Buyer beware
Back in 2012 I started to use Photoshop from Adobe, the full version. It was very expensive but a very powerful tool. I did a major project as a volunteer and received a gratuity of £1000 for my services at the end of the project. I used that money to acquire Adobe CS6 Creative suite. It contained several applications commonly used by web developers. I did not use most of them, but did continue to use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and for a while Dreamweaver for projects.
Adobe revokes the license
On Friday the 31st of August 2018, some 5 years and 7 months after I acquired the software package it was turned off by Adobe. Now when I try to use it I get a pop up telling me I have an illegal copy or invalid licence and I should contact Adobe.
To cut a long story short, it looks like Adobe have been working through their licenses and revoking them causing customers to dial in to get them enabled again. During the conversation you have to provide evidence of where you acquired it from. In my case it turned out it was not an “approved reseller”.
The software I acquired at just over £1000 in January 2013 was all boxed, sealed and included holograms from Adobe. The license keys were secured inside the boxes. It was installed and registered with Adobe and I never had any issues with it until a few days ago.
Of course it is a co-incidence that Adobe does not sell these packages any more and the only way you can acquire it now is to pay a monthly fee for ever. So the concept of purchasing a software asset is being replaced by software as a service. In a heartbeat the “value” in my acquisition was reduced to £0.
I have been offered a subscription which I am reluctant to jump into because the cost is so prohibitively high.
isoftware.co.uk
The supplier of the software has disappeared from the market. The company that traded under the website isoftware.co.uk seems to have sold a lot of licenses to people that they were not entitled to sell. If you do searches on the web now, lots of people like me come up that were caught out. The company ceased trading around 2015, but had been trading since 1998. They started to trade under a new name in mid 2015 but then disappeared altogether within 12 months. No records at Companies House either.
Web Forensics
I had read somewhere that you can view old websites even after they have been taken down. Out of curiosity more than anything else I did a search and came across this website: https://archive.org/web/
A search on this website revealed they had a copy of the site from around 2013. I was able to rebuild the pages and review the information about the company. Here they are: https://web.archive.org/web/20130605183937/http://www.isoftware.co.uk/
Pursuing the matter with Adobe
Adobe have told me various things, such as it is an illegal copy, it is counterfeit, it is not a valid license. It depends on who you speak to. I think I have a legal, legitimate copy, but was not supplied through an approved channel, possibly a grey import. I don’t really know. The problem though is what do you do under such circumstances? Adobe are about as helpful as a chocolate teapot; they spent over an hour saying I could sign up to a monthly subscription. It was like talking to the sales department, rather than the licensing department.
I have not managed to illicit any useful information from them to help my cause; a contact for iSoftware or information relating to legal proceedings taken out by Adobe on the illegitimate supplier. Just standard scripts that says “oh well, you have not done anything wrong, but we are sorry it is not a legal copy, but buy this instead….”.
Possible solution
I contacted Trading Standards and advised them about what has happened. They have advised me to pursue the case with my credit card issuer. I will let you know if this works, but it is useful to know.
“Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, the credit card company is jointly and severally liable for any breach of contract or misrepresentation by the retailer or trader.”
I cannot contact the software reseller company any more, every lead I have tried draws a blank. I do have emails stating that Adobe have revoked the license, albeit amateurish as they quote several “off the shelf” statements all saying different things as to why. There is a real lack of consistency on the part of Adobe and there is never anyone you can quote, they all come from the “Adobe Customer Care Team”.
My next steps are to approach my credit card company, provide evidence from Adobe that the products were not genuine and seek a repayment of £1000 based on Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. There is a six year window. I have a few months to pursue it.
Bottom Line
Well, I have not reached mine yet, but in this day and age where we all shop around so easily on the web to get the best bargains, it may be worth checking whether a supplier is a bona fide supplier recognised by the company who makes the product.
That may not wholly cover you of course, I think there is something morally wrong in turning off something 5.5yrs after it was openly registered. Just, co-incidentally when there is only a monthly subscription for the same applications available. There is a responsibility here on behalf of Adobe for not having better security and integrity in it’s licensing and manufacture of products over the past 5yrs. If that had happened, people like me, and no doubt thousands of others would not have been placed in this position.
Update February 2019
If you have arrived at this article following searches for Adobe CS6 or similar, or found yourself in a similar position; if you are an Apple Mac user I recommend you check out this application which is getting rave reviews from disaffected Adobe Photoshop users: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/desktop/ I have loaded it on my Macbook and it does most of what I usually do in Adobe Photoshop and for a one of payment of circa £48. It is not that difficult to find your way around the UI as well which is a benefit. They have other graphics programs in the pipeline too.