They can't hope to, it'd be hugely uneconomical. Look at the RIAA's strategy of picking randoms and making painful examples of them and expect the same to happen where they can prove people who might use it commercially installed the software. Possibly even go after the news outlets, anything could happen.
Effective December 13, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 products and Acrobat 7 because of a technical glitch. These products were released over 7 years ago and do not run on many modern operating systems. But to ensure that any customers activating those old versions can continue to use their software, we issued a serial number directly to those customers. While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers.
They state that the key was issued directly to those customers but this seems like it's basically an honor system.
I don't think anybody, adobe included, knows really what the legality of usage is at this point...
So, I totally downloaded PS and Illustrator CS2 for the heck of it, in case for some reason I'd need the installers down the line, but I didn't have to sign in to my account or register for anything.
Mistake or not, the whole internet have already downloaded the softwares, and the thing is growing and growing. And since they are provide by Adobe site itself, with serial number, I don't think there's nothing they can do to obbligate people to uninstal the softwares by now. Technicaly, its not piracy. You can judge this by their announcement, that is pretty vague. It says it wasn't the intention to give aways the CS2 suite, but didn't say you can't grab the files/serials and install in your computer for free.
Of course Adobe's lawyers must be working hard by now, to find a solution for this big mess. Let's see what happens next days.
Its an unfortunate situation but simply blaming adobe doesn't absolve anyone of stealing this, should they knowingly continue to use it.
Aside from egg on their face, I dont think this is much of an issue. Folks inclined to steal the software are more likely to download the latest release and crack it.
TBH I think the original intention was very well meaining. They're shutting down the CS2 server and decided to make sure their users could continue to use their still working, perfectly good software.. shame it backfired.
Adobe didn't take its download servers down. It's like if they want people download more and more. Don't you think if this weren't the intention, they already had cut conections?
Why not simply e-mailing serial numbers for those who purchased the software and ask the company? Why to put them publicy, where everyone could grab? Adobe's guys can't be so stupid this way.
And technically it's not stealing, the site is there, public, for everyone who wants to download and use the serial. No other companies is doing such a strange thing like this now. Stealing is when you use some fail on the company system, or stolen passwords, keygens, etc.
Aside from egg on their face, I dont think this is much of an issue. Folks inclined to steal the software are more likely to download the latest release and crack it.
TBH I think the original intention was very well meaining. They're shutting down the CS2 server and decided to make sure their users could continue to use their still working, perfectly good software.. shame it backfired.
Completely agreed. I downloaded the files but after reading the Forbes article etc., I feel very little reason to actually install it. It's not a legit version released by Adobe. So, like Fletch said, for those that are still inclined, will probably still go with 6 or whatever they're at now.
Pity. Ah well. Back to My Paint/Krita and (euuggghh) Gimp for me. I think a decent alternative to Flash is a massive gap in the Open Source market, would have been nice to have had a legit version.
On the bright side, My Paint 1.1 is looking sweeeet. Looking forward to a Windows version.
I had been using a legit license of Photoshop CS2 on Windows Vista for years and it seemed to work fine. A free copy of Illustrator and Premiere would've been nice... Ah well I guess I'll hold onto the downloads I managed to get for a little while in case Adobe decides to change it's mind.
It's a shame that it wasn't Adobe's intent to give their CS2 product line away for free. So I guess morally it would be wrong to use these downloads, and legally it seems to be a rather grey area as well
I would imagine if Adobe had meant to give these products away for free the move would've sunk a lot of it's competitor's product lines like Corel PantShop Pro, Painter, etc... even Adobe's own Photoshop Elements. I hope this snafu won't hurt Corel and others anyway.
Its an unfortunate situation but simply blaming adobe doesn't absolve anyone of stealing this, should they knowingly continue to use it.
Every post I could find with downloads linked straight to adobes website, if they wanted to stop it they could have just pulled the files offline then the keys would have been useless unless other people reuploaded it at which point they could have sent out DMCA takedown notices.
They had options. But they chose to not only leave the files online, but they put the page with the keys back up too after having taken it down earlier today.
The page with the keys doesn't even explicitly state who the intended users are. Only the blog post states it.
Bibendum, they did that specifically for the original intention; to support existing CS2 licence holders.
Not sure how they can be criticized for that. How many games companies annoy the hell out of legit customers trying, and failing, to stop pirates? Yeah, lots. Adobe didn't do that, and fair fucks to them for that.
Andreas: I'm not trying to criticize them I was trying to illustrate that they seem to have just accepted that this has happened and aren't going to fight it. This is more opportunism than it is theft.
Adobe didn't take its download servers down. It's like if they want people download more and more. Don't you think if this weren't the intention, they already had cut conections?
^^ THIS ^^
It's still online as of 11pm EST. No notice of how it's for registered users only. Just "become a Creative Cloud member" advertisement, download links, and serial numbers. That's it. And putting the old school system requirements of XP and PPC makes it seem like they're so antique that you absolutely have to upgrade to CC or CS6. I've got older versions that still run beautifully on my fancy Win8 i7-3930x system.
I don't think that it's going offline any time soon. If Adobe wanted to kill it then it would've been offline hours or days ago. If they wanted to make it more secure or validate user authenticity then they'd have done that too. Too late to undo it all.
Keeping and using your d/l might not be in the spirit of what Adobe intended, but I don't think that it's illegal in the least. Short of saying the word "free", they set themselves up for this at every step. Adobe's got no ground to pursue anybody. Legal, but capitalizing on somebody's mistake - assuming that it even is one.
Guys, it's stealing. Just because they didn't put it behind lock and key doesn't mean they meant for everyone to have it. It's like if a girl wears a tight dress in public, it doesn't necessarily mean she wants your creepy ass to be the one to make comments about it. Sure everyone can see the dress she's wearing, but she really only wants CERTAIN people to pay attention, and you just might not be one of those people. Same with Adobe.
Did you like my analogy? Then like me on facebook and follow me on Twitter. Rate commend and subscribe me on my new youtube channel as well.
Still not buying into the idea that it's stealing. I know what you're saying, but the evidence doesn't suggest piracy.
1. Adobe publicly posted serials AND download links to activation free installers.
2. Adobe made no attempt to say that these files were for registered users only; If anything, they made them available to literally anybody with an AdobeID.
3. Their own license says "obtain" instead of "purchase", which is damaging.
4. When this went viral, Adobe made no effort to correct the legitimate news media. Sites like Forbes & Gizmodo had to sort this all out themselves and guess that maybe it was a mistake. Adobe could have issued a formal statement to these outlets. They could've invoked the DMCA to keep unauthorized users from getting CS2. Adobe did absolutely NONE of that.
5. When Adobe discovered this "error", they made no attempt to secure the links, verify ownership, or change the language on the download page to reinforce the "proper" notion that this was for paid users only. This stuff is still online, as-is, and with no disclaimer.
6. Adobe's (all too late) statement is halfhearted at best. Essentially, Adobe is saying, "This is meant for paying customers only, but we really can't and won't stop you if you download it. It's probably too old to care." Their official statement and stance on the issue isn't anywhere near the download page. It's buried in their forum and an odd link.
There might not be anything there that says "free for everybody", but there's also nothing that says "free for only some". Glass half full or glass half empty. You decide. Either way, Adobe dug themselves a very deep hole of ambiguity. It's a virtual Schrödinger's cat of software - simultaneously free and not - because of how they handled it or failed to.
It's not a situation of them "asking for it". It's a situation that they created and have thus far failed to rectify. And they won't. Probably. Cat's out of the bag and that's that.
Seriously. This wouldn't be the first time a company has screwed the pooch like this. It just so happens that it's Adobe's turn.
Here's another way to think about it:
Suppose I throw money by the handful into the street. I don't say that it's free, but I also don't say that it's not. I toss it out there by the ton. Do you take it or do you just leave it? Did you steal from me or did I implicitly give it to you? Can I ask for it back ex post facto?
In essence, that's exactly what Adobe has done. It's creative abandonment. Tossing money into the street and not expecting people to grab it is naive. Calling it "theft" is unrealistic too.
I wonder if Photoshop CS2 will still be any useful in indie game development..... Hopefully better than GIMP 2 (Which I somehow doubt).
it should be useful for any development. i use CS2 for my daily work and do not plan to upgrade for a long time... though 64-bit support would be nice.
So like, are we cool to use it or what. They are stil being pretty vague... they specify this is for customers but they also don't state that non-customers are not allowed to redeem these. Methinks the cat is out of the bag.
Guys, it's stealing. Just because they didn't put it behind lock and key doesn't mean they meant for everyone to have it. It's like if a girl wears a tight dress in public, it doesn't necessarily mean she wants your creepy ass to be the one to make comments about it. Sure everyone can see the dress she's wearing, but she really only wants CERTAIN people to pay attention, and you just might not be one of those people. Same with Adobe.
Did you like my analogy? Then like me on facebook and follow me on Twitter. Rate commend and subscribe me on my new youtube channel as well.
It's hardly stealing. If I put a magic barrel of infinite apples in front of my house and people started taking apples, would I be justified to accuse them of stealing? What was stolen? Do I suddenly have less of something I had a moment ago? No, I have exactly what I did before. I have a magic barrel of infinite apples.
Adobe has the right to distribute that software and that's what they're doing. It might go against what they want, but it doesn't change the fact that they are distributing it to anyone who is willing to download it. They are making it available, so anyone who downloads and uses it should be held blameless. There's nothing illegal about it.
based on the blog it sounds like only those with serials should be using it.. even though everyone who downloaded it can now
That also seems to be the gist of the post by Adobe's own Terri Stone. Not that Terri is the final word, but nobody more official has corrected here yet if that suggestion is off-base.
It's hardly stealing. If I put a magic barrel of infinite apples in front of my house and people started taking apples, would I be justified to accuse them of stealing? What was stolen? Do I suddenly have less of something I had a moment ago? No, I have exactly what I did before. I have a magic barrel of infinite apples.
Well, then you have a lot of people who would have payed you for an apple, but now have one, so they don't need to. But... it cost you a lot to make those apples, so now, you're at a significant deficit.
the bible told us that 50% of humanity would download it after some snake convincing , and the other 50% after someone else already downloaded, even if its punished hard
Well, then you have a lot of people who would have payed you for an apple, but now have one, so they don't need to. But... it cost you a lot to make those apples, so now, you're at a significant deficit.
That's kinda the point of all piracy. (??)
No, that's the idea of people thinking that since they worked on something and put money into it, they are owed a livelihood by default. That's entitlement. There's no social obligation to be compensated. If you create something and put it up where people can download it when you really intended it to be purchased, that's no one's fault but your own. You can't complain that it deprived you of potential income. That's asinine. You can't claim a loss on what you never had. That would be exactly like me expecting $1 million for each copy of this comment and for every person who reads it for free, I claim I lost that much money. I'm not losing equity worth $1 million, I just have people bypassing my will. Instead of paying the one million, they just read my comment and I flail impotently. (By the way, I accept cash and checks )
The fact remains that Adobe is making it available, so they should just suck it up and admit they are giving it away or take it down. Complaining is pointless because by their act of distribution, they are authorizing the download of the software. The use of the software might be a different story. However, once downloaded, it matters little.
The fact remains that Adobe is making it available, so they should just suck it up and admit they are giving it away or take it down.
The only part of your post that makes any sense, and I fully agree with you on this. :poly124:
(By the way, you are on a game art forum, stating that people who make a product with the purpose of making money from it once finished, are acting entitled? Hmm.)
If anything, this does show that there is definitely a market for older versions of popular, big software packages like this. I'm sure if they charged less than 100 for a legal license, a lot of people would still jump on this. Everybody who downloaded this must have owned a pirated version of this software at some point, but the idea that your software is legal, is what appealed to people.
It's almost silly that companies like Autodesk and Adobe just abandon their older versions and don't even allow you to purchase it anymore. Max 2009 anyone ?
Now that Adobe understood that it can't go back, the smartest thing it could do is offer a irrefusable price for everybody who downloaded the old software upgrade to CS6. But judging by their poor behavior, annoucements, and lack of vision, they won't be so wise.
Now that Adobe understood that it can't go back, the smartest thing it could do is offer a irrefusable price for everybody who downloaded the old software upgrade to CS6. But judging by their poor behavior, annoucements, and lack of vision, they won't be so wise.
So because they have already potentially lost a fair bit of cash due to lost sales (conjecture, but likely) you think they should... deliberately lose more cash by offering upgrades cheaper than full entry fee? Why? How does this benefit them?
I think if they just came out and said 'grand, you can use CS2, have at it', that would be more than fair enough on their part.
I am getting a giggle out of the fact that the mac versions are powerPC only versions though. :poly124: Mac users will be raging.
Why would they offer cheap upgrades to expensive products for no reason? Just let people buy CS2 keys for $50 and they'll make tons of money that they would have never seen otherwise.
Well I think that ship has sailed d :P But say, if they offered that deal for whichever version introduced 3D, I'd buy one definitely. They should definitely be taking notice of this, plenty of people are saying this. Hopefully they (and maybe Autodesk) actually learn something out of this mess.
So because they have already potentially lost a fair bit of cash due to lost sales (conjecture, but likely) you think they should... deliberately lose more cash by offering upgrades cheaper than full entry fee? Why? How does this benefit them?
I think if they just came out and said 'grand, you can use CS2, have at it', that would be more than fair enough on their part.
It's hypotetical, Andreas. Adobe will never do this. But I mean it would be a good catch to reduce the number of pirated cppies around the world. And assure fidelity with next upgrades (cs7, 8...).
But I'm not marketing analyst, I'm just a guy exposing his thoughts on a forum. Maybe, like you said, if they simply admit everyone can use cs2 freely, this alone would help selling cs6 much more.
They should sell cs6 with an affordable price, like microsoft did with Windows 8 ( i bought it for 15 euros, when windows 7 was 160 euros!).
Photoshop cs6 is around 1000 euros, way too expensive when the creative suite 6 master edition is around 3700 euros. They should charge like 10 times less for each individual app bought separately.
You can also looking at it this way, that Adobe can use its advertising for their products, and spread out to many people, who then get 'hooked' on the freebie. And then there is Adobe with the newer versions, with more features that people want, and now a large market who already know its products.
Perhaps off-topic but...I subscribe to Adobe cloud. 50$/month and I can use the latest version of any Adobe product.
When you calculate, it'd take 2 years at that rate to even pay for a standalone license of Photoshop, nevermind all the other apps. So, its a pretty good deal, IMO.
except that it's also £53.20 per month excluding VAT... which is £63.84 per month for us brits.
which means we're actually paying $102.69 per month.
now, why the fuck would i want to pay double what you're paying, for a digital product where there's no physical handling, shipping, import or other costs involved? no wonder europeans don't want to buy their shit.
It's hardly stealing. If I put a magic barrel of infinite apples in front of my house and people started taking apples, would I be justified to accuse them of stealing? What was stolen? Do I suddenly have less of something I had a moment ago? No, I have exactly what I did before. I have a magic barrel of infinite apples.
This really is the whole argument against piracy = theft. If there was no infinite barrel of apples you surely would have gone to the grocery store and bought some at some point right? That's how Apple orchard owners make their living, you're depriving them of their primary source of income by taking from the magic barrel of infinite apples.
Of course in this particular case it's the orchard owners themselves that left the infinite barrel out for anyone to take from.
This really is the whole argument against piracy = theft. If there was no infinite barrel of apples you surely would have gone to the grocery store and bought some at some point right? That's how Apple orchard owners make their living, you're depriving them of their primary source of income by taking from the magic barrel of infinite apples.
Of course in this particular case it's the orchard owners themselves that left the infinite barrel out for anyone to take from.
Plus the infinite barrel contains old apples, compared to the fresh ones in the store front.
i already use cs2 so this isn't a huge change for me, but i wouldn't have known about these EOL licenses if not for this blow-up so I'm actually happy that it happened.
I don't see this as an open invite for people to use it. I own a lot of smaller digital tools and almost all of them have a (secret) simple static download page that anyone can access. to derive from this that the developers want everyone to download their tools for free seems really unfair, as it's rather about not inconveniencing existing customers, and yet people are blaming adobe for this in some strange ass-backwards moral perpetrator rationalization.
i already use cs2 so this isn't a huge change for me, but i wouldn't have known about these EOL licenses if not for this blow-up so I'm actually happy that it happened.
I don't see this as an open invite for people to use it. I own a lot of smaller digital tools and almost all of them have a (secret) simple static download page that anyone can access. to derive from this that the developers want everyone to download their tools for free seems really unfair, as it's rather about not inconveniencing existing customers, and yet people are blaming adobe for this in some strange ass-backwards moral perpetrator rationalization.
I agree!
What people don't want to do is think things through rationally. Why on earth would Adobe give away all of this awesome stuff and not blitz the entire CG world with tons of PR in order to receive all the credit for it? Why would they leave the issue this confused? No way did they plan for this, intend this to happen in such a clumsy fashion.
If you were Adobe you'd be all over web trying to soak up the love from all the people enjoying their freebies.
I don't see this as an open invite for people to use it. I own a lot of smaller digital tools and almost all of them have a (secret) simple static download page that anyone can access. to derive from this that the developers want everyone to download their tools for free seems really unfair, as it's rather about not inconveniencing existing customers, and yet people are blaming adobe for this in some strange ass-backwards moral perpetrator rationalization.
That is the boggling conundrum isn't it, the way other developers guard their sales is by closely guarding their serial numbers, but Adobe put the serials right on the download page.
There are no hoops to jump through its actually harder to give them money for the older software than it is to get it from them for free. Their new business model is built on subscriptions instead of guarding serial keys.
They know their serial based versions are hacked to high hell and back and its why they are switching to a subscription based business model, they know its easier to control and easier to catch people daring to steal it and they know they can improve the security of that model going forward.
It also gives them a steady stream of revenue even if they aren't releasing new products, where before they had to constantly release new things and hope no one hacked it.
I suspect they've lost so much to piracy that they are considering this the price of cutting their losses with the old serial system.
Adobe was taking it's CS2 servers offline permanently and wanted to make sure that CS2 license holders could keep using that software. The only way to do that was to provide a free serial number that anyone could have access to, but they never specified that only people who previously held the license should be accessing it and they also had no way of authenticating if you were a person who previously held said license (because the servers were gone?)
It seems like they would get far less inquiries for help installing where they could give out a specific downloads that expire and a key to only work with that one download.
They could take the time to verified customers who contact them instead of just putting it out there for the world to pick over. That's like tech support 101, if they looked at that and said it was too much trouble, they really must not care at all.
If they aren't bothering to do anything about the hole they shot in the foot other than say "its just a flesh wound" then it's their loss. At the bare min they could take the page down and kill the download links causing people to have to redistribute it illegally but they aren't even doing that...
Only if you payed for it (as far as Adobe and most software developers are concerned).
But they have removed all verification and put together the laziest possible solution, next to doing nothing.
They are a movie theater employee that got tired of taking tickets, opened the door and threw the tickets on the sidewalk and then walked away. However I wouldn't be surprised if their apathy is caused by the steady stream of people already getting in through the fire exit... and they are too busy counting their cash at the new theater that they opened last year.
They should have taken the ball and ran with it. That would have been great PR and they would have had a ton of people on legit software and ready for pay for upgrades or subscriptions. Instead they did the usual stodgy thing of trying to get the toothpaste back into the tube.
Replies
They posted this to the adobe blog:
They state that the key was issued directly to those customers but this seems like it's basically an honor system.
I don't think anybody, adobe included, knows really what the legality of usage is at this point...
That normal?
Guys if you already own later versions of the suite please consider letting those who don't use the very limited bandwidth. :thumbup:
Got mine downloaded, will install when I get back home, seems involved.
So what's the story with this, not legit?
Of course Adobe's lawyers must be working hard by now, to find a solution for this big mess. Let's see what happens next days.
Aside from egg on their face, I dont think this is much of an issue. Folks inclined to steal the software are more likely to download the latest release and crack it.
TBH I think the original intention was very well meaining. They're shutting down the CS2 server and decided to make sure their users could continue to use their still working, perfectly good software.. shame it backfired.
Why not simply e-mailing serial numbers for those who purchased the software and ask the company? Why to put them publicy, where everyone could grab? Adobe's guys can't be so stupid this way.
And technically it's not stealing, the site is there, public, for everyone who wants to download and use the serial. No other companies is doing such a strange thing like this now. Stealing is when you use some fail on the company system, or stolen passwords, keygens, etc.
Completely agreed. I downloaded the files but after reading the Forbes article etc., I feel very little reason to actually install it. It's not a legit version released by Adobe. So, like Fletch said, for those that are still inclined, will probably still go with 6 or whatever they're at now.
Pity. Ah well. Back to My Paint/Krita and (euuggghh) Gimp for me. I think a decent alternative to Flash is a massive gap in the Open Source market, would have been nice to have had a legit version.
On the bright side, My Paint 1.1 is looking sweeeet. Looking forward to a Windows version.
It's a shame that it wasn't Adobe's intent to give their CS2 product line away for free. So I guess morally it would be wrong to use these downloads, and legally it seems to be a rather grey area as well
Wikipedia's article on Abandonware is interesting, though it doesn't offer much clarity to the situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware
I would imagine if Adobe had meant to give these products away for free the move would've sunk a lot of it's competitor's product lines like Corel PantShop Pro, Painter, etc... even Adobe's own Photoshop Elements. I hope this snafu won't hurt Corel and others anyway.
They had options. But they chose to not only leave the files online, but they put the page with the keys back up too after having taken it down earlier today.
The page with the keys doesn't even explicitly state who the intended users are. Only the blog post states it.
It's hard to call this piracy, let alone theft...
Not sure how they can be criticized for that. How many games companies annoy the hell out of legit customers trying, and failing, to stop pirates? Yeah, lots. Adobe didn't do that, and fair fucks to them for that.
All what i use is 64 bits except Zbrush, so this re-release is pointless for me and for my pipeline/workflow.
It's still online as of 11pm EST. No notice of how it's for registered users only. Just "become a Creative Cloud member" advertisement, download links, and serial numbers. That's it. And putting the old school system requirements of XP and PPC makes it seem like they're so antique that you absolutely have to upgrade to CC or CS6. I've got older versions that still run beautifully on my fancy Win8 i7-3930x system.
I don't think that it's going offline any time soon. If Adobe wanted to kill it then it would've been offline hours or days ago. If they wanted to make it more secure or validate user authenticity then they'd have done that too. Too late to undo it all.
Keeping and using your d/l might not be in the spirit of what Adobe intended, but I don't think that it's illegal in the least. Short of saying the word "free", they set themselves up for this at every step. Adobe's got no ground to pursue anybody. Legal, but capitalizing on somebody's mistake - assuming that it even is one.
EDIT: Welp, doesn't matter anymore whether it's legal or not, I uninstalled it!
Maybe you need a PS2 connection arf arf.
LOL
Guys, it's stealing. Just because they didn't put it behind lock and key doesn't mean they meant for everyone to have it. It's like if a girl wears a tight dress in public, it doesn't necessarily mean she wants your creepy ass to be the one to make comments about it. Sure everyone can see the dress she's wearing, but she really only wants CERTAIN people to pay attention, and you just might not be one of those people. Same with Adobe.
Did you like my analogy? Then like me on facebook and follow me on Twitter. Rate commend and subscribe me on my new youtube channel as well.
1. Adobe publicly posted serials AND download links to activation free installers.
2. Adobe made no attempt to say that these files were for registered users only; If anything, they made them available to literally anybody with an AdobeID.
3. Their own license says "obtain" instead of "purchase", which is damaging.
4. When this went viral, Adobe made no effort to correct the legitimate news media. Sites like Forbes & Gizmodo had to sort this all out themselves and guess that maybe it was a mistake. Adobe could have issued a formal statement to these outlets. They could've invoked the DMCA to keep unauthorized users from getting CS2. Adobe did absolutely NONE of that.
5. When Adobe discovered this "error", they made no attempt to secure the links, verify ownership, or change the language on the download page to reinforce the "proper" notion that this was for paid users only. This stuff is still online, as-is, and with no disclaimer.
6. Adobe's (all too late) statement is halfhearted at best. Essentially, Adobe is saying, "This is meant for paying customers only, but we really can't and won't stop you if you download it. It's probably too old to care." Their official statement and stance on the issue isn't anywhere near the download page. It's buried in their forum and an odd link.
There might not be anything there that says "free for everybody", but there's also nothing that says "free for only some". Glass half full or glass half empty. You decide. Either way, Adobe dug themselves a very deep hole of ambiguity. It's a virtual Schrödinger's cat of software - simultaneously free and not - because of how they handled it or failed to.
It's not a situation of them "asking for it". It's a situation that they created and have thus far failed to rectify. And they won't. Probably. Cat's out of the bag and that's that.
Seriously. This wouldn't be the first time a company has screwed the pooch like this. It just so happens that it's Adobe's turn.
Here's another way to think about it:
Suppose I throw money by the handful into the street. I don't say that it's free, but I also don't say that it's not. I toss it out there by the ton. Do you take it or do you just leave it? Did you steal from me or did I implicitly give it to you? Can I ask for it back ex post facto?
In essence, that's exactly what Adobe has done. It's creative abandonment. Tossing money into the street and not expecting people to grab it is naive. Calling it "theft" is unrealistic too.
it should be useful for any development. i use CS2 for my daily work and do not plan to upgrade for a long time... though 64-bit support would be nice.
So like, are we cool to use it or what. They are stil being pretty vague... they specify this is for customers but they also don't state that non-customers are not allowed to redeem these. Methinks the cat is out of the bag.
It's hardly stealing. If I put a magic barrel of infinite apples in front of my house and people started taking apples, would I be justified to accuse them of stealing? What was stolen? Do I suddenly have less of something I had a moment ago? No, I have exactly what I did before. I have a magic barrel of infinite apples.
Adobe has the right to distribute that software and that's what they're doing. It might go against what they want, but it doesn't change the fact that they are distributing it to anyone who is willing to download it. They are making it available, so anyone who downloads and uses it should be held blameless. There's nothing illegal about it.
That also seems to be the gist of the post by Adobe's own Terri Stone. Not that Terri is the final word, but nobody more official has corrected here yet if that suggestion is off-base.
Well, then you have a lot of people who would have payed you for an apple, but now have one, so they don't need to. But... it cost you a lot to make those apples, so now, you're at a significant deficit.
That's kinda the point of all piracy. (??)
No, that's the idea of people thinking that since they worked on something and put money into it, they are owed a livelihood by default. That's entitlement. There's no social obligation to be compensated. If you create something and put it up where people can download it when you really intended it to be purchased, that's no one's fault but your own. You can't complain that it deprived you of potential income. That's asinine. You can't claim a loss on what you never had. That would be exactly like me expecting $1 million for each copy of this comment and for every person who reads it for free, I claim I lost that much money. I'm not losing equity worth $1 million, I just have people bypassing my will. Instead of paying the one million, they just read my comment and I flail impotently. (By the way, I accept cash and checks
The fact remains that Adobe is making it available, so they should just suck it up and admit they are giving it away or take it down. Complaining is pointless because by their act of distribution, they are authorizing the download of the software. The use of the software might be a different story. However, once downloaded, it matters little.
The only part of your post that makes any sense, and I fully agree with you on this. :poly124:
(By the way, you are on a game art forum, stating that people who make a product with the purpose of making money from it once finished, are acting entitled? Hmm.)
It's almost silly that companies like Autodesk and Adobe just abandon their older versions and don't even allow you to purchase it anymore. Max 2009 anyone ?
So because they have already potentially lost a fair bit of cash due to lost sales (conjecture, but likely) you think they should... deliberately lose more cash by offering upgrades cheaper than full entry fee? Why? How does this benefit them?
I think if they just came out and said 'grand, you can use CS2, have at it', that would be more than fair enough on their part.
I am getting a giggle out of the fact that the mac versions are powerPC only versions though. :poly124: Mac users will be raging.
It's hypotetical, Andreas. Adobe will never do this. But I mean it would be a good catch to reduce the number of pirated cppies around the world. And assure fidelity with next upgrades (cs7, 8...).
But I'm not marketing analyst, I'm just a guy exposing his thoughts on a forum. Maybe, like you said, if they simply admit everyone can use cs2 freely, this alone would help selling cs6 much more.
Photoshop cs6 is around 1000 euros, way too expensive when the creative suite 6 master edition is around 3700 euros. They should charge like 10 times less for each individual app bought separately.
except that it's also £53.20 per month excluding VAT... which is £63.84 per month for us brits.
which means we're actually paying $102.69 per month.
now, why the fuck would i want to pay double what you're paying, for a digital product where there's no physical handling, shipping, import or other costs involved? no wonder europeans don't want to buy their shit.
This really is the whole argument against piracy = theft. If there was no infinite barrel of apples you surely would have gone to the grocery store and bought some at some point right? That's how Apple orchard owners make their living, you're depriving them of their primary source of income by taking from the magic barrel of infinite apples.
Of course in this particular case it's the orchard owners themselves that left the infinite barrel out for anyone to take from.
Plus the infinite barrel contains old apples, compared to the fresh ones in the store front.
I don't see this as an open invite for people to use it. I own a lot of smaller digital tools and almost all of them have a (secret) simple static download page that anyone can access. to derive from this that the developers want everyone to download their tools for free seems really unfair, as it's rather about not inconveniencing existing customers, and yet people are blaming adobe for this in some strange ass-backwards moral perpetrator rationalization.
I agree!
What people don't want to do is think things through rationally. Why on earth would Adobe give away all of this awesome stuff and not blitz the entire CG world with tons of PR in order to receive all the credit for it? Why would they leave the issue this confused? No way did they plan for this, intend this to happen in such a clumsy fashion.
If you were Adobe you'd be all over web trying to soak up the love from all the people enjoying their freebies.
There are no hoops to jump through its actually harder to give them money for the older software than it is to get it from them for free. Their new business model is built on subscriptions instead of guarding serial keys.
They know their serial based versions are hacked to high hell and back and its why they are switching to a subscription based business model, they know its easier to control and easier to catch people daring to steal it and they know they can improve the security of that model going forward.
It also gives them a steady stream of revenue even if they aren't releasing new products, where before they had to constantly release new things and hope no one hacked it.
I suspect they've lost so much to piracy that they are considering this the price of cutting their losses with the old serial system.
Adobe was taking it's CS2 servers offline permanently and wanted to make sure that CS2 license holders could keep using that software. The only way to do that was to provide a free serial number that anyone could have access to, but they never specified that only people who previously held the license should be accessing it and they also had no way of authenticating if you were a person who previously held said license (because the servers were gone?)
It seems like they would get far less inquiries for help installing where they could give out a specific downloads that expire and a key to only work with that one download.
They could take the time to verified customers who contact them instead of just putting it out there for the world to pick over. That's like tech support 101, if they looked at that and said it was too much trouble, they really must not care at all.
If they aren't bothering to do anything about the hole they shot in the foot other than say "its just a flesh wound" then it's their loss. At the bare min they could take the page down and kill the download links causing people to have to redistribute it illegally but they aren't even doing that...
But they haven't because they aren't.
Only if you payed for it (as far as Adobe and most software developers are concerned).
They are a movie theater employee that got tired of taking tickets, opened the door and threw the tickets on the sidewalk and then walked away. However I wouldn't be surprised if their apathy is caused by the steady stream of people already getting in through the fire exit... and they are too busy counting their cash at the new theater that they opened last year.