Is Adobe going to sue me?

Is Adobe going to sue me for using older products?

You may have heard about the ongoing lawsuit between Adobe and Dolby Laboratories over the use of Dolby copyrighted code. Articles like these https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xk3p/adobe-tells-users-they-can-get-sued-for-using-old-versions-of-photoshop or , here: https://petapixel.com/2019/05/14/adobe-warns-that-using-older-cc-apps-could-get-you-sued/. In some cases you may have received an email from Adobe containing this text.

Is Adobe going to sue me for using their Photoshop CS3? Or for my Lightroom 4 that I bought (and paid “dearly” for) so many years ago?

From the above articles, you would conclude so. I would consider these articles as clickbait and not worthy of the owners of those websites.

Here is the key part of the message Adobe sent out to some of its users:

“Please be aware that if you continue to use or deploy the older, unauthorized versions of Creative Cloud, you will not have third-party claim coverage pursuant to your contract with Adobe,” Adobe states. “Should you continue to use or deploy these unauthorized versions, you may be at risk of potential claims of infringement by third parties.”

Dolby Laboratories is suing Adobe over a lost income from its licensing agreement with Adobe when Adobe introduced the subscription model for the Creative Cloud (CC) product line. As a result of this new strategy, Adobe would have to pay much less to Dolby Laboratories than was agreed upon in the first place. Understandably, Dolby Labs was not ok with that and went to court over it.

So, the “third parties” here would be Dolby Labs, not Adobe, right?. Let's get real people. Adobe is not going to sue anyone of their clients for having paid them. However, Dolby Laboratories may. So what will they sue you for? For the use of an old product that is worth a few hundred bucks to begin with? Adobe is merely warning against possible action from “third parties”, not from their own legal department.

So is Dolby the only one to blame? I don’t think so. Logging in and out of the Adobe CC system is done using Java. Java is owned by Oracle and they charge a license fee by the “version”. Leaving unused old versions lying around will make Oracle richer and has no benefit for Adobe. So, Adobe is urging you to update to the latest version or so. Making it more manageable for Adobe and certainly less expensive. Continuing to use OLD CC versions would hamper development for new versions. After all, if they are bleeding money over something they no longer support, that money can’t be used for development of new functions or products.

A few months ago, Google changed its API for Google Maps and as a result of this, the Maps module in Lightroom no longer worked. A certain crowd threatened to leave Lightroom behind for just that. Adobe addressed the issue before Google updated their API for good.

The comments on Facebook and Twitter about both actions by Adobe were provided by the same crowd that claimed for the last five years not to go the subscription route. They still threaten to go to AlienSkin X4 or Capture One. If they haven’t changed camps yet, after five long, agonizing years using Photoshop and Lightroom from Adobe, it might be time for them to do so. After all, they haven’t contributed to the development of the products either by paying the ridiculously high subscription fee of 10 bucks a month or by providing helpful ideas on how to make the product "worthy" of their subscription fee. Less than that pizza that lasts them for only an evening.

And no, Adobe is not going to sue you for using Lightroom 5 or even Photoshop CS2 if you still have that, those programs are not even part of the Creative Cloud system They only warn you that some of their older products may be subject to a lawsuit from other companies they no longer work with. Upgrading to newer versions is free and should be done. It’s for your own good.