Adobe gets a dose of piracy after blocking its apps in Venezuela
Oct 9, 2019
Dunja Đuđić Kalinin
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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As a consequence of Executive Order 13884, Adobe has announced the deactivation of all accounts in Venezuela. Since there doesn’t seem to be another solution and there will be no refunds, revolted Venezuelans are now reportedly turning to piracy.
By issuing Executive Order 13884, the U.S. Government has blocked almost all transactions and services between U.S. companies, entities, and individuals in Venezuela. There certainly have been many other problems this decision has caused to common people. But one of them is that photographers, designers, and other creatives won’t be able to use any of Adobe CC apps any longer.
When discussing the problem on Reddit and on social media, many users have suggested that Venezuelan creatives should turn to piracy. And it seems that they have. Graphic design student Gremiana Gonzalez offered instructions on Twitter on how to “crack any app in the Creative Cloud,” according to Yahoo! News.
Gonzalez told the outlet that this goes against her principles. But in these circumstances, there was no other choice. “Either you use pirated software or you don’t eat,” she wrote, adding that many Venezuelans, just like her, depend completely on freelancing. “Adobe’s suite is the most widely-used, best-acclaimed and easiest to access,” she concluded.
As some of our readers pointed out, there are some alternatives to Creative Cloud apps (even free ones). It can definitely be a good idea to download them and use them in this situation. However, it may not be that simple. First of all, many creatives have only used Adobe’s programs, and downloading their alternatives would require them to learn how to use completely new apps. Learning new things is great, sure. But when you’re struggling to make money, I guess you just don’t have the luxury to stop all your projects till you master a new program well enough to completely switch to it.
Then, I guess pirating CC apps is also a way of rebellion against Adobe blocking people’s accounts. Although, Adobe is acting in compliance with the presidential decision (it wasn’t the company’s choice to do this out of the blue).
Francisco Rodriguez, a prominent Venezuelan economist, has started a petition in order to try and solve this problem. He is requesting the U.S. Treasury Department to issue a license exempting software service providers from the sanctions.
La decisión de Adobe de suspender servicios en Venezuela ha reavivado la discusión sobre los efectos de las sanciones. Pero tal vez estemos dejando de lado la pregunta más importante: ¿qué es lo que podemos hacer para mitigar el impacto sobre los venezolanos de estas medidas? pic.twitter.com/Z3cmjDGWji
— Francisco Rodríguez (@frrodriguezc) October 8, 2019
“Adobe’s decision to suspend services in Venezuela has revived the discussion about the effects of the sanctions,” Rodriguez writes. “But perhaps we are neglecting the most important question: what can we do to mitigate the impact on Venezuelans of these measures?”
If you’d like to sign the petition, you can do so via this link.
[via Yahoo! News]
Dunja Đuđić Kalinin
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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22 responses to “Adobe gets a dose of piracy after blocking its apps in Venezuela”
Well, this happens when the US government can’t get rid of the leader the don’t like in a country.
Not really Adobe’s fault.
US companies are way too eager to comply with the President. Way to eager. Adobe is at fault, there are ways to go around it. And not offering refund is also not their fault?
Totally Adobe’s fault.
The executive order does not apply to the whole nation, what Adobe did was filthy and I hope it comes back to bite them in the ass.
LOL
This is why you Pirate Bay everything, except for those softwares that you pay to own, let’s face it Adobe subscription service is the rent a center of graphic design and video editing software
They can bill Trump.
Should be expected.
Generally speaking Cloud based subscriptions are safe and the most economic way to go.
Until they shut you off :D
Marco Peixoto oh that was witty. Marco there are other applications you can use. Let’s not be dramatic. Cloud based applications ARE safe and reliable. Major corporations use the cloud to run their businesses every day.
Only if you have good internet access
Well, as much as I hate cloud-based solutions, most of Adobe CC runs off of your computer, it just gets checked online for licensing. But obviously, if you happen to have frequent issues with your internet you might quickly find yourself in a situation where you need to work and have everything at hand but can’t get the soiftware started because of that.
Peter Smith Not really…I have crappy internet and it works just fine for me. The apps are downloaded to the desktop and run from there, so only the updates are a little slow. I can run those when I’m not using the apps.
Your problem is that if Adobe decides tomorrow to double or triple their subscription fees, you have nothing to show for all this money spent. No going back to the “old version” that still works. And Adobe products are almost exclusively non-cloud. I do not know of a lot who use stock or the storage space compared to lightroom, Photoshop or premiere.
I prefer subscription based. Much easier to work with as a small business than having to drop several hundred to a few thousand dollars at irregular intervals and wondering if it’ll keep getting constant updates/new features or just left to rot
I’m glad they went subscription based, saves me money while providing more which makes it a much better value. I pay $120/year to have up to date Photoshop/Lightroom/Cloud Storage/Portfolio website. Photoshop alone used to cost hundreds a year just to stay current.
What a coincidence!
Me and a few million Venezuelans are now saving more money but using the product without paying for it or any licencing fees. Also, entirely legal as it stands.
Well, since Adobe did not offer any refund on already paid services I would a, yes, you are within your legal right to use it anyway you can.
Michael Krueger Innovation slows down with subscriptions, because developers no longer have a fire under their butt to produce updates which are worth paying for.
Buy Affinity.
What a shocker… who could have seen that coming? ?
On one hand, my not-for-profit pays far less a year in subscription cost than we could ever afford if having to purchase outright.
One the other hand, a few years back I paid a hefty subscription price for a piece of audio editing software, which I had been using for years before the company decided to go subscription. There were a number of greatly requested new features “coming shortly”. Before the features were ever delivered, they declared bankruptcy, leaving everybody holding the bag once the authentication servers went down. We all have to revert back to our old purchased version and accept our losses.
For the folks in Venezuela, it’s my understanding that the US Government is more to blame here than Adobe. At least these folks should get refunds for money spent, and I’ve seen one story from an acquaintance with a personal stake in this where suddenly having the software stop working has caused huge issues in a current project.
Weighing everything … I still not 100% sure I care for the subscription method, despite the potential savings as I’ve been bitten good once.
I moved from Premier to Red Giant Resolve a good while ago, and haven’t looked back since. I’m seriously considering the Affinity products as replacements for Photoshop and InDesign, and even purchasing these outright is less expensive than our Adobe “not-for-profit” discount. As to the websites I work on – I code everything by hand anyway, and although I still use Dreamweaver to do this, I could do it in almost any code editor, even Notepad, so that’s not really an issue either …