Adobe.com offering up most of CS2 for free [win/mac]

[SQ]

Can't find the 'good deal' subforum or whatever it was called, so I'll just put this here and hope people see it.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlemen ... Fdownloads

You need to login with your Adobe ID. It's free to sign up if you don't already have one.

I'm not sure how long this offer will go for, but the following are all available:

Creative Suite 2 - Win/Mac
Acrobat 3D 1.0 - Win
Acrobat Standard 7.0 - Win/Mac
Acrobat Pro 8.0 - Win/Mac
Audition 3.0 - Win
GoLive CS2 - Win/Mac
Illustrator CS2 - Win/Mac
InCopy CS2 - Win/Mac
InDesign CS2 - Win/Mac
Photoshop CS2 - Win/Mac
Photoshop Elements 4.0/5.0 - Win/Mac
Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 - Win

[mirkosp]

It wasn't seeing much usage as a subforum, so there's just a thread now. I posted for you: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/forum/v ... 5#p1473185

[Brad]

Came here to post the same thing Although the site is no longer wanting to load anymore. Could've been taken down or it's getting slammed way too hard right now.

[SQ]

Thanks, Mirkosp.

Redditor, Brad?

Anyway, there are some more direct links and such on this page (where the deal was originally found) about the 3rd post down.

[mirkosp]

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

Now it doesn't even require a login anymore. I think by now, whether it was a mistake or not, Adobe has accepted it.

[l33tmeatwad]

These were put up because they shut down the activation servers and they wanted legal owners of the software to be able to reinstall the software they own without the need to activate. These have actually been up since like November.

[post-it]

well, I for one -- am glad to get a copy of Audition & the 3D version of Acrobat.
now what in the heck is "GoLive" .. .. .. ? -- never heard of it!

[BasharOfTheAges]

Given what was posted on the org Twitter today, is this thread now linking to illegal content?

[Qyot27]

Drat. Thankfully I hadn't installed it yet (or backed it up on DVD-Rs).

But judging from the ensuing PR disaster this is causing, I think I'm going to wait and see what happens. The thread on Adobe's forum about this sure is involving them taking a lot of flak, and the official response has been less than totally clear about what to do about those who did download it.

[mirkosp]

Given what was posted on the org Twitter today, is this thread now linking to illegal content?

First and foremost, the link is public on the Adobe site, and it's purportedly illegal to install it only if you didn't own a cs2 license, not illegal per se.
But the situation isn't as simple as it seems. The official statement by Adobe is this:

Effective December 13, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 products and Acrobat 7 because of a technical glitch. These products were released over 7 years ago and do not run on many modern operating systems. But to ensure that any customers activating those old versions can continue to use their software, we issued a serial number directly to those customers. While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers.

Which doesn't quite strictly forbid usage for those that didn't have a cs2 license, more like saying "technically it was just for those whom owned one." The real key point, however, is in the Software License Agreement:

2. Software License. If you obtained the Software from Adobe or one of its authorized licensees and as long as you comply with the terms of this agreement, Adobe grants you a non-exclusive license to use the Software in the manner and for the purposes described in the Documentation, as further set forth below. See Section 14 for specific provisions related to certain components.

You are effectively getting a valide license directly from Adobe (you obtained the software from Adobe through their official site, and are supposedly complying to the terms), based on this. Which makes the following tricky to interpret:

5. Updates. If the Software is an upgrade or update to a previous version of Adobe software, you must possess a valid license to such previous version in order to use such upgrade or update. After you install such update or upgrade, you may continue to use any such previous version in accordance with its end-user license agreement only if (a) the upgrade or update and all previous versions are installed on the same device, (b) the previous versions or copies thereof are not transferred to another party or device unless all copies of the update or upgrade are also transferred to such party or device and (c) you acknowledge that any obligation Adobe may have to support the previous version(s) may be ended upon the availability of the upgrade or update. No other use of the previous version(s) is permitted after installation of an update or upgrade.Upgrades and updates may be licensed to you by Adobe with additional or different terms.

Strictly speaking, the license listed by Adobe on its website is a valid license for CS2, which means you are technically in possession of a valid license to the previous version. However this is really stretching it in terms of what is legal and what is not...

Bottom line still is that linking to the page by itself is not illegal by itself (it's on Adobe's official site to boot); whether or not it is illegal depends on the final user, basically.