when i bought my new camera it came with PSE 2. since i already have and use PES 2 can i give away the CD that came with my camera? i understand that if i were to copy it and then give it to someone THAT is illeagle, but what about giving away a free version that i recieved when i bought my digi cam? anyone have any opinions on this?
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As long as you’ve never installed or registered it, I don’t think there’s a problem. I’m sure there are a lot of copies of Elements out in the world with much more questionable "heritage" than what you’re proposing.
Run a search on E-Bay, you’ll find people are actually selling this version of the software (it’s yellow and came with a cam), for a great amount of money. More than would be spent if bought from Amazon, say, with a printed manual 🙂
Also, I was speechless when I saw some people selling Adobe Photoshop Album 2 starter edition !! They stated the CD came with some photos processed at Wal-Mart. I mean, this can be had for free from Adobe!
This is part of Adobe’s licensing agreement for Elements.
"4. Transfer. You may not, rent, lease, sell, sublicense, un-bundle and/or repackage for distribution or resale, or authorize all or any portion of the Software to be copied onto another users computer except as may be expressly permitted herein. You may, however, transfer all your rights to Use the Software to another person or legal entity provided that: (a) you also transfer (i) this Agreement, (ii) the serial number(s), Software and all other software or hardware bundled, packaged or pre-installed with the Software, including all copies, Updates and prior versions, and (iii) all copies of font software converted into other formats, to such person or entity; (b) you retain no copies, including backups and copies stored on a computer; and (c) the receiving party accepts the terms and conditions of this Agreement and any other terms and conditions upon which you legally purchased a license to the Software. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may not transfer education, pre-release, or not for resale copies of the Software."
Not sure if "hardware bundled" allows you to do this. Then if you have already have a copy of Elements you can give them the first copy then keep the bundled copy I suspect if you get mixed up and give the bundled instead of the regular … oh my this is getting confusing
Everything considered, You might be more legal giving away your original version, George, rather than the one that came OEM with your camera, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it , either way. I figure that you’re a very small crook, if a crook at all !
You’re right, Grant, it does get confusing. It’s my understanding this software has never been installed or registered, though, so where’s the "transfer"? And he’s not selling it either. I don’t think the software police could get their teeth into this one far enough to do any damage, assuming the software police were ever able to figure out there was anything to look for.
when i bought my new camera it came with PSE 2. since i already have and use PES 2 can i give away the CD that came with my camera? i understand that if i were to copy it and then give it to someone THAT is illeagle, but what about giving away a free version that i recieved when i bought my digi cam? anyone have any opinions on this?
I’m not sure if your copy of Elements is an OEM version or not. I suspect it is if it came with equipment.
Here is what eBay have to say about listing OEM software on their auction site.
If it is not obvious from reading the license agreement that came with Elements, maybe giving Adobe a call would clarify the matter for you. My personal suspicion is that this is OEM software and you can’t sell it legally unless you provide hardware with it. Would a drywall screw count as hardware? Don’t ask me but maybe.
I fully agree with you and I doubt if adobe would hunt down and do heinous things to George. It is that George just wanted to know what was "Legal" not necessary ethical or right. For my part I would have no qualms about giving or receiving software in this manner because I do believe it is keeping with the spirit of common sense. But…. I have not won many legal battle against omnipotent software giant of late.
Excuse me….if i buy software at a store and give it has an X~mas gift then what is the difference ? If i buy a camera that comes with software i don’t want and I don’t break the seal or use the software in any way….don’t tell me it’s illegal to be a good friend and give my software to someone who wants it….it’s paid for !!!!
I was going to just say what Jodi said until I saw her post. But for emphasis, she’s 100% correct. It’s no different than if one buys a copy and gives it as a gift. If it is included with a camera, it is still a separate ‘paid for’ copy. You can give it away or sell it if you have not copied it to your computer. I actually have a copy of Photoshop LE that came included with my camera. Never been loaded or used and I plan to give it to some worthy soul as a gift. Which they can use as an upgrade discount for Photoshop Elements if they register it.
It’s a strange mixed up world we live in if you buy a camera it is yours, you can take it apart , sell of the nuts and bolts that came with it, or you can sell the whole thing. give it away or lend it to everyone in your town to use. But you do not buy software you by the right to use it. You can’t take it apart and sell things off of it, you can’t sell it, give it away or lend it with out permission because it doesn’t belong to you. Yup I can hear you yelling right now from across the boarder and I agree with you but law, morals, and common sense don’t seem to matter in this world of bits and bites.
It can even be worse: A few years back the Canadian Armed Forces got caught using more copies of a data base than they owned and in turned out that all data produced by this product was not the property of the government but the software owner. The case was settled very quickly because the data was deemed to be nation secrets and it was now legally owned by and American company. Go figure!
It is not just software that has strange twists. A few years back (15) well more than a few I looked into copyright ownership of books and in the United states if you bought a book for yourself you could not legally let you spouse read it, although I suspect this has never been contested. So how do libraries legally lend books?
Grant
wrote in message Excuse me….if i buy software at a store and give it has an X~mas gift then what is the difference ? If i buy a camera that comes with software i don’t want and I don’t break the seal or use the software in any way….don’t tell me it’s illegal to be a good friend and give my software to someone who wants it….it’s paid for !!!!
Mac is right. You buy the whole package and cannot sell or give away parts of it. On the other hand, I don’t think Adobe’s going to come after you. But don’t take my word on it. 🙂
Unfortunately, in the digital age, you don’t own things, you buy licenses.
Even music is this way. Go into a store and buy a CD for $9.99 and you own it. You can rip it, burn it, remix it, give it away, or sell it. But if you buy it online from Apple, Napster, or any of the other sites that have popped up recently, you own a license to the music. You have restricted rights as to what you can do with it–you can only burn it so many times (if at all) and you can NEVER sell it. Not to mention that, to an audiophile, the low bitrate MP3s, AACs, and WMAs are no match for CD quality audio.
That’s why I buy real CDs and rip and burn them myself. That option will probably disappear soon enough, though. 🙁
I know I am getting very old and not as hip as I use to be but your last note really made me feel …. less than adequate. I buy CD and play them not much more so would you mind giving this poor ill educated Canadian boy a primmer on the new terms ….what is rip, burn, or mix mean. Ok ok stop laughing I really don’t know.
Grant the bubble boy of Canada.
P.S. I am afraid to ask what is MP3s, AACs, and WMAs … and I though I was an audiophile … well I think my equipment is good.
That’s OK, Grant. I have my fair share of gray hairs–or what’s left of them, anyway!
The short version:
1. "Rip" means to digitally copy a CD to a computer hard disk. There are many things you can do with this (see "Long Version" below).
2. "Mix" means you can combine the songs you ripped into new playlists. Kinda like making your own "Best of Abba" (!) album, or "My Favorite Beethoven and NSync Tunes", or "Lou’s Nine Inch Nails and Frank Sinatra Classics". Whatever toots your horn.
3. "Burn" means to burn to a CD or copy to a music player such as an Apple iPod, Sony Clié, or other portable music player.
4. "MP3" is MPEG-1, Level 3 (don’t ask what Level 3 is, ’cause I don’t know) audio.
5. "AAC" is Dolby’s Advanced Audio Codec and is part of the MPEG-4 spec.
6. "WMA" is a (Microsoft) Windows Media Audio format.
MP3, AAC, and WMA are all lossy compression (more like JPEG than GIF, for example) and are available at different bitrates. So if you encode them *yourself* you can choose the balance between quality and file size. But if you buy them online from iTunes.com or Napster.com, you don’t get a choice in bitrate. It’s "good enough" (128 or 160kbps, I think) for most people in the way that FM radio is "good enough". But then I’m the kind of person who bought Original Master Recordings on vinyl because I had a nice (but not million dollar) stereo system.
I think I’ll do the "Long Version" in a followup message…
Think of a CD as a Photoshop Elements PSD file–it’s the original, full quality, uncompressed version. (OK, I know there are vinyl record purists just as there are 35mm film purists, but let’s not go there. Let’s just say that a CD and a PSD file are our starting points.)
When you rip a CD to your hard disc, you are copying it bit for bit with no loss in audio quality. In Windows, you create a WAV (Windows Audio/Video) audio file; on a Mac, you create an AIFF file (I’m new enough to the Mac that I don’t know what that stands for). Again, these are uncompressed–equivalent to a PSD file.
I use a program called iTunes (from Apple, Bubble Boy!) to rip, store, and organize my music. It’s like an audio version of Apple’s iPhoto or Adobe’s Photoshop Album. You can sort, search, and organize by band/composer, album title, year published, your ratings, song name, etc. You can also create playlists to organize your songs, as I mentioned in the Short Version, above. If you always play your music through high quality speakers connected to your computer, you can stop here–there’s no reason to burn unless you need to have your music portable.
Now would be a good time to mention that you could also import (or convert) your CD’s as compressed files: MP3, AAC, or WMA (equivalent to the lossy JPEG format). This can save a huge amount of hard disk space, depending on how high a quality you want or demand.
If you want to make your music portable, this is where some additional complexity comes in. Because even though you ripped in one format (say, MP3), you can burn in a different format (say, AAC) if you have the right software. For example, I generally import/rip my CDs as 160 kbps VBR highest quality MP3s. But sometimes I want to create a mix to play in my car’s CD player, but it can’t play MP3s. So I burn the playlist as a "real" CD. Just as converting a JPEG to a PSD file doesn’t add any quality back to the compressed image, converting an MP3 to a CD doesn’t add back any quality–but it does allow the car CD player to recognize and play it. (This is like converting an old MicroGrafx Draw file to a PSD file; it doesn’t gain in quality, but Photoshop Elements won’t recognize a DRW file, it has to have a PSD file.)
Anyway, I could go on and on. Here are a few tidbits to consider:
* MP3 is the oldest format, and AAC and WMA are higher quality at the same bitrates.
* Your portable audio player (iPod, etc.) may only recognize some of these formats and not others (iPod does AAC and MP3; Windows-compatible players generally do MP3 and WMA)
* MP3 and AAC are industry standards; WMA is a Microsoft-only de facto standard
* Your favorite online music store (iTunes, Napster, etc.) generally only supports one format (again, Apple does AAC and Napster does WMA)
* Your favorite computer software may only rip and burn in some of these formats (Apple’s iTunes for Windows and Mac does AIFF, WAV, MP3, and AAC; other Windows programs generally do WAV, MP3, and WMA)
* When you burn to CD, you can burn to the standard CD-Audio (red book) format, or use an ISO or Windows or Mac format. This affects where you can play the disc.
So now that I’ve totally three-letter-acronym-ed you to death, have a good evening. 🙂
Man, it sure sounds like i opened up a can of worms here. am I going to give the copy of PSE 2 that came with my camera to a friend, of course i am. i was just wondering the "legal" aspect of it all. now lets go one step further but in another direction. lets say i go to a studio and have a portrait made of myself. my sister sees it and would like a copy to hang on the wall and throw darts at. i can either: scan and print it or go back to the studio and request and pay for a copy. by scanning/printing it i am infringing on the copy right laws. will i be arrested/fined for giving away my copy of PSE 2 or for scanning the studio pic i paid for, no. could i be, i guess the answer is yes. who ever thought by buying a digital camera and PSE 2 i just might appear on America’s most wanted…………..LOL.
will i be arrested/fined for giving away my copy of PSE 2 or for scanning the studio pic i paid for, no.
Well, in the case of the studio photo copying, you are directly impacting the ability of a small businessperson to put food on the table. Legally and ethically, I think that one’s a lot clearer.
Lou, that’s one of the most concise, informative compositions on audio I’ve seen. Very nice! In spite of my very white hair (I passed gray a long time ago!) I did recognize rip, burn, and mix. Your explanation of the formats was helpful, though; I hadn’t tried dissecting those yet. Thanks!
No argument from me on the question of the legality of reproducing the photograph, either.
BTW, as far as file compression goes–you can squish a .wav file much more than an AIFF or CDDA file (which are pretty much identical) at the same compression. If I’m making mp3s for the web, I always convert to wav, then to mp3, because I get a much smaller file at the same rate of compression, and for the web the quality isn’t so important.
After reading these posts, I am afraid to give away the PSE 2 that came with the scanner. Maybe I’ll just apply a variation of Leen’s suggestion by giving the software and the scanner away, and then let the recipient give back me back my scanner. All legal, right? 😉
You know, if people would quit posting these questions in public forums – especially ones owned by the "victim", we could be doing all kinds of stuff! 🙂 (Just kidding Adobe! I’m really pretty honest!)
The software bundles that comes with a hardware equipment are not free.
I don’t know if it works in all countries but in France, if you don’t want the soft that came with your scanner/camera or even the shipped operating system when you buy a new computer, you can return it to the seller and ask to be refunded for the software price (I mean "OEM version" price, which is usually cheaper than the "retail version").
If you don’t need PSE2, you may return it and ask to be refunded.
Hi Eric, This is nice to know, as we always seem to get extra software with new scanners or whatever. I just have been giving it to our local school so far. I have another old Mac that I might give to them too, but might keep it for a grandchild. Jane
Ive always given good stuff to our little local school. 2 scanners recently, and software. I used to volunteer there when our kids were little. Also there are people who can’t afford computers and stuff, and we have a ‘free’ section in our local paper for items. I’ve given away 2 monitors and gave a whole PC that a friend gave me(to fix up) I gave it to a 3rd grade boy who’s dad wouldn’t buy him one. We also have a "swap shop" at our local dump too for stuff like books, clothes, bikes and the like. My husband has fixed up hundreds of bikes, toys, small engines and so forth for needy kids. Jane
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