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Don't you think an illegal copy would not be licensable? The license number worked.
BTW, some Adobe products require activation. This one doesn't. Don't know if that means anything.
All they'd need is a serial # and key code generator. If they are counterfeiting commercial products, that would be simpler, since no activation is required.
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If you were designing a product serial-number database, wouldn't you make sure that every unit shipped had a unique identifier, which could not be used more than once? And wouldn't you require registration before it could be used the first time?
Seems to me that then it couldn't be counterfeited.
Maybe I'm missing something. . .
/Mr Lynn
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What you are missing is that the bulk commercial licensed software is meant for sale to businesses or corporations. Large businesses have put pressure on the software companies to not require activation, they do not want to deal with it for 10's or 100's of installed copies. One commercial license is supposed to be used by only one company, not many separate individuals.
However, a certain number of these software packages are diverted, stolen, copied, or otherwise end up being sold to other than the intended end user. What I , and I guess others, suspect is that is what you just bought. The seller has a commercial copy and is selling it to many individuals, outside of the terms of the license agreement on the software. So the serial number may work, but you may run into problems down the line with updates and upgrades if Adobe determines that software with that serial number is being used outside license terms and deactivates the appropriate serial numbers(s).
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I think it is too hard to have a unique identifier on each disk since they burn them in big bunches. Thats why they went with the activation scheme.
You may have gotten a copy of disks they make for institutions who buy by the "seat" and don't need the activation, it makes it much easier to install on multiple machines without having to activate each one.
I used to have a link to Adobe's site where they say it is OK to use academic versions for pay if you qualified academically at the time of purchase. They are really interested in getting folks on the upgrade train every 18 months...
=wr=
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[quote wave rider]I think it is too hard to have a unique identifier on each disk since they burn them in big bunches. Thats why they went with the activation scheme.
=wr=
Well, you don't want to print the license number on the CDs anyway. But there's no reason you can't make sure that there are the same quantity of numbers in the database as there are units shipped, and that once a number is used, it can only be used again by the same registrant.
The practice of selling 'bulk' licenses is bound to defeat that plan, however. If you sell one 'bulk' license to a company with 3,000 employees, with people coming and going there are always going to be some unattached copies floating around, and they will inevitably enter the 'grey market'.
One would assume the big software companies know this, and wink at it.
/Mr Lynn
