w00t new software for Nos..

Well all I know is that with Adobe, you can upgrade from your student version with the commercial upgrade.

If you're able to upgrade to the commercial version with macromedia products (which we're not sure if you can) I don't see how they'd know you upgraded from a student version. Install the student, upgrade to the commercial and then register with the commercial.

I dunno. If that isn't legal then I don't know what we can do beside fork over a heck of a lot more money. lol.

Macromedia doesn't do that, though. Apparently it is just Adobe, and i don't own any Adobe student products.

Nos.

What are the restrictions in using education versions of Macromedia products?
Education versions of Macromedia products are intended for instructional and administrative purposes only and may not be used for any commercial purpose. Macromedia will conduct periodic security audits to be certain of your education qualification.

=-o! /me runs away from this thread. :p

The educational > upgrade trick is a good one, although with Adobe you can only upgrade 2 versions back I think. And even then, you don't save tons of money. In fact, for tax purposes, its better that I spent more to buy the entire suite.

MBB posted what you should have found. It's so tempting to go the student route, but these companies mean business. Deker makes a good point as well. Its funny that you can pirate software and more then likely NOT get caught using it. But you go and drop a few hundred on a legal version but use it in a non-legal manner and you can get nailed.

What are the penalties, and has anyone actually attempted to use these commercially? How is Macromedia to know if you charged for the website or not?

Nos.

Do you think they know about sites created with pirated sofware?
A lot of people will get in trouble if they can do that.
I mean you know not everyone can keep upgrading everytime they come out with a new version. I know cause it gets very expensive really quick especiatly if you want muli lisence version.

I just don't see how they would know whether or not the client paid for the site or not, without doing something illegal in order to find out. Especially since most payments are discussed via the phone.

Nos.

What they do (I heard), is look for sites with keywords. These keywords are anything that suggests that the site is commercial. So if there are words like "sale", "buy", "products", and so on, they now have a good indication that this site is there to make money. Then the sniffer detects if the images have the invisible watermark on them that comes with the student version software. Then they contact the ISP and have the site terminated and I imagine you get a letter in the mail, sort of like the ones people are getting for sharing files on their computers. What this does now, is allows hobbiests to own student software, but as soon as they start to make a profit, then they need to upgrade.

It wouldnt matter if the site was yours or not. If it is yours, then the trace back to you is shorter. If it was a clients, they would be pretty choked to come back to you and say that their site is gone because you used improper software. That is as much as I know about it.

By the way. I was told this by my software vendor. I in no way initiated the "what if I used this" conversation. We were simply talking about software and what people were buy what and then they started telling me about Adobe and some of their measures they use to prevent this scenario from happening. Because of the price difference, I think a lot of people get the same idea most of us get to just wing it and use the cheap stuff.

This is completely a guess, but when you start a business or running your own business don’t you have to account for all your assets? If you get a loan from the bank for $3000 for software and you end up pirating the copies and spending the money on something else wouldn’t they bust you for that and maybe contact the software companies?

I was doing a business proposal for a class and we had to include all our expenses and list exactly what we were spending the money on. I’m sure you have to keep receipts too.

That’s just my guess though. I think Spectra may be onto something too.