Adobe to subscribers: Here's a jar of lube. Now, bend over. Whoops, we're taking the jar away.

[thewayne]

I apologize for the crudity.

First, they are "considering" doubling the price of some of their monthly subscriptions from $10 a month to $20. (The Verge) So an annual fee goes from $120 to $240. Ouch. And I believe that's billed as one big chunk, not on a monthly basis.

Now read this, I just found it on Slashdot:
Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers who haven't updated their apps in a while may want to check their inboxes. The software company has sent out emails to customers warning them of being "at risk of potential claims of infringement by third parties" if they continue using outdated versions of CC apps, including Photoshop and Lightroom. From a report:

These emails even list the old applications installed on the subscribers' systems, and in some cases, they mention what the newest available versions are. In a response to a customer complaint on Twitter, the AdobeCare account said users can only download the two most recent variants of CC apps going forward.

A spokesperson said in a statement, "Adobe recently discontinued certain older versions of Creative Cloud applications. Customers using those versions have been notified that they are no longer licensed to use them and were provided guidance on how to upgrade to the latest authorized versions." However, the spokesperson said Adobe can't comment on claims of third-party infringement, as it concerns ongoing litigation.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/05/14/1353209/adobe-warns-creative-cloud-users-with-older-apps-of-legal-problems

This is the problem with renting software. When Adobe went to their rental program however many years ago, I bought full versions of their Creative Suite CS6 and still use it. I'm going to have to figure out what I'm going to do in the future as Apple is drifting towards an architecture change that may require me to lock down my OS version or run Photoshop in a virtual machine, but I'll worry about it when it becomes an issue. Plus, I paid a one-time cost of probably about $500 when the change happened, which I could easily afford then as I was employed. Since that job ended, my employment has been spotty, never lasting more than about 2.5 years, and paying annual subscriptions would have been a real PITB.

Oh, and by the way, if there's a problem with processing your payment through your bank: your software is shut off. And as has happened to someone I know, if you download a trial of a product and uninstall it, it can utterly bork your production apps.

This is also a problem with cloud services and anything encumbered with DRM in general. I received an email a couple of months ago from the movie streaming service Ultraviolet that they were ceasing operations and any movies that I'd bought from them would no longer be available. OH NOES! Now, I could care less. As it happens, the only reason why I had an account with them was because I'd taken all of my movies that came with digital copies and gone on a binge and activated all of them, and a few had gone through Ultraviolet. Now, if I'd paid money for them, I'd be deeply pissed, and I'd be out the money and without the movie. But I did not, and I still have the physical copies. When I buy music, I get a physical CD and rip it myself to MP3. So yes, I'm sort of a belt and suspenders kind of guy. I don't trust companies to take something away and not give a damn whether or not I get screwed in the process.

I am ever so glad I bought that Adobe DVD with all that software on it, and Adobe can fall off the edge of a cliff for all I care.

[/rant]

Comments

[seasonoftowers]

What a nightmare. This is why I avoid using non-open-source tools as much as I can, and never buy DRMed books or music. Bandcamp is pretty good for music - DRM-free .flac downloads are a great thing to have - but things are unfortunately sketchier when it comes to books.

[thewayne]

I buy epubs from the Apple store and then strip the DRM from them and turn them into straight epubs.  Works great, but it's stuck at an earlier version of MacOS.  I can live with that. Check out the Free Music Archive for more free music at http://freemusicarchive.org/, I've used them for music for videos that I've made several times.  Everything's Creative Commons.

[silveradept]

That's basically why I would like to see First Sale Doctrine and many of the things we take for granted with physical goods applied to digital goods, especially the ones that are being used like physical goods.

I'll still be hosed if Steam ever goes up, but since I bought a lot from Humble Bundle, I'll still have the DRM-free copies of at least a few games.

[elf]

I have Photoshop and InDesign CS2 - the ancient versions - because the license codes for those were released to the public when they stopped maintaining the servers for them. (I have CDs for them. I have reinstalled them on several machines since the shutdown.) My job pays for Acrobat Pro CC, and I find it useful enough that I might continue to do so if my job didn't.

I really, really want the new version of InDesign - but not at $21/month, much less at whatever monstrosity they hike it up to. When I've got some money to spare, I'm going to get Quark XPress, because they still actually sell the software, not rent it. (Also XPress allows Color Fonts and InDesign only covers a limited set of them.)

I regret not picking up CS6 when CC came out, but I didn't have the money then, and haven't had it to spare since, so it's a small regret.

[thewayne]

I was fortunate to be able to buy Creative Suites CS6 when CC came out, and boy am I glad I did!  Until last year I was strictly a Mac guy, and last summer a friend gave me a PC gaming laptop - very high end - after my Mac laptop died.  I was then able to buy a nice representative sampling of what's state of the art of Windows non-Adobe photo editing software, and there's definitely a reason why Adobe is top of the pops.  Granted, it's what I was trained in, but from my experience, it's definitely leaps ahead in ease of use.  A couple, and specifically DxO, are really good, and will be serious contenders if I ever have to leave Photoshop. It's really amazing that Quark is still around.  I remember it from absolute ages ago!  No need to get in to it, but I wonder if what you describe as color fonts are what I think it is - I'm not a DTP guy.  Photoshop has great color capability with fonts, I'd be surprised if ID didn't.  But I also have very limited experience with ID.

[elf]

I used Quark a long time ago too, and stopped, and then noticed that they're recently pushing back against Adobe as "the one you can actually own, forever."

Color fonts are fonts where the color blending etc are built in; there are even animated ones. They're effects that can be done in Photoshop or similar, but this way you don't have to create the color effects. (They're like those "glitter effects text" things that you can use online and download a gif, only they're actual text, not images.)

Every few months, I wind up using GIMP for a few hours, and get frustrated with it. It probably has all the features I need, but I can't find anything, and I remember being very frustrated with not having a simple "crop" feature. (I'm sure it exists. It just doesn't work like I expect "crop" to work, and I haven't figure out the settings that do.)

I'm told Scribus is the open-source software replacement for InDesign. I'm also told it has a "steep learning curve" - and if that's compared to ID, it's downright intimidating.

And yeah. There's reasons that Photoshop is top of its industry, and nothing else does what Acrobat Pro does, dammit.

[thewayne]

There's an open source photo editor called Dark Table that DW's Season of Towers is quite fond of, you might give that a look.  Gimp has always driven me nuts.  SoT has gotten some amazing results out of DT, it has a very thriving community.