Seems like there are lots of academic versions of FCP for sale on Ebay, may listed as unregistered. This may have already come up, but what is the down side of buying an academic version this way? Seems too good to be true.

Any horror stories out there?

As a student, I purchased an academic version to learn the program. Coming out of school, I contacted Apple to see if I could upgrade to the commercial version and they said that there was no upgrade path. You have to buy a full retail version to upgrade to any future retail versions.

I was able to purchase an unregistered, retail version of FCP 2 from someone that had an extra copy for around $100. I've heard that you can purchase legitimate retail versions for as little as $150 from some software companies or maybe find it on ebay. It will ultimately save you a few hundred bucks in the end.

Although I haven't run into this, I've been told that companies may ask if you own retail versions of tools one uses to create a film or content, to make sure that any issues with proper clearance are resolved. Maybe someone can comment on this...

See the discussion in the following thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39221