a permanent Internet connection to use CorelDRAW Memberships?

We've designed the whole system so that people who do not have a permanent Internet connection can still use and benefit from a Standard and Premium Membership, especially the early access of new features. As pointed out above, you need an Internet connection to search and get the content, but once that content is on your system / in your document, there is no need for an internet connection. Premium Features will also continue to work even if you don't have a permanent Internet connection. CorelDRAW will want to confirm from time to time that you still have a valid Membership, but as long as you stay signed-in to the applications (even without an Internet connection) all the benefits that do not rely on an Internet server will still work.

What about trial versions?

Now that the content is available online and no longer physically on a DVD disc, anyone who downloads the trial of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite available at http://www.corel.com/coreldraw will be able to browse and search for Standard and Premium content. Trial users will only be able to access watermarked versions of the content (low-res bitmaps in the case of clipart) and won’t be able to download the fonts on their system, but we will keep a link to the actual data on our server in the Corel CONNECT tray and in your CorelDRAW document, so that when they buy the full product, they will be able to right-click on the watermarked version in CorelDRAW and replace that "comp" with the original version from the server.

The same is true for the Premium content if you are a standard member or haven’t renewed your premium membership: If you don't have an active Premium Membership, you will be able to get the watermarked version of the premium content but not the actual high-res / vector version.

What about CorelDRAW Subscription?

In addition the options available with CorelDRAW Memberships to those who purchase a full or upgrade version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 (box or download), we will also be progressively rolling out an option to subscribe to CorelDRAW. The CorelDRAW Subscription will include a full Premium Membership in addition to the desktop software as long as you maintain an active subscription. While we understand that “renting” software is not for everyone, it's just another choice that we offer now as we know some of our users would prefer not to have the initial cost of purchasing a perpetual license.The CorelDRAW Subscription is another choice available to our customers. You will be able to get a CorelDRAW Subscription on a month-to-month basis or on a yearly basis from Corel, and we are working closely with our channel partners to make the yearly subscription available through them as well in the coming months.

Should I get the Premium Membership or a Subscription?

We want to offer our customers the choice to pick the solution that best suits their needs. If you are not interested in the benefits of a Premium Membership, we won't force you to go with it. Feel free to get the free Standard Membership instead. One of the guiding principles throughout the design of the CorelDRAW Membership Program has been that we want to provide our customers with additional choice, not to entice you to go down a path you don’t want. If you prefer to purchase a perpetual license of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, that’s fine and you can choose to add the Premium Membership on top if you so wish. If you would rather subscribe to CorelDRAW and have a lower initial cost, we’re providing you with that option as well.

What about the license agreement and the terms of service?

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 and all the updates for X6 (the desktop software) will continue to be governed by the terms of the End User License Agreement (EULA). The one in X6.1 is identical to the one that came with with X6. This is the license that you have to read and agree upon in order to be able to install the application / the update. The latest version of the EULA is available at http://www.corel.com/eula and within the product from Help > About.

Because the new membership levels include online services, we are adding a new "Terms of Service" (TOS) that will cover, as its name implies, the services includes with the membership and subscription options going forward. They are separate from the EULA as these are not mandatory (only if you sign-up for a membership or a subscription). You can get access to the latest version of the TOS at http://www.corel.com/tos.

Finally, we are committed to your privacy and will continue to follow strictly the terms of our privacy policy available at http://www.corel.com/privacy.

Can I use my license and/or my membership on more than one computer?

Our End User License Agreement provide with more details about how many devices you can install one copy of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite on. Memberships are following the same usage rule, and there is a limit of how many computers can have a valid membership assigned to in sync with our EULA. If you want to move your license and your membership to another computer, you will need to make sure you remain signed-in CorelDRAW on the old system with a valid Internet connection and de-install CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 from that machine. This will de-authorize this machine and enable you to install your license / membership on another machine.