The serial number does not change.... This is precisely why we don't want you to associate a serial number with a user account on your website. Instead, you can generate a unique device Token on your server and associate that with a user account. During the linking process, this device token is sent to the Roku box and stored in the registry for your channel.

This mechanism allows a factory reset to remove the device token from your registry so that the next owner of the box will need to get a new device token associated with their user account. (If it happens to be the same user, you can update the device token on the user account to the new value).

--Kevin.

OK, I can see that, if I was providing content or a subscription. You wouldn't want the new owner to have access to the previous guys accounts. But in my application, I am just selling the channel and if the Roku gets sold to a third party, I'm the only one out of any money. The only thing I'm keeping is the serial number, no user information.

From a commercial perspective, I don't see how just selling the channel through a one-off fee is viable. Also, from the perspective of setting up the server-side mechanics, using the unique box ID instead of using a unique user ID stored in the box is potentially asking for an administrative nightmare. Roku have made it quite clear that storing the box ID is verboten as far as they are concerned.