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Adobe Creative Cloud Terms of Use
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David, as usual, a fantastic post. The PC revolution has absolutely changed my life, and you’ve very eloquently explained how.
I’m not really accustomed to disagreeing with you, but I do see this a bit differently. I think there’s a big element at play here that I think your analysis is glossing over: the Internet, and the way it connects people and resources. The PC revolution is over; the network revolution is here.
Connectivity, social, and mobility are as transformative today as personal computing was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A computer without the Internet isn’t a general-purpose computer anymore; it’s an appliance, a glorified calculator sitting alone on a desk. Sun Microsystems was twenty-five years ahead of their time when they declared “The network is the computer” in 1984. Equally appropriate today is their observation from 2007 that “As everyone participates, everything changes.”
You can’t own the Internet. You can’t own social. You can’t own connectivity. These things are not products you can put in a box, or on a disk, or in an installer with a serial number to sell once, forever.
Jeremy is fond of saying “It’s not about the money, but it’s about the money.” I think he’s on to something. With this latest swing of the pendulum, the power of networked resources is affordable enough for mere mortals to access, and we’re seeing a shift away from the desktop and back to shared systems, like mainframes before PCs. Maybe there never would have even been a PC revolution in the first place if shared computer time had been cheap and accessible enough in the 1970s.
If Creative Cloud is just a new way to pay for Creative Suite, it’d be a disappointment. If it’s a reflection of the philosophy in Adobe’s open letter to creative users [link], though, the network effects would be transformative.
I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet, but I can imagine some of the possibilities, and it’s exciting.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “You can’t own the Internet. You can’t own social. You can’t own connectivity. These things are not products you can put in a box, or on a disk, or in an installer with a serial number to sell once, forever. “
Thank you, Walter. I agree with everything in your post and I too am excited about the possibilities of the connected future. But I don’t think that’s what Adobe is selling. Yet.
I find the syncing/social features in the current Creative Cloud offering shallow and of little value to me personally. Anywhere looks to be transformative, but it will be a while before it’s available outside of enterprise. As far as I can tell, there is nothing intrinsically connected about the functionality of the current CC suite.
Until the network is an inextricable part of the software experience, I would say it’s premature to call it a service.
Right now, the only reason the network is required is to make sure you’ve paid your monthly rent. All other network functions are optional. It’s really not a service, it’s software that phones home every month for an authentication check. I don’t see the added value.
I think Adobe would have a better marketing case for Creative Cloud if their networked vision was more fully realized and its value intrinsic and undeniable. Until then, there’s no reason why they couldn’t continue offering perpetual licenses along with Creative Cloud.
Why not offer both? If renting truly is better, the service will sell itself. I think the fact that we’re not being offered a choice is a clue to what’s really going on.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “Educators, independents, and artists tend to have a very different relationship to their work and its future. They’ll assess tools differently in light of those values.”<
[David Lawrence] Personal computers transformed industries and society by enabling the individual to own means of production that previously were completely controlled by centralized powers. You buy a computer, you buy the software, and you do whatever you want with the system because it’s your system.
Software rental flies in the face of this notion. Once again, the central powers want to own the key part of the system and rent it back to you. It’s ironic that Adobe – the company that single-handedly transformed the publishing and pre-press industries by making the means of production own-able by anyone – are leading the charge back to the old days when you had no choice but to rent.<
Sorry I missed this thread. It happened when I was sleeping out here in the Pacific. I even posted earlier today (still the 10th here) about the articles Lloyd Chambers had written and the implications of the EULAs on the Creative Cloud debate Forum.
I have to say I am very much in tune with the two statements above. I do believe that artists especially have a different relationship to their tools than those whose ambitions are more mercantile. My background and degrees are in video art, 1972, CalArts BFA where I studied with Nam June Paik and built his video synthesizer which I performed with, also Gene Youngblood whose classic “Expanded Cinema” foretold most of the video revolution. Then my MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1974 where I worked with Dan Sandin and his Image Processsor while also interning at WTTW, PBS Chicago as a producer and AD on what became Soundstage. I say all this to try to explain that it required a great deal of passion to do this in those days. You literally had to go to the masters and build your own tools. I still have the synthesizers here in working condition. In the ’70’s when this was the coming thing, my work was shown in museums in the US, Europe, and Asia.
I could no more consider these tools as rental objects than I can the software and computers I work with now. To think that a tool like Photoshop that I have been learning since v.1.0 could be ripped from my reach for any reason, especially one like the rental model of Creative Cloud, makes my guts churn. I was just getting into Premiere. David is right. This is the antithesis of what the personal computer model was meant to be.
I was lucky to make my living doing commercial work at One Pass Video in San Francisco, the first video film style company in the US, perhaps the world, and here in Hawaii as the Avid and Media 100 dealer. So I have seen both the commercial and artist’s side of things. But now that I am in the position of finally concentrating on my art again, it is more than disconcerting to see the progression toward models that seem to be more about taking tools out of our hands than putting them in them, regardless of the marketers siren call. Pay up now and forever, or find another tool. That is like telling a painter like Van Gogh to move from oils to watercolors because someone has bought the rights to the former, and you will have to meet their requirements to use them. If you don’t like it, well, it is still a form of painting. It just isn’t right.
I truly hope that Adobe, the company with more digital tools for artists than any other, realizes that there are enough artists and independents that recoil from this rental model that they will be required to provide realistic alternatives that will never force us to give up our tools and our work unless we wish to.
And Walter, I have been interested in the possibilities of networks since the early 70’s. Realtime artistic creation of visual and sound works with artists participating from all over the world in realtime. I wrote about that for my MFA. I thought it would be by satellites then. The internet will make it possible. But that is another discussion.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1, Premiere Pro 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe -
[David Lawrence] “I find the syncing/social features in the current Creative Cloud offering shallow and of little value to me personally. Anywhere looks to be transformative, but it will be a while before it’s available outside of enterprise. As far as I can tell, there is nothing intrinsically connected about the functionality of the current CC suite. Until the network is an inextricable part of the software experience, I would say it’s premature to call it a service.”
I agree. Adobe has a chicken-and-egg problem here.
The same thing happened with Creative Suite itself. The first version was pretty much a new way to buy the old products. It took some time before the new philosophy of product integration bore fruit, but it ultimately led to better-unified interfaces, better cross-app collaboration, shared components across applications, and dynamic link.
CS1 laid the groundwork of syncing product release cycles and getting the product teams working more closely together.
[David Lawrence] “I think Adobe would have a better marketing case for Creative Cloud if their networked vision was more fully realized and its value intrinsic and undeniable.”
I agree, but they can’t realize that vision until after development adds new features and people have started using them. Again, the chicken-and-egg problem.
[David Lawrence] “Why not offer both? If renting truly is better, the service will sell itself. I think the fact that we’re not being offered a choice is a clue to what’s really going on.”
I think what’s really going on is Adobe is working on their next generation of tools.
Maybe they can figure it out, but I can understand how the goals of CS and CC are different enough that splitting effort to produce both would satisfy neither.
Somewhat ironically, I think that Adobe has muddied the value proposition of CC by selling it for the last year as CS: Rental Edition. Now they are positioning themselves to make CC into much more than rented CS, but that’s hard to see because that’s not what it was last month. Maybe the transition was too soft.
For whatever it’s worth, I like that Adobe is going to stand behind CS6 for some time to come. You do still have a choice, even if it’s not the choice you want.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “I think what’s really going on is Adobe is working on their next generation of tools.
Maybe they can figure it out, but I can understand how the goals of CS and CC are different enough that splitting effort to produce both would satisfy neither.”
No doubt they’re developing their next generation of connected tools. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. But that’s in the future, we’re talking about now.
Ironically, Adobe is going out of their way to assure potential customers that you *don’t* need an alway on internet connection to use Creative Cloud. Talk about a muddled message! When you tell your customers the only reason they need the internet is to make sure they’ve paid the rent, don’t be surprised by the reaction.
From a development standpoint, there’s no need to split efforts between perpetual and rental. It’s absolutely trivial to implement and the foundation already exists. Here’s just one way it could work:
Right now when you sign up for Creative Cloud, you have two options:
1) 30-day trial
2) Activate membershipAll Adobe needs to do is add a third option:
3) Full license (or whatever the marketing people want to call it)
In all cases, you enter your credit card number. If you choose option 1) you get to try the software for 30 days, then after 30 days you return to the activation dialog and can choose from options 2 and 3.
If you choose option 3, you’re presented with a dialogue that allows you to enter a serial number from a previous version of CS. Your price for the upgrade depends on the serial number. You then have perpetual use of the software in its current state. You account is flagged so that you do not get any upgrades as they roll out. A year later, you again return to the activation dialog and can choose from options 2 and 3. If you choose 3 you pay the upgrade cost and catch up.
At anytime, you’re free to sign up for Creative Cloud membership from your perpetual license if a compelling feature is rolled out and you want it now.
In each of these three cases, development is exactly the same. In each of these three cases, download is exactly the same. The only difference is a single one-bit flag on the users account that determines whether they get feature updates during the year.
It’s absolutely trivial to implement.
Honestly, this is exactly how I thought they would roll this out from everything we heard during the year. I’m blown away by how they could get something so simple so wrong.
What would make Creative Cloud worth it to me? True networked collaboration features. Adobe Anywhere offered as a service, hosted by Adobe. That’s the kind of value I need to buy in. That’s not what they’re currently delivering.
[Walter Soyka] “For whatever it’s worth, I like that Adobe is going to stand behind CS6 for some time to come. You do still have a choice, even if it’s not the choice you want.”
Yes, true and if I was exclusively a Photoshop/Illustrator user, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The design tools are mature, robust, and do every thing I need. I’d stay with CS6 and that would be that.
You can be sure a lot of people are thinking that way.
My problem is I need Premiere Pro. And more specifically, I need this Next version of Premiere Pro that addresses all the major workflow bottlenecks.
So I’m looking at all my options. And I’ll continue to speak out to Adobe.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
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I hope you continue to speak out to Adobe and all of us, David. You’re making more sense than anybody I have read on any of the Forums concerning the Creative Cloud issues. Your options 1, 2 and 3 are right on the money. If I can use the word “money”.
Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1, Premiere Pro 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe -
[David Lawrence] “No doubt they’re developing their next generation of connected tools. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. But that’s in the future, we’re talking about now.”
At some point, you have to do the work now to prepare for the future. They couldn’t make awesome new CS7/CS8/CS9 releases while simultaneously developing an awesome CC in secret and unleashing it fully-formed. They also couldn’t throw out a few crummy CS7/CS8/CS9 releases because they were focusing all their energies on CC.
At some point, there needs to be a break. This clearly isn’t ideal (otherwise we wouldn’t have so much anxiety), but I think the transition was vastly better thought-out than FCP7/FCPX.
[David Lawrence] “Honestly, this is exactly how I thought they would roll this out from everything we heard during the year. I’m blown away by how they could get something so simple so wrong. “
I understand where you’re coming from. I had advocated for perpetual licensing plus maintenance, which I think would have met your needs nicely.
I really like the Adobe toolset, and I want to see Adobe do well. If CS was bad business for them, then I’d eventually suffer if they continued with it.
Of course, if CC is bad business for their customers, then Adobe will suffer, which would lead back to me suffering. I don’t want to suffer, so I hope this works out, or gets worked out!
[David Lawrence] “So I’m looking at all my options. And I’ll continue to speak out to Adobe.”
I think you absolutely should speak out if CC doesn’t work for you. I’m not trying to wave away your valid and serious objections, and I’m not trying to sell you on CC if it won’t work for you. I’m just pointing out the good parts I see. I hope that constructive dialog like this is a good thing for everybody!
I also totally understand your stance on this as a rights issue.
Personally, I think the questions of digital rights go way beyond licensing, and I have made a few suggestions on how to open up project data so that your projects aren’t tied to the product at all.
For my business, CC is a better practical choice than staying on CS6 indefinitely, and CC is also better than no Adobe products at all. My excitement about the new development philosophy trumps my concern that Adobe is trying to pull a fast one on me.
That said, we’re both in favor of making the CC offering better so it works for more people. The more feedback, the better. Let’s talk about it here, but let’s also not forget to send it where it actually gets tracked:
https://www.adobe.com/go/wish/
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “At some point, you have to do the work now to prepare for the future. They couldn’t make awesome new CS7/CS8/CS9 releases while simultaneously developing an awesome CC in secret and unleashing it fully-formed. They also couldn’t throw out a few crummy CS7/CS8/CS9 releases because they were focusing all their energies on CC.”
Agreed. But my point is they don’t have to make separate releases to have a perpetual license. A perpetual license would simply give you unlimited use of the applications you purchase frozen at their current state when you download them. No feature updates for a year. If you want the new features rolling out thru-out the year sooner, join the cloud. This isn’t rocket science.
[Walter Soyka] “I understand where you’re coming from. I had advocated for perpetual licensing plus maintenance, which I think would have met your needs nicely. “
Absolutely!
[Walter Soyka] “I really like the Adobe toolset, and I want to see Adobe do well. If CS was bad business for them, then I’d eventually suffer if they continued with it.
Of course, if CC is bad business for their customers, then Adobe will suffer, which would lead back to me suffering. I don’t want to suffer, so I hope this works out, or gets worked out!”
Yes, me too! I want a win-win for customers and for Adobe. I’d much rather be telling everyone how much I love Adobe’s software than how much I hate their business model.
[Walter Soyka] “That said, we’re both in favor of making the CC offering better so it works for more people. The more feedback, the better. Let’s talk about it here, but let’s also not forget to send it where it actually gets tracked:
https://www.adobe.com/go/wish/“
Indeed!
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “It was the idea that instead of renting time on a mainframe, you could buy your very own computer. A “bicycle for the mind”. A consciousness amplifier. A personal computer.
The rest is history, right?”
It certainly is. Thanks again for the write up.
I understand what you are saying when you use the term “ownership”. Yes, I own computers, I have also leased them. These days it doesn’t make much sense to lease them anymore. If I was guaranteed significant yearly hardware upgrades, I’d certainly think about it as it is much less risk on my part, and my cost is fixed.
It is also interesting that you used the word “rent”.
Soon, I think our computers will just be terminals, or thin clients. All of the user experience and power will be in the cloud, truly in the cloud. I’m sure you have experience with some web site providers in that you can rent a virtual server from them, with complete control, to allow you to run a server as if it was local. I would imagine that as technology becomes better, as the world becomes more and more connected, this type of computing and experience will be more common place. You will be able to log in to whatever service you are paying for virtually anywhere that has a terminal, even if you don’t have one in your pocket.
I am also a Google Apps subscriber, and our company uses Google Apps all of the time. It is a per user yearly cost, it is fully cloudified, and if we were to stop paying for it, we’d have to switch providers and transfer our huge email archive to something else. The service, though, is worth it. It is reliable, handy, ubiquitous (we can sign in anywhere in the world and not need our own computer), and it is constantly being updated.
Now, I agree Adobe and computing technology has a long way to go before CC is of the likes of Google Apps, a really long way to go. I also agree that the folks at Adobe also have an uphill battle in proving their worth as a subscription based software service to freelance/independents/educators. You are right in that it is a lot to ask photographers, non-revenue based artists, and educators to pony up much more than they are used to.
I know I harp on the money thing a lot, and to be clear, it is not only about the money for me or you or any other user, it is about the money for Adobe.
Adobe is looking to become a major player. As much as we’d like it to be, Adobe Anywhere is not for everyone. It is a major service for major bandwidth for major clients with major hardware. This can, will, and should cost…money.
This is professional software aimed squarely at professional users, despite Gallagher’s best efforts to trash the web based marketing fluff and say that Adobe is out of ideas. While I don’t necessarily agree with that view, I can see how it might look that way.
I guess what I see more of is a new way of looking at what software can do for us a content creators. It is also a surprisingly good look at what it means to be a video professional in today’s marketplace, or at least a professional that uses Adobe software. Perhaps, this is even more of a gut check than what Apple did with FCP. It is true that through cost of use, Adobe is dictating some of those terms, rightly or wrongly.
Not everyone can have a business model like Apple. They have such a diverse revenue stream that is specifically tied to their hardware, that they can and will dictate price in a different way than Adobe has to, and that’s what Adobe and almost any other content creation software specialist is fighting.
I’m not blaming Apple or anyone, I am just pointing out the differences.
If $20/mo in perpetuity would ease the transition, what would $10 do? At what point does CC become a service worth paying for?
Thanks, also, for pointing to the Microsoft blog thing. It is interesting to see they had success with the cloud as Adobe did last year with CS6. 25% of customers that bought Office decided on subscription. I wonder what the tipping point is for them in terms of moving to all subscription based? A decade seems like a really long time, I’d check back in three years or less. 😉
Jeremy
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I should have read the rest of the thread before responding. It appears you, Walter, and Jim have covered all of this.
Apologies! I will strive to be more timely next time. 🙂
Jeremy
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