One day many years ago I had too many drinks and being stupid and naive and I bought adobe cs5. I still use it on the same computer I installed it a decade ago. Activated and installed only once. Today they revoked the access to it. Clicking the link they say “revoked because purchased from an untrustworthy reseller”
Yeah… untrustworthy reseller, look at the invoice and see who sold&shipped that physical copy…
Contacted support, they said that they won’t do anything about it because it’s EOL.
Moral of the story: don’t do like me. If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing. Never give your money to Adobe.
Send this to Luis Rossman. He’ll have a fieldday with this shit.
Agreed. Definitely send this to Louis. The tirade will be funny, at the very least.
Sent OP’s thread to email on his business’s semi-hidden contact page
(sorry for the spam Louis, lotta us instantly thought of you - hope it translates to some awareness, action, & Adsense revenue)
Nice!
SEND THIS TO LOUIS ROSSMANN. He absolutely will rake them a new one and companies tend to magically “fix” errors in their favor when people make a huge PR stink about it.
It will help bring Adobe down faster too, because unilaterally revoking previously purchased licenses no matter how old is a great way to lose all trust from your corporate customers.
Edit: also cs5 is universally pirated, this is now your legal perogative to pirate it to retain access to the copy you PAID FOR.
I will say that this is horribly fucked, nobody should have to burn through their 15 minutes of Fame in order to receive the basic goods and services that they have paid for.
It feels even dirtier because OP bought a physical copy, that feels so much more like Adobe broke it at night and stole it.
That’s because they did. They stole it, 100%.
Escalate it to the EU consumer watchdog, they got some real teeth.
https://commission.europa.eu/live-work-travel-eu/consumer-rights-and-complaints_en
Assuming you bought the Italian version because you’re living in Italy.
Best case, you get your money back.
I feel like money back in this instance should also account for inflation.
Nah I think that would be a bit too much. After all OP was able to use the software just fine up until now.
If the company is going to claw it back from him against his will, he should be able to name his own price for selling it back to them.
Then the OP just rented the software.
Adobe should pay more than the inflation-adjusted price - multiples of it, even - so that the repayment is actually punative.
But then those years of ‘EU is harming technology evolution’ propaganda would be wasted, and we can’t have investments like that just go to waste
EU, I belive in you!
They were right, they are an untrustworthy seller.
Reminds me of when all their customer data leaked, and obviously the people who pirated didn’t have that issue.
If the program is EOL why do they care if you use it or not? Like fuck thats really a nasty way on making you buy the new software. But you know what? If you are looking for a better version. Translate to Spanish Pirate Artist and you can find it there.
You answered your own question. If OP can’t use it, maybe they’ll buy a subscription, thinks Adobe.
Super scummy.
My elderly parent had this happen. Hobby is photography. Still used CS5. Boom, gone. Adobe wanted to sell a subscription plan when they called to figure out what happened, which just made them mad.
But now they’re sad and not engaging their hobby because they no longer have CS5.
Too bad I can’t get adobe on abuse of the elderly for this shit.
Maybe you can just install a pirated copy for them?
Yes please! This story makes me so sad 😞
I like darktable for photography
Darktable if you’re ok with a steep learning curve, RawTherapee if you prefer an easier-to-use UI with a few less features.
Ya it’s a pretty unique ui and you really need to sit down and take your time to find everything
This is what drives people to piracy. Then they whine about how pirates cost them money.
What’s fumny to me is I remember watching a computer show on TV in late 90s they where interviewing an Adobe representative about the new Photoshop 5.0…
The TV host asked what adobe though about pirated copies and the representative said on LIVE TV that Photoshop price was for professional who make a living out of Photoshop and that any hobbyist had nothing to fear about using a pirated copy as it only served to get more people knowledgable about Photoshop and if these started doing business in photography and neede Photoshop they would then pay for it so to not be unprofessional.
I remember this as well. Their whole stance was that they’d get everyone using Photoshop even if people had to pirate it. That’s part of how it became the industry standard.
Metallica vs. Napster
Same story, retold by adobe
Probably weren’t public by then.
Microsoft low key had the same stance back in the late 80s to mid 90s and it definitely helped cement their dominance.
They didn’t whine about it even once here. They whined about their own untrustworthiness, which I can’t argue with.
This really sucks. As a fellow cs2 user, i switched to krita some years back, perhaps its good enough for your work.
I don’t support piracy of Adobe, because you’re still using their ecosystem and still supporting it by propagating its use. Just stop using their trash, seriously.
What are you talking about? I am using and recommending krita, lol.
he’s piggybacking off your top comment to make his own thoughts more visible. it’s what we in the business call a “pro strat” 😎
Not META?
Affinity is solid, and regularly goes on sale
It’s on sale right now and has a 180-day free trial even if you tried it before.
Yeah well until there’s another ecosystem that comes even close to being as good, I’m going to continue pirating Adobe. None of the alternatives I’ve tried have been deserving of the overwhelming praise I see, they’re all lacking tons of features that PS has had for years.
This reminds me of the time that Malwarebytes revoked 3 of my perpetual licenses that I bought before they moved over to a subscription model. Sorry, I told them I was never going to stop talking shit about them until the day I die, so I take any opportunity to bitch about it
I have a frozen license with them which they’ll reactivate once I give them the receipt information they didn’t send me when I bought it from them…
I’d like to see a clickbaity article about this with a title like “Adobe steals product customer paid for, admits they are an ’ untrustworthy reseller’ of their own products”
“Adobe bans customer for buying from scam retailer Adobe.com”
I need this article
OP please forward this email and your story to Louis Rossman
I recently commented about how much I hate Adobe for their horrible subscription tactics, and the fact that the Canadian government REQUIRES you to use Adobe reader to sign PDFs in order to immigrate to canada.
The last time I complained to them, they offered me a free extended trial in order to make things right. I tried to cancel the free trial on July 10th, and was informed that it would cost $100 to cancel my contract.
I don’t have enough money to hire lawyers, but I am 100% sure what they did was illegal. I have a severe mental health disorder, which resulted in me trying to kill myself after being literally fucking raped by a company. July 10th is also my birthday, which was fucking great. I fucking LOVE me a good corporation, they bring so much joy to the world.
Sorry for the TMI, I fucking hate this company.
the Canadian government REQUIRES you to use Adobe reader to sign PDFs in order to immigrate to canada
This took a few frustrated attempts to discover for me. Moved to Canada last year and while I am a citizen my wife and kids are not. There was a lot of paperwork to fill out and submit and having repeated issues with documents not opening and seeming not to exist was crazy making. I dont normally install Adobe anything on my computers but decided it was worth a try…
Bright side of the story is that after less than a year the family is now all legal and have their PR cards. The Canadian gov can be refreshingly efficient sometimes.
Canada’s kinda a joke tho, were just america cosplaying as europe cause it makes us feel good - but just gives us twice the drawbacks and the rich twice the benefits
(I just want a fucking apartment without going in debt, is that too much to ask)
Fuck Adobe.
I mean, they’re not wrong. Adobe is untrustworthy, after all.
I would love it if you took them to small claims court on this. We all love piracy, but I would also love to see how that case turned out.
