New Activiation Scheme for Adobe CS 2

When Adobe's Creative Suite 2 was officially announced yesterday, it didn't take long before details of the Adobe's new activation requirement began to overshadow the wealth of new features introduced.

In an effort to curtail "casual copying," Adobe will now require that all CS 2 applications be activated/verified against a licensing server within 30 days of installation. Licenses can also be activated by phone. The 30-day grace period allows for emergency installs on additional systems should your authorized computer be stolen or damaged.

Adobe's licensing terms state that you can install their products on 2 of your machines. That makes sense for many users who have both a desktop and a laptop. This new activation requirement won't change that. But now, if you buy a new computer in addition to what you already have or as a replacement, for example, and you want to install Photoshop or any other CS2 app on it, you'll need to deactivate (ala iTunes Music Store) a previous installation or the product will stop working after 30 days. There is no information yet about whether corporate/bulk seat license holders will be exempt from this activation process, which can be a tremendous burden to a company's IT department when it comes to rolling out standard (and identical) configurations and image builds across an entire company or network.

"It's important to note that this is not a change in the way we do business — the overall terms of our license are the same as they always have been," Drew McManus, Adobe's Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy, told
MacCentral. "We are just using activation to authenticate that those terms are being adhered to."

As you probably know, Quark uses a similar activation process and many people hate them for it. Just as many people will hate Adobe now. Quark's isn't quite so user-friendly, however.

I think the 30-day grace period makes this a reasonable and smart implementation. It doesn't interfere with the typical user's workflow and it enables Adobe to enforce their own license terms without being heavy-handed.

Something tells me you're going to disagree with me.