Is this legal... or just More c*&#% from Adobe?

After being unable to update (update error code U44M1P7) my CS6 extension manager, I logged onto my Adobe account. Although I expected the usual high (actually the usual poor) customer service, I was unprepared for this one...

I was greeted with a typical "agreement of terms" form and asked to approve it before I could continue. Now, I ask - is it legal to withhold customer service for a legally purchased (from Adobe) product if you do not want to alter your original agreement?

I am a US citizen, purchased the products in the US and updated my products from the Adobe site. This time, since I was logging on from a site in Thailand (where I currently, temporarily reside) I was asked - forced to approve a new "licensing terms" agreement under the laws (I don't know if good or bad) of Ireland. What crap is this?

Is this legal, and has anyone else been held up like this and prevented from receiving service by refusing to accept the "new" terms?

What are the changes in the agreement? It is routine for updates for a lot of software to request agreement with the user agreement. That does not mean that there are any changes.

I didn't read the very long agreements, but the main thing that stuck in my craw, was the statement that it would be covered under the applicable laws in Ireland. Since the recent news, we know that the tech companies in the US use Ireland to escape income tax and other laws from the US. So, I assume, rightly or wrongly, that it is to their advantage that I follow the laws of Ireland than those from the US and the individual states where I purchased the products.

I seriously doubt that Adobe would be forcing someone to enter into a new agreement that is more favorable to the purchaser. But I could be wrong. But, my biggest question is, "to receive service on a product, can you be forced to enter into a new agreement and discard the original agreement?"

One time, a few months ago, when I was having a problem with a Photoshop CS6 function, the customer service (phone rep) told me that they didn't have to fix or even address it (that bug) because I purchased the product in the US, so I was illegally using it in Thailand. I immediately spoke to a supervisor, and asked her to point out that I was in violation of my user license?

So, I suspect this is a response to that issue and is a step towards refusing any support or customer service in cases like this. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would give you some pretty good odds, that if I was using "Creative Cloud" instead of my "owned" software, this wouldn't be discussed.

nightshadow1 said:

nightshadow1 wrote:

After being unable to update (update error code U44M1P7) my CS6 extension manager, I logged onto my Adobe account. Although I expected the usual high (actually the usual poor) customer service, I was unprepared for this one...

I was greeted with a typical "agreement of terms" form and asked to approve it before I could continue. Now, I ask - is it legal to withhold customer service for a legally purchased (from Adobe) product if you do not want to alter your original agreement?

I am a US citizen, purchased the products in the US and updated my products from the Adobe site. This time, since I was logging on from a site in Thailand (where I currently, temporarily reside) I was asked - forced to approve a new "licensing terms" agreement under the laws (I don't know if good or bad) of Ireland. What crap is this?

Is this legal, and has anyone else been held up like this and prevented from receiving service by refusing to accept the "new" terms?

Click to expand...

That's common for many companies, not just Adobe. It's not really withholding customer service, its a basic freebie from the company, the terms of which may be the same or different from the licensing agreement you agreed to when you first installed their product.

You're a US citizen living in Thailand. You are certainly free to hire a Thai and/or US law firm to represent you in a law suit against Adobe. Nice if you have deep pockets and a lot of spare time.

I'm a US citizen, and have lived in France, Germany, China and currently Singapore. Read the terms and either agree or disagree and move on.

You did not purchase the software, you purchased a license to use the software. That license agreement no doubt allows the licensor the right to amend, from time to time, the license agreement.

Sounds perfectly legal to me, after all, you have no property rights to the software itself, only the rights granted in the license agreement.

That is an overly broad statement. First it depends in what country and in what state you live in. Second, we don't buy licenses to use software - we enter into licensing agreements to use the software. These are contracts - no different then an apartment lease in many ways - that bind both the user and the software maker.

A basic rule of contracting is that you cannot change the contract without the consent of both sides. Traditionally, you also need something called "consideration". Consideration is most usually goods (i.e. the right to use the software) or money.

If Adobe were to unilaterally change the licensing agreement in a way that were to altar the rights and duties under the original software licensing agreement they can not do so unless both sides (a) agree and (b) receive something of value. Since the PS6 user is not providing Adobe with consideration - i.e. more money - a court may void the modification due to lack of consideration (often this unilateral contract modification is called fraud).

Now I am no longer a practicing contract attorney but my memory seems to be telling me that the rule requiring consideration has been eased somewhat in recent years. My guess is that it still applies in this instance and that Adobe is not significantly changing the software licensing agreement.

Is it legal? Does it matter? Do we care? Send the lot of them to Guantanamo and make them suffer - that is what I say.

Member said:

MPrince wrote:

You did not purchase the software, you purchased a license to use the software. That license agreement no doubt allows the licensor the right to amend, from time to time, the license agreement.

Sounds perfectly legal to me, after all, you have no property rights to the software itself, only the rights granted in the license agreement.

Click to expand...

is nonsense. You bought the software.

From wikipedia.de:

In Deutschland sind EULA zu Standardsoftware nur dann Vertragsbestandteil, wenn sie zwischen Verkäufer und Erwerber der Software bereits beim Kauf vereinbart wurden. Dem Käufer erst nach dem Kauf zugänglich gemachte Lizenzbestimmungen (zum Beispiel während der Installation oder als gedruckte Beilage in der Verpackung) sind für den Käufer wirkungslos. Dies gilt auch dann, wenn der Käufer bei der Installation "Ich stimme der Lizenzvereinbarung zu" oder Ähnliches anklickt, weil die Software sonst die Installation verweigert.

Auch wenn die Lizenzbedingungen beim Kauf vereinbart wurden (zum Beispiel beim Online-Kauf durch entsprechendes gut sichtbares Anzeigen vor dem Kauf oder bei Kauf im Ladengeschäft durch deutlich erkennbares Abdrucken der vollständigen Bedingungen auf der Verpackung), kann ihre Wirksamkeit eingeschränkt sein. Sie stellen dann Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen dar, die der Inhaltskontrolle durch die AGB-Regelungen des BGB unterliegen.

Member said:

MPrince wrote:

You did not purchase the software, you purchased a license to use the software. That license agreement no doubt allows the licensor the right to amend, from time to time, the license agreement.

Sounds perfectly legal to me, after all, you have no property rights to the software itself, only the rights granted in the license agreement.

Click to expand...

There have been court cases which disagree with your statement, particularly when the agreement is "shrink-wrapped" or "click-wrapped" and you are unable to see what you are agreeing to until you have paid the purchase price (becoming subject to the terms of the sales contract) and later you open the package to see the license agreement. I believe these are called contracts of adhesion and are not allowed in some states.

--

Darrell

nightshadow1 said:

nightshadow1 wrote:

After being unable to update (update error code U44M1P7) my CS6 extension manager, I logged onto my Adobe account. Although I expected the usual high (actually the usual poor) customer service, I was unprepared for this one...

I was greeted with a typical "agreement of terms" form and asked to approve it before I could continue. Now, I ask - is it legal to withhold customer service for a legally purchased (from Adobe) product if you do not want to alter your original agreement?

I am a US citizen, purchased the products in the US and updated my products from the Adobe site. This time, since I was logging on from a site in Thailand (where I currently, temporarily reside) I was asked - forced to approve a new "licensing terms" agreement under the laws (I don't know if good or bad) of Ireland. What crap is this?

Is this legal, and has anyone else been held up like this and prevented from receiving service by refusing to accept the "new" terms?

Click to expand...

You will probably find, if you read the original TOS, that they reserve the right to alter the TOS from time to time.

Many companies do it. In fact, the main reason my firm is moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 is the fact that support for XP ends next year and Microsoft will be charging tens of thousands of dollars to provide support for a product they are freely supporting now.

Changing the contract gives them an opportunity to say, "we are changing some of our business practices and you need to know what those changes are. If you don't like our changes, you can opt out now". Of course that might mean you no longer get the support you were used to.

Ben

@OP

You may be able to save some (or a lot ?) grief if you you had this on separate computer....and away from the web. At this point, however, whatever files you wish to present will likely have enough "shadows" attached, that opening them may not be possible.

Leswick

In a Nutshell. Capitalism is the Author of Law throught the World,

Thanks for your posts.

Of course I have no intention to hire a lawyer, etc... farangs have no rights at all in Thailand.

I posed the question because I was interested in what the law, may or may not allow, but also because I had never seen this kind of "changing the agreement" before, anywhere.

Given Adobe's recent moves, I thought it was a timely reminder to all of us Adobe users to beware when they say things such as,"... we have no intention at this time to stop the purchasing models used for LR." Of course this is not an exact quote, but you know what I mean. I mean, buyer beware... as has always been the case. But maybe more important now than before.

Thanks for the good comments and discussion.