Thinking of buying from eBay?

>much lower than the price difference I would bet)

about 400 bux savings on standalone photoshop!

check www.studica.com for prices and requirements

Wow...that's thinking "outside the box" Dave. Nice. I'll have to check that out. Chicago is large enough to probably have very low-cost classes (much lower than the price difference I would bet) but I'll have to check the Adobe requirements to qualify. It just might be worth it not to mention fun!

how about taking a night course at a local college and getting photoshop at an educational discount?

OK, that does make much more sense and explains a lot. I'm now convinced there's not likely a legitimate OEM version of CS3 out there so I won't bother to pursue this.

Reading this thread and other online articles about piracy, I understand it's sometime nearly impossible to even recognize pirated software because of the sophisticated packing done by the more serious pirates.

That leaves me with the only logical conclusion--it's much safer to just download a cracked version of Adobe products where you know you can rely on getting a valid and fully working version and always be assured you have the latest version available.

OK, just kidding....just kidding...just kidding!

I guess I'll have to consider buying Adobe Photoshop Elements instead. I just wish the Adobe site had a clear comparison feature for feature of the differences between the two versions so it would be easier for me to decide (for example, I don't do any advanced color management or color profiling of my hardware and I know this is just one of the differences between the two versions).

Oh well...maybe I'll ask that on another thread.

Thanks everyone for your input and from keeping me from potentially wasting money and time with these pirated "OEM" versions.

Steve
Chicago, IL USA

Did I say CS3? The OEM for Photoshop probably ended before version 5.5.

I don't think Adobe has to publicly address this issue. OEM has not been available for over 10 years, and this is well know by, at least, the regular users of these forums. Anyone claiming to be selling OEM since then is pirating.

Don this sounds plausible but are you really sure about CS3 being the right time-frame for OEM bundling to have stopped? I would have thought bundling because of scanner prices dropping would have occured a LONG time ago--more like Photohop version 6!

It would be so simple if Adobe would just state when they last licensed OEM copies in the U.S.

That is about the time that Photoshop stopped being bundled. For one thing, scanners dropped from the $1500 I paid for my first one, to the under $250 range (and lower since). It no longer became worth it to scanner makers to include Photoshop in their package, even if the OEM fee was only $100 or so. (Actually, if you paid $200 extra, then the OEM fee was probably a bit higher). They wrote their own limited software, and let the users buy Photoshop or get something else when they discovered how limited the included software was.

>Either they have licensed legal OEM copies of CS3 in the past or they haven't

they haven't. they've stated that here. just passing it on.

>And then they wonder why people create crack versions of their software, even just one day after they release a new version.

because some people will pay for it... a lot less than adobe sells it for.

>Are you listening Adobe? Do you care?

no. they're not, and they don't. ;)

Obviously there is much confusion and lots of "opinions" about this and I'll never understand why companies like Adobe cause this confusion in the first place, then don't apparently do something to clear it all up.

They can certainly read this and many other threads and respond if they wanted to. Either they have licensed legal OEM copies of CS3 in the past or they haven't. I suppose only they know for sure!

And then they wonder why people create crack versions of their software, even just one day after they release a new version.

Very frustrating for those that either can't afford or can't justify the full price for the latest version but would be willing to buy a legal copy of an older version for a reduced price. That seems like a legitimate and vibrant market segment to me.

Are you listening Adobe? Do you care?