Adobe CS2 for Free (kind of)

[obsidian]

Read the article. It's gray area legal to download it since it's right on their web page, complete with serials, though they say that it's technically for supporting existing customers who have purchased a license.

While The Gimp is totally free and open source, Adobe Photoshop is an industry standard software, so those of you who want to create textures or paint concept art in the industry could benefit from learning to use it even though this is an older version. The new versions offer a lot more in advanced tools, but the basic concepts are the same, so you're not missing out on a whole lot that you can't pick up quickly if you ever upgrade.

http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... content%29

[Eraser]

Like I said in the other thread: it's not a legal gray area. It's as black as any other pirate site could be.

Adobe isn't offering you a license to use the software. They're offering an easy to access download location to existing licensees.

And as the article states, any download pages for it have been taken down.

[MKJ]

Quite. Not everyone here reads GD so i'll state it here too: it was a leak in the adobe website and has been patched up. They never intended for everyone to download and register CS2; it was meant for paying customers who can't reinstall their legal copy of CS2 due to the activation servers being down.

[obsidian]

Any reason then why they would post the serial numbers right on their website? If you had purchased CS2 you would have your own serial.

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

[Eraser]

The original keys probably don't work anymore due to the auth system being down
As for this being some clever marketing ploy, no that's not it either. Adobe is not the kind of company to do something like that and besides, you still don't acquire a legal license to use the software, so our original issue still stands. And if Adobe wants too hook you into their software, then they could've simply released CS2 under a free, less restrictive license.

[seremtan]

it was a leak in the adobe website and has been patched up

no it hasn't, as i pointed out in the other thread. this isn't a case of "whoops, we accidentally our flagship product on a public server, but we fixed it now and fired the guy who fucked up". this is more a case of "don't tell anyone, but we deliberately put an old version of our flagship product on a public server, and made it real easy for anyone to get for free; but then when people found out, we made it even easier. shit was SO cash"

in any case, we can argue about the legal aspect of this all we want, but the fact is: loads of people are getting a free copy of CS2 thanks to a decision by Adobe. as the article states, they could have handled this a different way to avoid this -

... the company could have released a patch that removed the activation checks from the applications and the license key entry from the installer. This could work with original media, and hence not require distribution of CS2...

- but they didn't. call it whatever you want - it is what it is

[Eraser]

I guess it brings us to another level of this discussion. We both probably agree on the fact that it's not entirely correct to state that Adobe is giving away Photoshop CS2 for free and it's all (legally) fine and dandy if you download it.

So the fact remains that the original threads about this are slightly misleading. You're still partaking in activities that could be considered illegal, just as much as downloading PS from The Pirate Bay is illegal.

So I guess there's three groups of people: those that buy Photoshop, those that (would) pirate Photoshop and those that haven't bought it nor pirated it because of some sort of moral boundary. The information isn't interesting to the first two groups. They already have bought or pirated PS or would do so anyway. So that last group might be swayed into downloading Photoshop by this information, probably believing it was legal, while in reality it isn't. They've been misled by a 3rd party that misinterpreted the (legal) status of Photoshop CS2 and posted that misinterpretation on a forum.

On the other hand, the biggest part of that morally inclined group of people would be OK with warezing Photoshop if Adobe said they were fine with people doing so. And if this is really something Adobe wants people to do, then I guess that's morally ok. We can't be sure about Adobe's intention though, because the question about why they simply didn't release CS2 under a free license hasn't been answered yet.

In the end though, if you work at a company where your misinformed boss decides to start using this "free" Photoshop version, then the company will still be fined by the BSA if they found out.

[Plan B]

You're such a goody two shoes.

[seremtan]

what i'm trying to say is: officially, it isn't legit to d/l CS2 from Adobe's site unless you already own it; unofficially, it may be that Adobe isn't that bothered if you do, but want to avoid 3rd party legal issues that would arise from just saying so

[Plan B]

The entire discussion is pretty much moot, because you can get Gimp for free, which can do everything PS does, FOR FREE

[seremtan]

no it can't

also CS is more than just Photoshop

[Plan B]

Yeah, but apart from that my remarks are completely accurate.