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The comments here seem to be mostly litigating whether Pantone ought to be allowed to license colour names. To me though, the scandalous thing about this is tha

The comments here seem to be mostly litigating whether Pantone ought to be allowed to license colour names. To me though, the scandalous thing about this is that a piece of software which you paid for can work fine one day can stop functioning the same way the next because of a change in the vendor's license agreements. Like imagine if you bought a song which uses samples and one day the backing track just disappears because the artist didn't renew the sample clearance.

ehnto 4y ago
It's a complex problem when you start to dig into it, mostly because so much software (including Photoshop) is delivered as a SaaS product and even more so as they become more and more cloud connected. Behaving more like a live-service that you're connected to rather than a discrete application on your device. You could say that your application should continue to have the licensed content, but their live-service couldn't continue to provide it through their servers. I think these are just oversights in the contract in a way. I would hope we'd see less of these mishaps as time goes on and companies get better at writing long-term outcomes into their contracts. It would be a pain in the butt to write software that handles legacy licensing per user over a live service though.
- moolcool 4y ago
  You're right, but that doesn't stop it from sucking. Like every defense of Adobe and Pantone here are technically correct and rational, but that doesn't stop this from being a stupid problem which is deeply unfair to the consumer.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    Oh I agree wholeheartedly. And we will probably be bringing up the Adobe Pantone debacle in ten years when auto owners suddenly lose access to their heated seats because their licensing ran out, or somthing equally asinine. We seem to be very busy applying all these same mistakes but to real world products like coffee pod machines, cars and TVs, home security and such.
    - tanseydavid 4y ago
      The problem emanates from the supply end. They all want their recurring revenue because some other corporation is doing it. There is no more thought put into it than that.
      - Gibbon1 4y ago
        I own some shares in a company and took a look at what their valuation would be. play sad trombone sound. It did appear that companies with reoccurring revenue based on a monopoly are valued much higher than ones that produce single shot revenue. I think the solution would be to change corporate tax laws to even things out a bit. Like treat rents off things like Pantone as pure taxable profit.
- mindslight 4y ago
  We should plainly reject the adoption of Software Augmented with Additional Surveillance. If the purpose of some software doesn't involve communication, yet a specific piece of software arbitrarily requires Internet access (likely for the developer's own purposes of control), then don't use it. Period. In addition to saving yourself from this type of bait and switch, you'll be dodging some surveillance and other user-hostile anti-features enabled constant connectivity. There are plenty of older releases of Photoshop available on torrent sites that will install locally, that should have long passed into public domain if copyright law were sane. If Adobe isn't even willing to sell you a version of Photoshop, and insists that you can now only rent it, that's yet another reason to not feel bad about piracy.
AequitasOmnibus 4y ago
This happens all the time in the entertainment industry. For example: TV show X licenses pop song Y for its initial broadcast. The group that owns the syndication rights didn’t buy the right to use song Y, consequently they have to replace the music with generic Muzak in subsequent broadcasts. You pay for Netflix, start watching show X, and when it gets to the big dramatic moment with sweeping music (that you remember from when the show originally aired), it’s replaced with elevator music. Same goes for a lot of movies.
- moolcool 4y ago
  Yes, but that doesn't stop it from sucking. Also, they can do it with streaming media, but they can't come to my house and replace my DVDs. Just because it's technically correct, doesn't mean that it's not a bullshit model which is anti-consumer and anti-creativity.
- LocalH 4y ago
  The difference is, those changes don't affect existing copies, they affect new copies. If you have a VHS or DVD copy of the show before the license expired, then you have the original music. This is mangling old documents unless you pay a fee. Yet another example of modern copyright leading to the individuals having the least possible rights, in order to be nickled and dimed. It would make more sense if existing documents could still retain their colors, but new documents couldn't be made with the Pantone colors in question. It'd still suck, but it'd be more respectful to the end users of the software.
  - frosted-flakes 4y ago
    But with screaming there are no old copies. And if you never update Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign Pantone colours will continue to work.
    - Macha 4y ago
      How long is not updating photoshop an option? Will the DRM stop supporting old versions eventually? (like it already has with some of the CS versions)
xwdv 4y ago
I think people just need to change their way of thinking. Software these days isn’t really just a program, it’s a complex collection of business relationships and software is just the contract that allows them to operate together, and you’re one end of it. The software is just a supply chain that allows you to create new content, and it can be suddenly broken the same way a physical supply chain can be.
thereddaikon 4y ago
You don't buy Adobe software. You subscribe to the Adobe SaaS. This is the consequence of replacing products with subscriptions. If people don't like that then they should do something about it. Too late to vote with your wallet, the industry as a whole has moved to this. Adam Smith, the guy who came up with capitalism, wrote about the evils of rent seeking. You need a regulatory approach.
- xnyan 4y ago
  I am not opposed to using regulation, but I can’t see what could be done with regulation that would lead to, say, non-subscription adobe products. Mandate that offline versions be available for purchase? There would also have to be some kind of price control mechanism or adobe would make it unaffordable. That seems very specific and messy, but I’m sure there are other ideas.
drewbeck 4y ago
Agree. Updating old files with black specifically is egregious. Even replacing the color with a CMYK/RGB near equivalent would be far far less hostile than this approach. Oh you want to know what colors you used on that piece from 15 years ago? Pay up. It’s basically a shakedown and should be illegal.
Lammy 4y ago
This is why I’m so happy to have the DRM-free version of Photoshop CS3 that they offered for a year or two after shutting down the CS3 product activation system. It might be old, but it runs fine on Windows 10 and I can depend on it staying the way it is.
maximus-decimus 4y ago
You don't have to imagine. Rockstar removed songs from GTA retro-actively 4 years ago because their license ended. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/8azwxv/some_of_gta_ivs_music_licenses_expire_later_this/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/8azwxv/some_of_gta_i...
xypage 4y ago
This is exactly what people have been worried about with the shift towards subscriptions instead of outright buying things. You didn't really pay to __own__ a specific piece of software anymore, you're paying for access to it. Because you don't actually own the thing it's subject to changing unexpectedly like this and there isn't really any recourse.
pier25 4y ago
That's not at all what's happening. Older versions of Adobe software will still have the Pantone swatches. Of course an issue here is that at some point in future you won't be able to install older Adobe products, specially on macOS.

ehnto 4y ago

It's a complex problem when you start to dig into it, mostly because so much software (including Photoshop) is delivered as a SaaS product and even more so as they become more and more cloud connected. Behaving more like a live-service that you're connected to rather than a discrete application on your device. You could say that your application should continue to have the licensed content, but their live-service couldn't continue to provide it through their servers. I think these are just oversights in the contract in a way. I would hope we'd see less of these mishaps as time goes on and companies get better at writing long-term outcomes into their contracts. It would be a pain in the butt to write software that handles legacy licensing per user over a live service though.

moolcool 4y ago
You're right, but that doesn't stop it from sucking. Like every defense of Adobe and Pantone here are technically correct and rational, but that doesn't stop this from being a stupid problem which is deeply unfair to the consumer.
- ehnto 4y ago
  Oh I agree wholeheartedly. And we will probably be bringing up the Adobe Pantone debacle in ten years when auto owners suddenly lose access to their heated seats because their licensing ran out, or somthing equally asinine. We seem to be very busy applying all these same mistakes but to real world products like coffee pod machines, cars and TVs, home security and such.
  - tanseydavid 4y ago
    The problem emanates from the supply end. They all want their recurring revenue because some other corporation is doing it. There is no more thought put into it than that.
    - Gibbon1 4y ago
      I own some shares in a company and took a look at what their valuation would be. play sad trombone sound. It did appear that companies with reoccurring revenue based on a monopoly are valued much higher than ones that produce single shot revenue. I think the solution would be to change corporate tax laws to even things out a bit. Like treat rents off things like Pantone as pure taxable profit.
mindslight 4y ago
We should plainly reject the adoption of Software Augmented with Additional Surveillance. If the purpose of some software doesn't involve communication, yet a specific piece of software arbitrarily requires Internet access (likely for the developer's own purposes of control), then don't use it. Period. In addition to saving yourself from this type of bait and switch, you'll be dodging some surveillance and other user-hostile anti-features enabled constant connectivity. There are plenty of older releases of Photoshop available on torrent sites that will install locally, that should have long passed into public domain if copyright law were sane. If Adobe isn't even willing to sell you a version of Photoshop, and insists that you can now only rent it, that's yet another reason to not feel bad about piracy.

AequitasOmnibus 4y ago

This happens all the time in the entertainment industry. For example: TV show X licenses pop song Y for its initial broadcast. The group that owns the syndication rights didn’t buy the right to use song Y, consequently they have to replace the music with generic Muzak in subsequent broadcasts. You pay for Netflix, start watching show X, and when it gets to the big dramatic moment with sweeping music (that you remember from when the show originally aired), it’s replaced with elevator music. Same goes for a lot of movies.

moolcool 4y ago
Yes, but that doesn't stop it from sucking. Also, they can do it with streaming media, but they can't come to my house and replace my DVDs. Just because it's technically correct, doesn't mean that it's not a bullshit model which is anti-consumer and anti-creativity.
LocalH 4y ago
The difference is, those changes don't affect existing copies, they affect new copies. If you have a VHS or DVD copy of the show before the license expired, then you have the original music. This is mangling old documents unless you pay a fee. Yet another example of modern copyright leading to the individuals having the least possible rights, in order to be nickled and dimed. It would make more sense if existing documents could still retain their colors, but new documents couldn't be made with the Pantone colors in question. It'd still suck, but it'd be more respectful to the end users of the software.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  But with screaming there are no old copies. And if you never update Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign Pantone colours will continue to work.
  - Macha 4y ago
    How long is not updating photoshop an option? Will the DRM stop supporting old versions eventually? (like it already has with some of the CS versions)

xwdv 4y ago

I think people just need to change their way of thinking. Software these days isn’t really just a program, it’s a complex collection of business relationships and software is just the contract that allows them to operate together, and you’re one end of it. The software is just a supply chain that allows you to create new content, and it can be suddenly broken the same way a physical supply chain can be.

thereddaikon 4y ago

You don't buy Adobe software. You subscribe to the Adobe SaaS. This is the consequence of replacing products with subscriptions. If people don't like that then they should do something about it. Too late to vote with your wallet, the industry as a whole has moved to this. Adam Smith, the guy who came up with capitalism, wrote about the evils of rent seeking. You need a regulatory approach.

xnyan 4y ago
I am not opposed to using regulation, but I can’t see what could be done with regulation that would lead to, say, non-subscription adobe products. Mandate that offline versions be available for purchase? There would also have to be some kind of price control mechanism or adobe would make it unaffordable. That seems very specific and messy, but I’m sure there are other ideas.

drewbeck 4y ago

Agree. Updating old files with black specifically is egregious. Even replacing the color with a CMYK/RGB near equivalent would be far far less hostile than this approach. Oh you want to know what colors you used on that piece from 15 years ago? Pay up. It’s basically a shakedown and should be illegal.

Lammy 4y ago

This is why I’m so happy to have the DRM-free version of Photoshop CS3 that they offered for a year or two after shutting down the CS3 product activation system. It might be old, but it runs fine on Windows 10 and I can depend on it staying the way it is.

maximus-decimus 4y ago

You don't have to imagine. Rockstar removed songs from GTA retro-actively 4 years ago because their license ended. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/8azwxv/some_of_gta_ivs_music_licenses_expire_later_this/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/8azwxv/some_of_gta_i...

xypage 4y ago

This is exactly what people have been worried about with the shift towards subscriptions instead of outright buying things. You didn't really pay to __own__ a specific piece of software anymore, you're paying for access to it. Because you don't actually own the thing it's subject to changing unexpectedly like this and there isn't really any recourse.

pier25 4y ago

That's not at all what's happening. Older versions of Adobe software will still have the Pantone swatches. Of course an issue here is that at some point in future you won't be able to install older Adobe products, specially on macOS.