Illegal posting of Adobe Photoshop CS2?

Fr3dY · Jan 11, 2013

Hi,

Majorgeeks made Photoshop CS2 freely available at http://www.majorgeeks.com/Adobe_Photoshop_CS2_Free_d8081.html , but it seems there was some confusion about this.
Adobe never made this product free, they just released a serial number that bypasses activation because it's not possible to do it anymore. This serial number should be used only by customers that already bought the product.

More info at http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662#4974662

On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated ...

You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2!

What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don't require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. (Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product download.)
You are only legally entitled to download and install with that serial number if you have a valid license to the product!

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.

Major Attitude · Jan 11, 2013

Does not look like they are going to enforce it, in fact one could argue this has been a big press opportunity and maybe give them pause to consider releasing old versions for free. Take note that we are about 5 days into Adobe "accidentally" putting CS2 online with a working key. Now, someone at Adobe is easily the stupidest person EVER to think no one would notice or this was an intentional slip. Either way, they put it out there with a serial number for free. Illegal? NO, See bottom for why. Adobes smooth move here is to announce that they made a mistake so have at it. A moderator also mentioned they were not going after people:

"I don't think you have to worry about Adobe coming after you for this, union_bug.

As soon as our execs have approved an official statement on this issue, I or another Adobe staffer will post it here."

Adobe has gone silent for 4 days now. It installed here and ran with no issues. It's already viral.

So our statement is:
If Adobe asks us to remove it, we will but we are only listing it, and linking to it, per their own download page. If they posted it, us doing so is not illegal.

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Illegal posting of Adobe Photoshop CS2?

Fr3dY Private E-2

Major Attitude Co-Owner MajorGeeks.Com Staff Member