Adobe has deactivated all Venezuelan Creative Cloud accounts in response to Presidential order
Oct 8, 2019
Dunja Đuđić
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.
Share:
The U.S. Government has blocked almost all transactions and services between U.S. companies, entities, and individuals in Venezuela. As a result, all Adobe Creative Clouds accounts in this country have been deactivated. What’s more – it seems that the affected users won’t get a refund, either.
Executive Order 13884, issued by the U.S. Government, severely limits U.S. companies who do business in Venezuela. In order to remain compliant with this it, Adobe had to suspend the accounts of their users in this country. And so far, it doesn’t look good.
First of all, if you paid for your CC account, I am sorry – you won’t get a refund. “Executive order 13884, orders the cessation of all activity with the entities including no sales, service, support, refunds, credits, etc.” Adobe explains on its Help page. Because of this, the company is not able to issue any refunds while the sanctions last. What’s more, you can’t even use any of the free services Adobe offers, nor make any new purchases.
Adobe adds that accounts of Venezuelan users will be deactivated on 28 October 2019. Therefore, if there’s anything you want to download, you have twenty days left before it’s all deleted along with your account.
Last but definitely not least, no one can tell how long the ban will be active. “Executive Order 13884 was issued with no expiration date,” Adobe explains, so it can be anytime. It doesn’t depend on Adobe, but solely on the U.S. Government.
If you live in Venezuela, make sure to at least download your data before your Adobe account is deactivated. Pay attention even if you registered while living in Venezuela and moved someplace else in the meantime. We’ve even heard from a user who opened her account while living in Venezuela. She then moved countries a few years ago, and still had her subscription canceled and even her Behance account deleted.
You can learn more about the Executive Order 13884 here, and about Adobe’s compliance with it here.
Update 10 October 2019: we have heard from Adobe regarding refunds and Behance accounts in Venezuela. here is the official statement:
“We can confirm that Behance will continue to be accessible in Venezuela. And, customers who purchased directly from Adobe will be refunded by the end of the month. We are working with our partners on the same. We regret the difficulties this causes our customers. We will share more details about how our operations and customer activities might be impacted, as they become available.”
[via Reddit]
Dunja Đuđić
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.
Related Posts
Adobe data breach exposed almost 7.5 million Creative Cloud accounts to the public
Adobe Germany Sets Different Creative Cloud Pricing Based On Browsers
Updated: Adobe’s latest Creative Cloud update is deleting user files from computers
Adobe is cutting availability to older versions of some Creative Cloud apps
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.
38 responses to “Adobe has deactivated all Venezuelan Creative Cloud accounts in response to Presidential order”
This right here is why software subscriptions like this are bad. You lose access the account, you lose access to the software.
Well, I would suppose theorically pre-cloud era “bought” software would be the same : if it is about the US government forbidding US companies to do business with you, this would be reflected in the licence agreement (which would be updated) you have to agree to legally be able to use said piece of software. You might still have access to the software, but you would be doing so illegally (or the software itself might have an update preventing you to use it if you are not allowed.
Anyway, if adobe is not allowed to have any business contact with this country, you bet they won’t put a dime into going hunting down cracked software users. Professional users of adobe products will just go (back) to warez. No biggie.
Affinity to the rescue!
Why would any business do anything that turd trump says?
Are you really defending the country that is murdering protesters as we speak? I mean really?
Why would anyone support the country murdering protesters? Is your Trump derangement so bad that you support China and Venezuela?
isn’t that illegal? they bought those items, they can’t just do that.. or what?
You might want to read their T&C. They have every right at any given time.
that’s one reason to not trust in that company then, also they’ll cry over there about piracy and so on.. if their product would be legal enough to not do such thing like stealing people accounts
just read it :
The U.S. Government has blocked almost all transactions and services between U.S. companies, entities, and individuals in Venezuela. As a result, all Adobe Creative Clouds accounts in this country have been deactivated
ok, so it wasn’t adobe, it was the government.
AS the title above says it was adobe instead the government, that tricked me. Thanks for the explanation Matthieu Mall.
Arent Cloud Services AMAZING???
Keep paying for it suckers….
Best not to buy or use any USA product.
because a communist country doesn’t have access anymore to a software? uhhh i don’t think so!
There is always Gimp, Davinci, etc
Which country will be next? Perhaps we will find out in a tweet as that is how policy is promulgated in the US these days.
And that is why cloud-based software is a bad idea.
It no work good… like this author.
That’s what you get for falling for Software as a service. Don’t do it.
I suppose the solution is to export all of the XMP files out of Lightroom, and change all of the PSD files over to TIF.
Sad. Stupid. Just plain wrong.
On biggie, there were 438 accounts .
Why to join Navy, if you can be a pirate?
That has to be (so far) the only benefit of socialism Venezuela style.
No more Lightroom…. Hurray!
This insidious package seems to pervade at the expense of other better products, all areas of digital photography and its associated education.
Or maybe so very many people simply use it because it suits their needs better than the other options.
I’ve not found anything better and I do regularly check the alternatives.
I have. Luminar.
Produces better results MUCH faster than LR. Much more modern code too. I suspect version 4 (about to ship) will be Something of an “engine re-write” to take advantage of the speed boost from dumping the 32-bit legacy of the pre-Catalina frameworks.
I’m happy Luminar works for you. But it’s aimed at a different sort of user to LR, for example with its use of AI to fix images with little user input.
One of the major reasons why LR is so widely used is because of it’s very powerful organisational Library. One that that integrates seamlessly with all of the other modules and because it links with Photoshop so well, PS is like another module. I can even carry on rejigging my raw files whilst in PS and images save back into my LR catalogue.
File organising is what is the real time eater, not image tweaking and Luminar falls down there big time. Nothing in their roadmap suggests that’s going to be sorted either.
Plus Adobe do their best to support ALL camera Luminar doesn’t even support one of my old iPhones.
Generally I’m not that impressed by programmes that come along along after all the hard work of inventing how to do things has been done and they copy the paradigm and can start from scratch with new code.
The flip side of that view is that after “inventing” a lightweight quick retouch/prep program – Adobe proceeded to soent the next DECADE putting ALL their efforts into creating the current “fishhook” business model (where the company gatekeeps your creative IP behind a system where you can – Venezuela style – lose access to your OWN IP ) and precisely NONE into evolving the workflow by investigating how AI and similar computational advancements might change the future Production landscape.
I’d be hard pressed to name a single truly industry enhancing initiative that’s come out of that shop.
It will be interesting to see where companies like Skylum abd Affinity are after they’ve been around as long as Adobe has been.
Just sayin’
Some good news fo you Bill, Luminar V4 release date has just been announced in last hour or so.
But as wonderful as Luminar is for you, it is however useless for my needs for a variety of reasons. I would love there to be an genuine competitor to LR in all it’s capabilities to get Adobe to up their game a bit more with LR. but they AlL fall dismally short in one or usually many more way. LR feeds images directly into my website where I can sell them for example. This sort of thing saves vast amounts of time, far more than a bit quicker image processing. Where the slow part is mostly me thinking about what to do. I’ve also heard folk say LR is quicker there there anyway [for them].
PS which I also use seemed to get loads of amazing upgrades in the recent version, but I can’t recall much happened in LR. Lack of competition there I feel.
I read this in article on the V$, something that would scar me off Luminar.
“The latter are tools for compatibility of presets that have been created within earlier versions of Luminar; they aren’t relevant anymore and as such will be removed in future versions.”
I like to occasionally use old presets and tools for a variety of reasons, so companies that deprecate stuff will not get my money.
As for longevity. Adobe are more likely to still be around in several decades because of their wide ranging tool set used by a huge variety of professionals. Plus as annoying as the subscription model is, it’s makes them lots of money thus safeguarding their long term survival.
Every point You make is Fairly debatable accept your last one. Ask those artists In Venezuela if they are “locked out” of their own IP (which I define as the unique creative decisions I’ve made while using their tools) and I bet you’ll find that 100% of them would say “yes.”
Adobe could have made available run-time versions of each build that an editor could archive along with their project files – but they elected not to do that.
So the functional reality is that if you fail to continue paying (EVER!) you lose access to your own IP.
And that problem grows and grows with every project you build inside their wholly-owned garden.
Hell, why would I pay MORE to let someone else gatekeep my IP?
I’ve been Adobe free for Nearly 5 years now so 60 months at $50.
That amply funds my latest laptop or a nice 6k Cinema Camera to play with.
And the savings NEVER stop.
Adobe is TOO EXPENSIVE for what you get, IMO.
Primarily because they have a “protect the base” mentality – which means they will always be well behind the development curve, IMO.
So, no thanks, Adobe.
Happy to have moved on.
£7 a month for both PS + LR is a bargain in my view, the price of a magazine I will read in a couple of hours, if that. Or a coffee and snack which lasts 10mins.
Plus if you are a pro, who Adobe are aiming their software at, it’s tax deductible anyway.
Spending £50 on software that cannot do what I need, now that would be waste of money in my view, but it’s great if it’s good for you. BTW, this is the bit you fail to understand…your needs are not universal.
I don’t think you understand IP. Not being able to edit your work any further using Adobe tools does not restrict access to your work. You still have all your work. Heck with LR you can carry on using it bar the right hand develop functions and the map module. Lots of software can open PS files.
Also [pro] photographers who whinge about subscriptions are hypocrites. That’s precisely what licencing one’s images for a use are doing.
The “Your needs are not universal” idea cuts both ways, however.
I’ve been at this for quite a few decades now. And among the more powerful lesions I‘ve learned is to assess vendors as to which side of the game their actions indicate they are primarily interested in.
Offense or defense.
Adobe is obviously interested in defense. They have made MOST of their decisions in defense of their market status.
Their competitors are on offense. They want to explore NEW tactics and efficiencies, hopefully to pioneer changes that will help their players score more and in turn, create more interesting experiences for their fans.
To me, this is NOT a time to play defense. Because the times we live in are changing so rapidly that to keep playing the old style game simply risks you falling too far behind, to fast.
Look at the companies themselves. THEY are rapidly changing to react to changing field conditions ON THE SALES SIDE – while hoping YOU just keep using the same old production work habits From decades past!
They are “innovating” the structure of their business practices, but NOT the structure of their products.
Big lesson there, I think.
Never. ever said my needs are universal though. I repeatedly talked about how different people have different needs. You are very obviously not Adobe’s subscription target market. I am however and happily use their pro photography tools. This doesn’t mean to say I’m not critical of things they do. Because I certainly am and I now use Resolve not Premier for example. Though I was never a big fan of Premiere anyway and always hated Illustrator. Don’t do web stuff anymore, so Dreamweaver etc is of no interest anymore either.
Of note when I first learned PS 25 years back , I would have happily paid the current photography fee even back then, because I could easily afford that fairly trivial amount. Paying the full whack was a lot harder to manage.
BTW you can still buy Photohop/Premier Elements outright and PSE has some amazing tech in it.
As for these other companies trying new things. Funny how there are all basically mimicking PS/Bridge and LR, but are less capable or are like much older versions.
You do realise that Adobe is ahead of the curve here with new ways of doing things, lots of new software too has appeared in last few years as well. So they are not the ones paying catch up and doing things the old way . Adobe upset the apple cart by doing things differently re marketing and subscription charging for their pro wares. And the end result is they have increased profits immensely. Doesn’t sound very defensive to me, seems to me they are doing the right thing. Luminar and similar companies are basically aiming at very different sets of consumers anyway. Which is just fine.
No idea why you so are so defensive/upset about someone not finding Luminar appropriate for their needs. As I said, I’m glad you like it, but it is useless for my needs, so I use other tools. Competition is good and the sooner someone make a genuine alternative to all of what LR/PS can do the better, so as to up Adobe’s game. But nothing has anywhere near the complete feature set and workflow ease of that LR or PS has.
That’s horrible. The designer we work with is in Venezuela, and he works in almost entirely with Adobe Illustrator. They are already turning his power off every few days because the government can’t maintain the grid. Now my government is taking his software away. WTF?
crack it
are you that naive?
Yeah, right? Who cares that a socialism is ruining a country, sending people who don’t agree with them to jail and killing protesters when you can get a cheap designer ? WTF?!
My version is STILL CS6! I read, recently, too, that cloud-based storage can be ‘tapped’ by our government and there is nothing we can do about it!
Only Adobe and Oracle did!