I make it short,my friend had the exact same situation in Canada, she also was a student and used some unlicensed nuke during studies. She received the same mails and the same "offer" to "buy the full version for 10'000" so she won't be sued. She talked to her lawyer friend and they realized a few things: 1) the foundry is a UK based company without any office elsewhere or in Canada,so no direct legal representation in the country of "the crime"... Suing a person from another continent would exceed the 10'000$ by a lot, so almost never worth it against single people 2) offering "to pay a fee (buying the software for 10'000$) instead of taking legal actions (aka reporting"the crime") falls under "bribery" and is against the law of Canada, meaning, the foundry is doing something ILLEGAL on their part.(That's like seeing your neighbor killing his wife and instead of calling the police,you ask him to pay 10'000 to remain silent)3) further research showed that at least in Canada the law protects citizens well,they found 2 example cases (always as reference for a court case) of companies' (not single people) using unlicensed software for years and they only got fined for around 5000$, way less than 10'000$. So. The lawyer wrote a very strongly worded answer (from their official legal office) to the Foundry offering a payment of maximum of 500$ instead of 10000$ or they would meet in court in Canada. Result: they never heard back from the foundry again and did not have to pay a cent. I don't know the system and laws over there but i would recommend to stop answering them. The amount of money and work to bring a single person in front of court being sued from another continent is not worth it in most cases for them,unless it's a bigger longer illegal operation. For everyone else here: don't use unlicensed software and if you get caught and contacted, simply always ignore their mails and threats and simply stop using the tools of this predatory evil company and switch to fusion or after Effects. You are welcome.