
Why I’ll be Pirating Adobe’s Products From Now On - ifrins
http://parkerrr.com/ill-pirating-adobes-products-now/
======
greenyoda
A guy from Adobe replied in the comments. Apparently Adobe is a bit
uncomfortable with the advice that their support rep gave about downloading a
pirated copy of the software:

 _Hi, your blog post was brought to my attention. After reading this post, I
want to apologize for the way that your issue was handled. Our tech support
agent provided you incorrect information as far “that its OK to download
pirated software”. This is not a company policy suggestion and should not of
been suggested. We prefer to provide you a link to download the Adobe software
from an Adobe server. Downloading pirated content can contain viruses and
cause security issues. I can help you with downloading the software from the
Adobe’s server. I have sent you my email via a private message on your contact
page. Please contact me at your earliest convenience

Thank you

Scott V

Adobe Customer Care

Follow us on @AdobeCare_

~~~
MatthewWilkes
"should not of been suggested"

 _twitch_

~~~
grimtrigger
I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar because of
comments like the one above.

Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?

~~~
sosborn
>I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar

Are you sure about that? Scour any comments section for 10 minutes and it
should be clear that not enough time is being used to perfect
spelling/grammar.

>Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?

No, but that doesn't mean we should settle for the lowest common denominator.

~~~
judk
I think you mean "greatest common factor". "Lowest common denominator" is in
fact the ideal format for clear, accurate expression of computation.

"Lowest common denominator" is what people say when they don't understand what
the original term means, and think "lowest" must be worse than "greatest".

See also: "could care less".

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Lowest common denominator is a phrase with different meanings in different
contexts. It means the LCD in maths (used for simplifying fractional
arithmetic) and it also means the "basest form of something which all members
of a population are able to comprehend/use".

There is a loose commonality in the usage but the term "lowest common
denominator" as used here is not the mathematical term. GCF is a mathematical
analogy but doesn't work as a direct usage as it would be unclear what the
"factor" is that the people are to hold in common whilst in the original
phrase it's clear that the denominator (standard) to be held in common is the
sum of language understood [and used correctly] by all. It is lowest because
greater ones can be achieved by excluding proportions of the population that
has been used to establish the standard.

Whilst I couldn't care less the real meaning I've always assumed that "I could
care less" is a shorthand for something along the lines of "I could care less
but that's too much effort given how little I care about it". YMMV.

All language can be misunderstood by those who wish to misunderstand it.

E&OE.

------
lostcolony
I find it interesting that despite Adobe (and many other companies) fixating
on the idea that really what you're buying is the -serial-, not the binary,
they don't continue to offer the binary.

It runs at complete odds with the claim, and also what is clearly the
expectation of the OP.

I think we, as humans, have issues with buying 'permission' to use a good,
even a digital good; what we want is to -buy- the good. Not license it. And
since when we 'buy' it, it's now ours, it's free for us to share (or so the
logic goes).

It also seems rather amazing that Adobe's fix would be to tell you to download
the software from an illegitimate source, given that the frequent anti-piracy
scare tactics are that such downloads are ripe with malware, and will steal
your serial, your bank account passwords, your soul, your little dog too, etc
etc.

~~~
sitkack
They don't offer the binary because cracks and keygens get out that make
installing it trivial. And since the version N-1 or more back is still totally
useful they don't want to support shooting their own bottom line. What they
_should_ do is offer a signed realtime .dmg for logged in users. But since
they are Adobe and have their crufty ass codebase head stuck so far up their
hard drive they will never do that.

It is time for terracotta, porcelain or some other ceramic to start pushing
their media wielding wares.

------
spodek
> _Me: So you’re telling me I should download an illegal copy of your
> software, and use my legal serial with it?_

> _Support: Yes Sir, that will work._

Seems to me if they tell you you can do something with their product, you
aren't pirating. You're following their instructions, though I'm no lawyer.

~~~
samstave
The way this brief interaction is constructed would lead one to surmise that
the SOFTWARE is not what is protected/IP/sold to you... it is the LICENSE key.

Thus, downloading software should never be an offence.

He paid for the serial, not the software..

~~~
csomar
Or more precisely, he paid for the license. He can use the serial in multiple
computers, but that'd be illegal too.

~~~
rosser
Actually, IIRC, Adobe's EULA says you can _install_ the software on multiple
(up to 2) computers, but only _use_ it on one at any given time.

------
cromulent
Yet another Adobe story:

I paid for CS4, infrequent user, after a couple of hardware changes (SSDs etc)
it wouldn't install anymore. Long Skype call to US (over an hour), treated
like criminal.

Forget it, I'm your customer taking the burden of your business problems.
Happy Acorn user now.

So many dollars over the years on PS/Macromedia/etc, never again.

So tired of companies treating honest customers like criminals.

Edit: how many times have I bought a movie on iTunes to show my kids how to do
it right, and then torrented it as I couldn't wait for the download, too slow.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "Edit: how many times have I bought a movie on iTunes to show my kids how
to do it right, and then torrented it as I couldn't wait for the download, too
slow."

Strange, I find iTunes the fastest way to download media + you can watch while
downloading. For me that usually means spend 30-60 seconds downloading and
then start watching and the download keeps up.

~~~
dsuth
Not here (Australia). iTunes can take anywhere up to 40 minutes to download
enough of a high res movie to start watching. And can then randomly stop the
movie as it fails to keep up enough bandwidth over the 1:30 or so run
duration.

Torrents are normally half an hour from start to finish.

~~~
taspeotis
Are you using Google DNS? I've had issues with CDNs because of that.

------
abalone
This post is superficially about bad support but the underlying issue is the
move to subscription-based pricing (Creative Cloud).

Slightly in Adobe's defense, a subscription model would avoid this particular
issue, where the customer needed support for a 4 year old version.
Subscriptions just get everyone on a recent version always. The problem of
course is that the subscription price is so much more expensive for
casual/budget users. Casual users used to skip upgrades because they don't
need all the latest features (some would say bloatware). Now they have to pay
a minimum of $240/yr (1 app) and as much as $600/yr.

Adobe has essentially screwed these less profitable _but very loyal and
evangelistic_ customers in favor of extracting more revenue out of those that
depend on Creative Suite. Wall St. responded favorably to this revenue pop but
I fear this has (further) damaged Adobe's brand in the long term.

Interesting fact: the folks responsible for the Flash Platform fiasco were
rewarded by being put in charge of Creative Suite. It's like the CEO said,
sure, Flash worked out great, why not hand them the crown jewels and a
shotgun?

BTW I 100% agree with the Sketch recommendation. It's much better than
Fireworks or Photoshop for UI-related design.

------
pasbesoin
I had a HORRIBLE, cumulative 7.5 hours with their tech support, trying to get
them to provide the promised-on-the-package supplementary license keys to
provide full support for the CS 5.5 Suite on 32-bit Windows XP.

(The supplementary keys are required to activate/validate a couple of included
installers for older versions of a couple of products that are compatible with
32-bit Win XP whereas the 5.5 versions are not.)

If this hadn't been for a close family member, I would have given up.

Adobe will NEVER get another penny out of me -- nor them, for that matter.

\---------

By the way, when it came down to it, all it took was for a "supervisor" \-- to
whom the support associates kept going while they put me on hold -- to
understand, acknowledge, and attempt to use a system _already available to
them at their desk_ to look up the specific scenario and product package and
have that system generate a key.

I ended up repeatedly explaining this to various support associates. Finally,
one with a bit more gumption actually went back to their supervisor and
prodded them to have a second look. 10 minutes later (while I sat again on
hold), I finally had the license key or keys (I forget; 2 products were
involved in the 32-bit older-version downgrade, IIRC).

THE ENTIRE 7.5 hour struggle was to learn for myself what their validation
system was like and to repeatedly call and prod and follow through on
ineffective suggestions in order to appease them, until finally a rep pushed
back against their supervisor and that supervisor deigned to get off their
duff and actually look in their system.

I tend to try to restrain my vitriol and particularly public expression of
same, but in this case I will say: Die, Adobe, die!

P.S. Also, the support reps would promise to call back and check on the result
of procedures they would insist I first try. I think once, one actually called
me back. All the other call-back promises: Nothing.

------
dasil003
I was hoping this would be about how annoying the pricing is for Creative
Cloud. If I was a designer then I could justify paying that kind of monthly
tariff, but as primarily a developer who needs infrequent access to Photoshop
or Illustrator the pricing options are just highway robbery. At least in the
old days I could pay up front and stretch it out over time to get my money's
worth by deciding when and if to upgrade. Adobe is really pushing me as hard
as they can towards the competition, and I've been using Photoshop for over 20
years now, so it's no light decision to give up such a familiar UI.

~~~
bigd
25 bucks a month for students is not that bad. And 50 month is totally
reasonable. I find it much more accessible than before. And honestly I think
that's less than the money the average person here spends monthly at coffee-
shops. Or in one night out!

Here's how you can afford it: avoid eating 5 sandwiches in a posh bar per
month, and cook sometimes by yourself.

~~~
csmithuk
My IT budget for the year is about $500. Doesn't fit.

~~~
bigd
But for what i remember, neither illustrator or photoshop cs5 alone did fit in
that.

EDIT: [http://www.adobe.com/products/catalog/cs6._sl_id-
contentfilt...](http://www.adobe.com/products/catalog/cs6._sl_id-
contentfilter_sl_catalog_sl_software_sl_creativesuite6.html)
[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362428,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362428,00.asp)

~~~
ubojan
but you could buy software once and use it for several years, skipping a few
versions before upgrade. There are lots of users that don't need latest bells
and whistles.

~~~
csmithuk
This. I used Fireworks MX (released 2002) until 2 years ago

~~~
hartator
Yeaaah, I am not the only one. It was the good old time! Each new version
after the MX was a deception, damn Adobe.

You switch to what?

~~~
csmithuk
Inkscape and gimp.

~~~
webmanoffesto
I agree. Inkscape and Gimp do everything I need them to do. The last time I
hit a limitation was when I needed Inkscape to create a multi-page document.
But that was more than a year ago and I managed without that function.

~~~
csmithuk
I think the only irritation I get is gimp startup time on windows.

Need a replacement for Adobe Lightroom and I'm sorted then :)

------
vinceguidry
Adobe does practically nothing to deter piracy except put the token lock on
the shed. Their copy protection has always been trivial to break. They seem to
have worked out that it's better for someone to pirate their tools than it is
for them to use a competing, cheaper product. Their bottom line would probably
take a huge hit if they were to ever make it less than trivial to pirate.

Not sure if this strategy is starting to take a back seat with their new
subscription offerings. Seems like they might be trying to bring the pirates
into the fold. Time will tell.

~~~
dublinben
The number one competitor of free alternatives like Inkscape or GIMP are
pirated versions of Adobe's products. At least non-paying users are still
perpetuating the Adobe monopoly on digital design and formats.

------
justin66
A better, more insightful article than the stupid title implies. The author is
dealing with the problem of how to install software he's already paid for.

~~~
adharmad
Smartdraw (www.smartdraw.com) is very similar. They do not even allow you to
download the software you have paid for and force an upgrade for a steep
price.

~~~
binxbolling
SmartDraw is also kind enough to include spyware/malware with their
installation.

------
woah
Hate to say it, but I pirate Adobe's software for real. I use Pixelmator and
Sketch, which are superior products at one tenth of the price. However, I
often need to open files in Adobe's legacy formats, and since they do not
provide any sort of converter software, I must take the only option available
to me.

~~~
akerl_
Can you clarify how pirating Adobe's software is "the only option available to
[you]"? I get that it's ridiculously expensive and generally a pain in the
ass... but needing to do something expensive doesn't provide justification for
bypassing the cost, or in any way make "paying for the product" no longer an
option.

~~~
sergiotapia
Meh, it's an industry monopoly they have on a global scale. And a web
developer from india cannot afford the huge price that comes with Adobe
Photoshop - so they pirate it. Don't care personally, what do you they expect,
in the real world? Shades of gray and all that.

Another example: games.

A AAA game costs 60$ on Steam a price 90% of the people online in South
America can't afford. So what happened recently? A lot of latinamerican online
stores sell Steam games for a much more realistic price. For example, a AAA
game costs $30-$40 on sites like Nuuvem.

~~~
akerl_
No offense, but there really aren't "shades of gray" here. I've definitely
pirated things, but not wanting to pay the cost of something doesn't entitle
you to spring forth "illegally downloading" as a justified option.

The article's case, where downloading the software legitimately was actually
not an option, _does_ establish that other option: he has paid for the
software (or the serial, or the dream of software, or whatever), but Adobe has
now made it impossible to legitimately access the software. He didn't contact
Adobe and say "I've decided I must use your software, but I do not wish to
pay, so it's cool if I pirate, right?"

~~~
MichaelGG
There may not be "shades of gray" as far as the legality and fact of copyright
infringement goes. But morally, it's certainly not so clear cut. A 14-yr-old
me pirated Photoshop and used it to screw around with some filters (I've got
little artistic talent) and whatnot. There's certainly no harm done to Adobe
in that case - I wasn't gonna buy Photoshop for a total few hours of playing
around. Someone living in a poor country that simply could not afford the
software is in a similar position. It doesn't harm Adobe, but locks them in
further - just like Microsoft benefited greatly from piracy, too.

It's still illegal, but there is clearly different levels of morality. If a
large, profitable, studio was pirating software, that's sorta sleazy. People
that legitimately can't afford it, eh.

------
kabdib
About a decade ago I bought some OCR software. I used it for a few years, then
flattened my OS and had to reinstall it.

No dice. It was not supported any more; I even had the license, but the
company's activation servers no longer worked. I could pay $400 or so to buy a
new version or do without.

I did without. I refuse to buy that company's products.

~~~
aethertron
Why don't you name and shame the company?

~~~
kabdib
Honestly, I couldn't remember the name of the company, I'd buried it.

Let's see . . . oh yeah, Omnipage.

The activation was painful, too, involving a key server and a few cut-and-
paste operations that were easy to get wrong.

I haven't needed to do any OCR in the last couple of years, but I'm sure I'll
investigate other options than Omnipage before I'll use their products again.

I'm happy to buy software. But I have to be able to use it indefinitely,
without activations (which depend on companies still being around) or time-
limited licenses that are just designed to fuel an upgrade pump. I don't
insist on source code or freedom, just quality. I'm not on a holy mission, I
just won't buy software on bad terms.

------
kisamoto
You can find the CS5 trial downloads here: [http://prodesigntools.com/all-
adobe-cs5-direct-download-link...](http://prodesigntools.com/all-adobe-
cs5-direct-download-links.html)

All you need to do after that is insert your Student and Teacher serial
number.

~~~
lanaius
The annoying part is that you have to jump through cookie hoops to get the
file, even though pro design appears to be affiliated with Adobe. Adobe does
run a "hidden" FTP with installers for everything back to like version 9 of
the software in the suite (excepting, for some odd reason, CS 5.5).

------
edj
Installing old-school, shrinkwrapped box software onto computers that lack
disk drives is a real pain point for a lot of people.

I made a little video[1] explaining how to install MS Office Mac 2011 onto a
MacBook Air -- for my own use, in case I ever needed to do it again -- and
it's received over 36,000 views.

LOTS of people have trouble with this. The Microsofts and Adobes in the
industry don't appear to realize the difficulty their customers face.

1:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3hloQl_qs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3hloQl_qs)

~~~
te_chris
Installing office is kids stuff, all 9 DVDs of native instrument's komplete 9
(not even the ultimate version which has like another 100 gigs of samples
included) took 2 days using another laptop's drive over wifi.

~~~
vacri
A cat5 cable really isn't that expensive.

I don't understand the distaste people have regarding wired networking. In my
office, I have several people who complain about the wifi having congestion.
In the heart of the CBD, with tons of other networks visible. "That network
cable on your desk, which I put there for you to use, plug it in and this
problem goes away". They plug it in, comment on how quick and clean their
network is now... then complain the next day about wifi congestion.

~~~
te_chris
No distaste of wired networking, just didn't have the possibility of running a
cable between both machines due to location in the house.

~~~
vacri
Sorry, didn't mean to come off as attacking. Just a hobby horse of mine...

------
dkuntz2
I have an issue with the car analogy. First, warranty isn't forever. Second
CS5 was released four years ago, which is a really long time in software, to
make the analogy more accurate you'd need to take a really old car that
doesn't have replacement parts being made for it anymore to the dealer and
claim they need to fix it.

There's also the issue of Student/Teacher edition means you can't use it
except for educational purposes, and it seems like the author was going to use
them for professional work, which means he needs a different license, legally
speaking.

Finally, it's not up to Adobe to provide you with installers just because you
can't be bothered to go get a disk drive. They're not that expensive. The
problem exists solely on the author's side, not Adobe's.

~~~
girvo
Bullshit.

Absolute bullshit. When you're paying HUNDREDS of dollars for software, damn
right I expect better support 4 years down the track. Hell, it's barely even
support. Let me download it, like you used to only two years back. Are you
kidding me?

~~~
dkuntz2
Bullshit yourself. Cars cost hundreds of times more and typically get just
four years of support. Hardware typically gets a year free, and it also costs
a whole lot more than software.

You didn't pay for any sort of extended warranty. Legally the only warranty
required is that at time of purchase it work as advertised. It did, and while
Adobe has an additional warranty they've added, it doesn't say you get
everything you wish for just because you want it.

Even saying you purchased the full creative suite at $2600, that's $650/year,
$54.17/month. You didn't pay all that much for it, slightly less than $2 a
day. Even assuming you purchased it near the end of it's life, that's 3 years,
making it $72.23/month, which is only $2.37/day. That's less than the price of
a meal.

Additionally, they have no responsibility to provide you with an installer.
You got your installer, based on the post the author still had the installer,
but happened to purchase a computer without a disk drive, which is essentially
purchasing a computer without the minimum system requirements of the
installer. The author could purchase a disk drive, or borrow a disk drive, or
use his old computer's disk drive across the network (something OS X has the
capability to do built in).

Adobe also never had to provide downloads of those installers in the first
place. Just because they previously had them available to download doesn't
mean they have a responsibility to continue keeping them available for
download. Your losing your disks is your fault, not Adobe's.

So, bullshit yourself.

------
davidgerard
This is Adobe lining themselves up for someone to do to them what they did to
Quark. And by the same mechanism: utter contempt for the customer.

~~~
mattkevan
Please, yes! That would be amazing.

I used quark for years back in the day and when InDesign CS1 came out it
seemed like the industry switched overnight. Until then even though both
Quarks 4 and 5 had been released no one I knew, including printers, had gone
further than Quark 3.1.

The entire creative suite cost less than Quark and Photoshop was essential
anyway. No contest. Plus it had support for OS X, could do transparency (no
more creating drop shadows in Photoshop and importing them as a flat TIFF, the
joy!), had really good typography support (no more creating a separate text
box for bullets and manually aligning them), and getting a press-ready PDF out
of it wasn't some sort of voodoo.

The difference 10 years makes. Now Adobe software is slow, bloated and buggy
with only minor reasons to upgrade version to version. It seems like the fit
and finish is worse on each release and watching photoshop or illustrator
creak into life, even on my SSD macbook, is a painful experience.

I think the only reason I've upgraded recently is due to their policy of
making newer version file formats incompatible with the older version, so I've
had to if I want to open files from colleagues. Creative Cloud is a blatant
attempt to extract as much rent as they can before the gig is up, not as a way
to provide a useful service. For that reason I won't be upgrading from CS6,
even though as a designer it's the software I use most.

We need an Adobe competitor who'll either remind them they can write good
software when they have to or consign them to irrelevance.

------
justinph
How is it adobe's fault that the OP no longer has a optical drive? He
purchased physical media in the first place, Adobe, nor any other vendor, is
under no obligations to provide convenient access to him for years down the
road. Sure, it'd be nice if they did, it is completely understandable that
they don't. CS5 is four year old software.

Also, we're talking about an academic version of the software, which retails
for about $200, not the full $799 for one App, or $2200+ for the full suite.
They sell it to students so some day they'll buy the real thing when they do
commercial work, which the academic license doesn't allow.

------
JAFTEM
I don't think Adobe has actually cared too much whether or not individual
customers pirate their software. From what I've heard, piracy has actually
helped the popularity of their products so that more companies and schools,
who account for the bulk of their revenue, will buy their products en masse.

~~~
jrs99
it would suck for them if all students started using GIMP, get hired and ask
their boss: Can I use GIMP for this? It's absolutely free.

Then you start seeing job postings looking for "GIMP experience required."

~~~
alagappanr
However the fact that large companies are usually averse anything new would
make that difficult.

------
PinguTS
The problem is just: "You have old software, which was distributed on CD/DVD
and have no drive anymore." The solution: get a drive or use another Mac's
drive via Remote DVD. The problem is not only with Adobe, but with others too.
Like there is no MS Office download, AFAIK.

Yes, Adobe has a ridiculous pricing policy, especially if you live outside the
US (yeah, translating from English to English is expansive, UK version, AUS
version, I get that </irony>). But that is a different point, I think.

~~~
digitalengineer
Actually there s. I'm experimenting with MS cloud based products and was
forced (more or less) to dl the entire thing during registation even though I
have a legit ms office installed...

------
dozy
wow, quit your bellyaching and borrow an external cd-rom. Or, buy one for $30
(or less?). I don't know how you value your time, but surely $30 is worth it
for the amount of time you've spent thinking about this, writing about it, on
the phone, and now responding to people about it.

also, hilarious that in my chrome, the obnoxiously massive adobe flash banner
on your blog is crashing: [http://snag.gy/FEVCV.jpg](http://snag.gy/FEVCV.jpg)

~~~
dperfect
That "obnoxiously massive adobe flash banner" that is "crashing" is
intentional: [http://parkerrr.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/MZCin.png](http://parkerrr.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/MZCin.png)

Also, the "time [OP has] spent thinking about this, writing about it, on the
phone, and now responding to people about it" is certainly worth more than $30
since it represents an issue that _many_ people (including myself) have
encountered, and I'm glad someone took the time to publicly document their
frustration on behalf of the rest of us sharing that frustration.

------
shittyanalogy
There's no such thing as "pirating". "Pirating" is just a buzz word that some
use as a ignorant epithet and others hold as a badge of honor.

The question is, "Am I breaking copyright law by downloading this software?"

Here's a flow chart so you can check for yourself:

    
    
        Did you purchase said software?
          a) Yes
             -> Then you are not breaking copyright law.
    
          b) No
             -> Then you are breaking copyright law.
    
    

Distributing the copyrighted material, as many torrent clients do for you
automatically, is another matter altogether.

------
quadrangle
Obviously, if you use proprietary software, you do not control it, it controls
you. The FSF message rings true as usual (not as always, I don't think the
world is black and white).

Many people have these stories. How you got screwed over by some proprietary
company in some way. The only solution is for the company to guarantee their
trustworthiness by respecting software freedom i.e. being FLOSS.

------
ctrl
For all those stating in the comments they only need to use Adobe products for
an hour a month and can't justify CC.

You can download Adobe CS2 for free.

[https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?pid=4485...](https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?pid=4485850&e=cs2_downloads)

------
lfuller
It seems to me that if you're planning to apply your serial to a piece of
software that you download off The Pirate Bay then that software is not an
illegal copy. It's only illegal if you breach your licensing agreement.

------
sigzero
> Me: So you’re telling me I should download an illegal copy of your software,
> and use my legal serial with it?

If you have your legal serial number for the software...it isn't pirating.

~~~
Kudos
If you are torrenting copyright files and therefore uploading bits of it in
the process, you are enabling copyright infringement. At least by the
standards of a number of courts around the world.

~~~
krzyk
You can disable uploading and become a pure leecher and court problem solved
:)

------
macinjosh
As long as we're griping about Adobe. Why the hell can't I install Photoshop
or any Creative Cloud product for that matter on a case-sensitive HFS+ drive!

There is a hack you can run to trick the installer into thinking the drive is
case-insensitive and after that everything works without any problems. No
further hacks or workarounds needed until you have to install again on a clean
machine.

I know it is not their most common use case but it can't be that hard!

------
Ellipsis753
I remember than after downloading Spore (the game) and finding it to be very
poor quality I checked the forums. No official EA people were there but
literally the advice everyone got was "here's an illegal version, it runs
faster and doesn't have most of these bugs, don't worry, it's just as good but
much better". Goes to show that pirated software is rarely an inferior product
at all.

------
kalleboo
I had a similar issue with Apple accessing my download for an old version of
iWork (this was before the App Store was launched). Took me an hour on the
phone and a few hours waiting for them to get back to me via email, but I did
eventually get a download link to some internal server...

I was amazed they didn't have a real procedure for it, but that's how a real
support team handles the issue.

------
jpswade
Microsoft told me the same thing. When I didn't have a disc for windows they
told me to "borrow it from a friend".

My friends on tpb had it.

------
wellboy
Just do the localhost hack and you can use it all for free. Takes 1 min.
[http://theflashblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-active-
ma...](http://theflashblogger.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-active-master-suite-
cs4-using.html)

------
coldcode
I'd rather give money to small developers who build great products than steal
from Adobe.

------
tlow
If you truly care, develop a free alternative that is just as good as their
products. See RMS.

~~~
krapp
Problem is, the open source community apparently decided Gimp and Inkscape
were probably good enough, and few people who've ever used Adobe software
would likely agree.

Never mind that employers probably won't have them installed, and probably
won't allow them to be used in house, they won't care if Gimp and Inkscape are
on your resume if they're looking specifically to hire for
photoshop/illustrator experience, and these alternatives would also have to
deal with proprietary image formats, which might make the end result
unacceptable to free software purists.

~~~
nfoz
> Problem is, the open source community apparently decided Gimp and Inkscape
> were probably good enough

I suspect the projects are just short on developer effort, and that no-one
decided it was "good enough" to not need improvement. If you are submitting
patches that are being denied by the project maintainers, you are welcome to
fork the project. _That_ is the "open source community".

~~~
tlow
This is an excellent point. You don't necessarily need to start from scratch
if there are existing projects which you might be able to contribute to. If
you don't like the direction of certain decisions, you are certainly free to
fork the project and continue in your own direction as well.

------
kyriakos
I don't mind their new subscription model but: 1\. why do i have to pay 50%
more because I am in Europe? 2\. why do I need to keep running a 500mb service
just to keep adobe's apps licensing working?

------
Mikeb85
Again, this goes back to the old adage that people pirate software because
companies make it inconvenient to use their product. Look at how Steam,
iTunes, etc... have changed media distribution...

------
tomphoolery
Got this when I visited your page:
[http://imgur.com/ulQuiSe](http://imgur.com/ulQuiSe)

Seems like your overlords got the memo. ;-)

------
flywheel
>It all started with my new Macbook Retina. A gleaming beacon of self-worth,
and productivity (Yes, Mac IS more productive).

I stopped reading after this.

------
tmikaeld
If someone made a tool that extracted layers from PSD's they would get rich.

\- SVG files from vector layers. \- PNG files form rastered layers.

------
KaiserPro
so wait, you _not_ going to borrow a CD drive and make an ISO of the disk
you've _already_ bought?

------
eonil
It seems attacking Adobe shit (by writing a blog post) is the best way to get
their correct support.

------
founder4fun
After they got hacked I won't deal with them every again!

I'm back to pirating.

------
DominikR
I just don't get such people, how can someone be so persistently annoying
instead of just downloading the damn software somewhere else?

Or maybe connecting an external DVD drive/using Apple Software to connect to
some DVD drive over network.

Instead this guy wastes his time calling hotlines and writing a pointless blog
post - I guess that's what it means to be more productive on a Mac. (Of
course, there are people that don't know how to solve such an issue, but this
person is probably not one of them)

~~~
crististm
The starting point is where you say to yourself to do it "the right way". It
turns out that you had a blind spot and your solution was far from being right
or optimal. Time for a reality check.

In this case "pirating" was a viable solution but the quest for a binary
changed into one about "rightfulness". Reality check: "what are you trying to
achieve?".

~~~
DominikR
Of course I agree that it would be better for customers to have the binary
available on Adobes servers.

What is annoying to me is that this is so obvious and trivial to everybody
here on HN, yet this developer feels it is important to declare to the world
that he is going to pirate Adobe software from now on because of his
"shocking" experience with Adobes customer support.

In the end it might even be that the software was always available on Adobes
website, but some frontend developer made a mistake, or that the support guy
didn't know better and gave him bad advise.

And then there's this line:

> I was greeted by Adobe’s “International” support team, based out of India
> where they can pay pennies on the dollar for you to get support in broken
> english. It’s almost as good as real english… almost.

My blood starts to boil when I read something like that, even though I agree
that it can be hard to communicate with someone that doesn't speak your
language well.

~~~
steele
I agree on the last point, this complaint is so casual and frequently
expressed. What is the issue? That they are paid less and the service would be
better otherwise? The adobe CEO is Indian too. Fact is that when I work with
international teams, the English of Indian team members have been a breath of
fresh air compared to ESL European counterparts. This call center first world
problem trope is tired. Would love to see folks deal with call center
operators from areas of the UK with more abstract manifestations of English.

------
venomsnake
Downloading software is not piracy. Using it is. After all you are entitled to
personal backup of your install media. The fact that the backup is distributed
and cloud based is irrelevant.

~~~
hhm
There is another reason why downloading software from "somewhere else" is less
than ideal in a case like this. The reason is that the pirated download might
not be the original software as provided by the developer; there is no
guarantee that it doesn't have, for example, some virus in it.

~~~
ta_tatata
Nice FUD. But one could just scan it with an up-to-date antivirus to be sure.
Unless it is some form of government funded virus it will most probably get
detected.

I have yet to encounter a hard to detect and remove virus coming from a
downloaded software from "somewhere else", I'd rather install software coming
from the scene than a download portal such as softonic.

~~~
driverdan
It's pretty trivial to create undetectable droppers.

