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Erhp
Participant
July 31, 2011
Question

The legal status of the fonts packaged with the trial version of CS5.5 after expiry

  • July 31, 2011
  • 2 replies
  • 2918 views

Greetings,

This is basically a question of conscience: I recently had the 30 day trial version of CS5.5, and was surprised to find that after the trial expired the fonts included in the demo package did not “self destruct” but continued to be available on my system. Does this mean that I can legitimately keep them on my computer (strictly for personal use)? The situation seems somewhat paradoxical – I can’t imagine Adobe simply giving these fonts away, yet I also can’t imagine them expecting people to hunt the fonts down and delete them independently once the trial period runs out. (Obviously they hope people will buy the full product, but unfortunately that proved not to be an option for me at the moment.) I didn't see anything about this in the initial terms and conditions when installing the trial package and cannot find any official stance on this in the documentation, so unless I missed something, it would seem that Adobe has no ground to ask people to manually remove the fonts in this situation. I would appreciate your advice.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    September 3, 2011

    Adobe is not giving those fonts away.

    If you decide not to purchase a license to an Adobe product after installing and using the trial, you have no legal right to use the font after the trial period is over.

    Yes, the removal of those fonts was not accounted for but that doesn't change their legal status.

    Unfortunately, there are two problems associated with killing the ability to use the fonts after the trial period is over:

    (1)     We don't automatically uninstall the software after the trial period is over. We simply don't let you run it via the activation mechanism which blocks the execution. However, fonts are not involved in the activation mechanism (at least not currently) and as such, when the trial is over, the fonts are still installed and accessible by other programs. We would need to get the fonts into the activation mechanism somehow to be able to control their use when either a trial is over or the software is otherwise uninstalled!

    (2)     Currently, the Adobe fonts are installed into the system fonts directory. We would need to be careful to keep track of whether the user already had licenses to such fonts prior to installing a trial of Adobe software and not mucking with their status afterwards.

              - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    MichaelKazlow
    MichaelKazlow
    Legend
    July 31, 2011

    Adobe's licensing system is unable to control fonts that were installed on your computer as part of the trial of the CS programs/suite you have installed. Technically and morally, you have no right to continue to use the fonts that were installed. Adobe obviously hopes that you will purchase what you tested. It is not acting as big brother and scanning your system for bits and pieces to remove from your system. I do not know if the program uninstaller removes the fonts it installed or not. I assume that Adobe is would like people to remove fonts they are not licensed to use, but they probably understand that some people might continue to use the fonts.

    Michael Kazlow (not an official spokesperson for Adobe)

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    ErhpAuthor
    Participant
    August 2, 2011

    Michael, thank you for your quick response. It was also my gut feeling that it is inappropriate to keep the fonts (and I have now deleted them by hand). My post was more an expression of surprise that Adobe seems not to have foreseen this situation. Fair enough, they hope people will buy the product, but there are enough legitimate reasons why that may not be possible to warrant contingency planning. (For me, the deciding factor was the discovery that InDesign does not support Arabic, meaning I would need the Middle Eastern version which is not available at educational prices.)

    In answer to your question, the uninstaller does not remove the fonts. So if it is the case that for technical or privacy reasons the software cannot deal with the fonts automatically, but Adobe does want people in this situation to remove the fonts, the documentation ought to draw attention to this explicitly – at the very least point people to the relevant list so they know which fonts to delete. I can imagine many not noticing that the fonts had been installed at all. It simply seems strange that this question is not addressed directly anywhere.

    Jacob Bugge
    Community Expert
    Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 2, 2011

    Erhp,

    So if it is the case that for technical or privacy reasons the software cannot deal with the fonts automatically

    A rather obvious reason could be that any or all of the fonts may have been acquired legally before the installation, possibly/probably as downloads, or with other applications. The outcry of such an invasive act as deleting all fonts (not specifically asked for) included in a trial version would not leave Adobe unscathed.

    The possible, and possibly inadvertent, misuse of such fonts may be seen as a risk worth taking, especially when knowing that many breaches of font licenses occur, sometimes through negligence (such as sending the fonts used along with files for print/editing/elaboration instead of embedding them in PDFs or outlining them), even by otherwise knowledgeable and careful users.

    Hopefully, you have been able to discern between fonts that were and were not installed already, before the trial version.

    Said by someone never having downloaded Adobe trial versions and always having embedded fonts in PDF.

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