Why is Adobe so casual about pirating?

As an owner of legal copies of the Adobe graphics programs, I've often wondered

why Adobe allows so much pirating. (I would venture to guess that there are more

illegal copies than legal copies of Photoshop in use out there, for example.)

 

An acquaintance just came by my office, handed me a 4gb jump drive, and

said "Check this out." I plugged it into my USB port, and it immediately listed all

of the programs in the Adobe Graphics Suite (incl. PSCS3), and the three

programs I clicked on fired right up. He said he paid "less than $50" for the entire

package (Adobe charges $1800, I think).

 

I guess as long as enough people like me can be persuaded to pay $1800, Adobe

sees no need to go after the pirates; the company is making its billions and that's

good enough for them.

 

Thoughts?

CS3 is hard to use without a license. each release gets harder.

 

but there is one fundamental reason to not go back to hardware dongles and the

such for licensing: since the software costs so much, if there was no way to use

them without paying $1800, less than 10% of the people who know how to use the

software would know how. You cannot really learn aptitude in a seminar, and design

courses only teach the rudimentary basics.

 

Said this, if the full CS3 suite cost $200, few people would feel compelled to use it

without purchasing it, and i am confident that they would make more money, too.

 

t

Do you not have to put a registration # in to keep it working?

"... why Adobe allows so much pirating."

 

Three comments:

 

1. It's not clear what they could do. Attempts at copy-protection went out years

ago. Why antagonize your customers? Much of the copying is probably offshore,

and copyright and anti-piracy issues are difficult to deal with by a single US

company. They require international treaties and, much more difficult, a

commitment by signatories to enforce them. Neither is under Adobe's control.

 

2. We don't know what they are doing about pirating. Perhaps a lot. I doubt that

they would see it in their interest to publicize what they are doing. (Unlike,

say, the RIAA.)

 

3. The proliferation of pirated software, while always unethical, is not

entirely bad for Adobe. It does help to create market dominance.

Ronald - if you google CS3 Warez Key Gen Crack you will come up with thousands of sites that are options. Some of them are a $4.95 subscription for a download, some are free, some give you the entire program and some give you just the keygen that will create a registration # based on the serial number of the trial version you legitimately downloaded from Adobe.

 

Same deal with almost every single piece of software out there.

 

Almost guaranteed that 99% of these sites will send you viruses, trojan horses, and many wonky things too - no extra charge. Oh yes, you'll probably crash your computer from all the porno pop-unders and pop-ups that somehow get by the anti-pop-up code in many browsers.

 

How do I know this stuff? A friend is a computer security expert and we had a conversation about it not too long ago. He just gave me the words to type into google and the warning of viri and trojans.

 

Be warned of that.

i would assume that they make so much money out of it that the bootlegs found in small shops in many of the south asian countries or in russia hurts the adobe pocket very little.

 

i have photoshop version 7 in my computer. i worked as a graphics designer for a number of years and found it to be more than adequate for my needs. i don't see the point of upgrading. however, i remember seeing many cheaper versions of photoshop 8 at a trip to south asia some time ago. i did not need to upgrade so didn't bother with the copy.

"i did not need to upgrade so didn't bother with the copy."

 

And if you did need to upgrade?

 

Clearly, the problem with piracy isn't that the illegal and unethical copies are sold, but that they're bought.

 

I'm especially sensitive to this issue because over the years I've made almost all of my money selling off-the-shelf software and books.

I have paid for programs and was just curious about the others who buy this stuff.

Back a few years ago when our agency was a Quark shop we HATED how strict and

draconian and noncooperate Quark could be. They treated legitimate customers

like we were just waiting to break the rules and pirate their software. Heaven

forbid if a hard drive died and you had to reinstall Quark - you'd have to call

Quark, speak to a support rep in a faraway land, read off an obscene 20 digit

code of some sort, just to get up and running again.

 

Few years later, we had to decide - stick with Quark or make the move to Adobe

Creative Suite. Many factors influences our decision to go with Adobe, but as

the IT person who didn't have to use either program, I know Quark's poor

treatment of us certainly influenced my vote. We went Adobe and never looked

back. They don't treat us like criminals.

"How do I know this stuff? A friend is a computer security expert "

 

Which trojans and viruses afflict the software sent to Mac users?

Adobe is not so casual. By requiring activation, they stop the most common form of piracy--I buy a CS suite DVD and 'lend' it to you and fifty more people. Can't do that anymore. They do NOT stop people from downloading cracks from the Internet, but such downloading is not necessarily easy and certainly not safe. They tried to stop this in CS1, but the method they used--preventing updates to copies with 'blacklisted' serials/activation codes--backfired big time. (They caught a LOT of legal users in their net.) I believe they are VERY serious about prosecuting those who SELL illegal copies on the 'Net or at computer shows, etc.

@Chris ... "How do I know this stuff? A friend is a computer security expert and we had a conversation about it not too long ago."

 

Your friend should look for another job as he is so far out to lunch it's not even funny. Anybody who really wants a free copy knows where to go on the internet to get a copy virus, trojan and pop-up free.

 

The only people who would be subject to what he is stating are kiddies and thieves who don't know any better.

@ Chris N: Your pc security friend isn't playing the 'I'm an expert, don't question me' card. I'm also a PC Tech (although currently employed as a cable installer), and I've done my fair share of pirating. To date, I've had 2 viruses. 1 I got on purpose, b/c I wanted to see what it did. And I've only very rarely ever run AV software.

"Your friend should look for another job as he is so far out to lunch it's not even funny. "

 

No kidding. If torrent sites were that bad, no one would use them. Most, if not all, have user feed back forums to prevent others from harm.

 

"Which trojans and viruses afflict the software sent to Mac users?"

 

latestpics.tgz?

"They treated legitimate customers like we were just waiting to break the rules and pirate their software. Heaven forbid if a hard drive died and you had to reinstall &program"

 

Isn't that more or less what Microsoft is doing with Vista? Thank &dei for Linux, I only wish Adobe would create *nix versions so we didn't have to run Windows emulators.

Who told you they are casual about pirating? The simple reality is that any copy protection scheme can be hacked. Any copy protection scheme.

 

Adobe could try to make it even harder to pirate their software, but you very quickly get into territory where you're annoying your customers but not actually stopping the pirates.

 

Adobe more than likely depends on business sales. Businesses can be audited and sued. It's not worth the time or effort to try and go after individuals.

 

It's not too terrible a position for Adobe. The only real reason Adobe and Microsoft dominate their respective application markets is because the pool of people who know those products is so large. That wouldn't be true if it wasn't for home piracy. If they cracked down hard on home users, within about five years you would see employees pushing to use cheaper, competing products because that's what they would have used, and learned, in school or at home.

 

There's a reason why Microsoft made free versions of the .NET programming languages and MS SQL Server. There's also a reason Adobe makes sure that every single digital imaging device sold in the world, just about, ships with a light version of Photoshop.

No matter how much a software can be protected, the chacker/cracker will always be one step ahead.

 

I would not be suprised if the worker bor adobe that is making the protection software is the same pearson that is giving the cracks to people online just so he would have more work to "make it more secure"

I was always under the impression that they didn't make much money off the software: just off of all of those books they print on how to use the software. That's just a guess though.

 

Also, they probably realise that in the case of third world countries using blackmarket software: it's more important to be THE recognized software in the industry and make up for it later than loose out to some other cheaper software company.

 

In China, for example, everybody knows Adobe, everybody uses pirated software because they can't afford otherwise. But the people who are filthy rich do buy the real thing because they can and it usually installs, runs better.

I had my first exposure to Photoshop when someone gave me a copy of 3.05. At the time, I had Corel's PhotoPaint (came with my scanner) and I found PS to be cumbersome and non-intuitive. Little by little, and with difficulty, I migrated my work to PS and eventually bought 4.0. I've been using legit versions ever since. Adobe eventually saw the wisdom of fully functional trials as opposed to the copy/save disabled demos they used to provide.

 

I also would hazard a guess that most of the unlicensed versions don't see much use because the pirates are too lazy to learn the software.

I'd have to agree with the statement that "pirated versions don't see much use because people don't bother to learn the software." People I've met with the cracked versions tend to be those more interested in computers than with art/photography/design. They'll dabble and throw together some funny composites as jokes, but that's about it. Pro users buy the real thing due to fear of audits and many students acquire legit versions through the generous discount programs. I'm sure those sales, at hundreds of dollars a piece, are enough to keep Adobe happily afloat.

>>>"Which trojans and viruses afflict the software sent to Mac users?"

 

>> "latestpics.tgz?"

 

From 2006? Not a problem.

 

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6600_7-6442016-1.html

 

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108009

Then there are folks with PC's that almost all the cool software they use is pirated;

a friend is always running keygens and installing bootleg stuff. The pickle is that

he is always having to reinstall windows because of the added rootkits and crap

that some keygens adds that cannot be detected with the salvo of anti spy/virius

scan stuff. The "free" stuff is not so free if your computer beomes a cesspool of

crap running in the background; or if you are constantly wasting time futzing/farting

around. I am not sure if the Mac is always so perfectly clean either; we had a

retoucher install a bootleg copy of illustrator on our imac 20" unit and the burner

software got hosed; its also somehow goofed up our legal version of photoshop

cs2; we had to install it again. Being a student with no bucks they just use a

torrent and bootleg all their software and assume we as a business have no risks

with bootleg stuff. .<BR><BR>In a weird way the bootleg crap that gets installed

on a PC that hoses the PC helps Mac sales; the PC gets blamed; not the

rootkits.The Mac controls the path thru the cow field; less manure gets stepped

on. Here I have many PC's; the ones with clean installs and clean software have

none of the issues that Mac folks say happen to PC's.<BR><BR>Employees

installing bootleg software is a legal

issue too; they can tell on you if they are let go; the install can hose other things;

they may blow away your older legal version(s). On a PC the install can add crud

that installs a rootkit that requires going down to the bare metal to clean the crap

off your pc. The Mac is abit more goober proof if you have employee who try to

install crap.

I personally think that Adobe's strategy is a smart one. I think they understand that fighting common piracy is a losing battle, and that no matter how difficult they make it to pirate a piece of software, someone out there will break their scheme within a few hours of release. In addition, how many people that pirate their software actually would have been buyers anyways? Not a whole lot of people can justify buying $1800 worth of software just so they can mess around with it. The people that have a legitimate need for the software will probably still buy it -- either because they can, or they must due to legality concerns within a business. To see how dismal the other strategy is, just look at the RIAA. They're going absolutely nuts, prosecuting tons of innocent users, and spending their entire budgets of legal fees. They're struggling to hold on to an outdated business model, all the while music piracy hasn't dropped a bit.

 

On the other hand, Adobe's apparent policy has a lot of benefits. Kids that couldn't afford PS will still download it, use it, and become masters of it. That creates a dedicated user, and someday a small percentage of those users may lead to a company somewhere purchasing an enterprise edition of CS. Since none of those kids would ever have paid the full price for the legitimate software, this could be seen as free advertising of the best sort. Taking this a little further, I'd venture to guess that a lot of the people that put out photoshop plugins developed them using pirated copies (most businesses don't allocate manpower towards putting out free products), so these 'free users' are donating back to the community.

 

These are also the same users who are more likely to put up free tutorials online (quality is another issue...) that serves as a good hook to anyone just getting started in or even looking at PS. Just think back to the first time you saw some really cool or useful effect done with PS. Again, this is free advertising.

 

Just to pose a question, how often do you see advertisements for photoshop or any of the CS programs in mainstream media? In graphic design literature? Maybe some in the latter, but I've never seen a commercial or pop-up ad for any of them. I'd venture to guess that if the only possible way people use photoshop was to buy it, then Adobe would have to spend a considerably larger sum on advertising. Just an idea. I'm not necessarily saying that pirating is justified, but I do think that incorporating this into a business model, rather than trying to eliminate it completely, is a good thing.

 

- AP

My suspicion is that there's a insufficiently large overlap between the people

who are prepared to go to lengths to secure a safe, cracked installation and

those who are prepared to pay for a legit copy for Adobe to worry about.

 

Most professional digital artists who would pay for Photoshop can't be bothered

with a cracked download, and of the computer/net cognoscenti who are prepared to

go to the (non-trivial) lengths to get an illegal copy very few would otherwise

chose to buy it.

 

You can be fairly sure that Adobe have done a cost-benefit analysis of different

protection methods, and probably decided that they're somewhere around the

optimum level for their customer base.

"I guess as long as enough people like me can be persuaded to pay $1800"

 

Ralph, if your sole income is from working as a professional photographer, then buying CS3 is your safest choice. For the rest who dabble in photography, an illegal version of CS3 (be it the basic or the premium editions) are available from a reliable source for less than $50 virus free.