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Software Businesses United States Technology

Adobe Gets US License To Operate In Venezuela Despite Sanctions 31

Posted by BeauHD from the business-as-usual dept.
Adobe has received a U.S. license allowing it to restore its services to users in Venezuela, which it was due to shut down to comply with a U.S. executive order that prohibits trade with the country. Reuters reports: Venezuelans said they were resorting to piracy after San Jose, California-based Adobe said it planned to halt access to its products to comply with sanctions. "After discussions with the U.S. government, we've been granted a license to provide all of our Digital Media products and services in Venezuela," wrote Chris Hall, Vice President and General Manager for Customer Experience, in a blog post. "Users can continue to access the Creative Cloud and Document Cloud portfolio, and all of their content, as they did before." Adobe had said its software would stop working in Venezuela on Oct 28.
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Adobe Gets US License To Operate In Venezuela Despite Sanctions More

Adobe Gets US License To Operate In Venezuela Despite Sanctions

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  • Could be good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cirby ( 2599 ) on Monday October 28, 2019 @04:20PM (#59356124)

    I've been seeing a fair number of pleas by people there who are making their pro-freedom documents on Adobe products.

    And considering how awful the Venezuelan government is at doing anything, it's sure not going to help the bad guys...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 )

      I've been seeing a fair number of pleas by people there who are making their pro-freedom documents on Adobe products.

      Maybe they should have been using some free software which would have avoided the problem all together.

      And considering how awful the Venezuelan government is at doing anything, it's sure not going to help the bad guys...

      Personally I don't think we need sanctions of any kind at all. Anyone foolish enough to invest in Venezuela after their recent history of nationalizing successful or functional businesses or setting price controls that not only excluded any possibility of creating a profit but actually necessitated operation at a loss simply deserves to lose that investment. If other countries want to trade with Venezuela

      • But Venezuela is a major oil producer. We must not allow such wealth to exist outside our control. It is simply irresponsible. We must overthrow their government and replace it with a lapdog will represent our banking interests. Hence Guaido. Corporate pre-approved for immediate installation. See: every other US intervention in the Western hemisphere since the 1920s. General Smedley Butler had some choice words about that. "All wars are bankers wars," and wise words were those.

        • China is building Venezuela a copy of its horrific 1984/Black Mirror "citizen rating", where if you displease the leaders, your computer rating drops and you find yourself unable to get loans, rent, or even ride a bus.

          How dare you defend that hideous dictatorship. You either are a monster who is part of it, or a person living freely in the west with an anachronistic and terminal case of US derangement syndrome.

      • Maybe they should have been using some free software which would have avoided the problem all together.

        Because everyone knows that free software does everything that software built by 'greedy corporations' does, right? It amazes me that anybody (Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, etc.) can stay in business today since anybody can simply download free software that does everything their products do, right? There is certainly a place for free software, but you are dreaming if you think there is a free alternative for everything.

      • Let's generously assume for the sake of argument that Krita can replace Photoshop in your organization. Now what free software adequately replaces Adobe Animate and After Effects?

    • Re:Could be good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday October 28, 2019 @04:39PM (#59356218)

      There are many problems with sanctions:

      1. They don't work well. Few "bad" regimes have fallen because of sanctions. Sanctions enable authoritarians to blame all their problems on foreigners and accuse dissidents of being traitors. The harshest sanctions are on North Korea and Cuba, which are the longest-lasting totalitarian regimes on the planet.

      2. Sanctions make America into an unreliable trading partner. This is why Chinese airlines and so many others buy from Airbus instead of Boeing.

      3. American sanctions are mostly about politics, not "human rights", and are seen as hypocritical by much of the world. We slap sanctions on socialist Venezuela and Shiite Iran, but are happy to sell billions in weapons to Saudi Arabia, which has a far worse human rights record.

      • Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil and is a good US lapdog. Iran and Venezuela have a lot of oil and are not under the control of our banks. You see the difference? It's clear why one gets pats on the head while we use barbaric population-starving siege warfare against the others.
      • Expanding on point #2: sanctions have the tendency to force the target of the sanctions to explore ways of securing their supply chain in ways that don't involve the sanctioning country or its allies. This makes them much more resistant to future sanctions. In China's case, China already loves stealing IP, they're even making a big event out of trying to get more things made in China going forward.

        I don't think sanctions are never the answer, but I think they should be used judiciously and as part of a b

        • Sanctions work best when they have wide support.

          Everyone boycotted aparteid South Africa.

          Many countries don't support sanctions on Venezuela.

          The only country that fully supports American sanctions on Iran is Israel.

  • I got it: US gov is stimulating other countries to act like Venezuela :P

  • If the sanctions include Adobe, do they have permission to use Windows, MacOS, or Linux? All three of these came from the US.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Chromal ( 56550 )
      Linux "came from the US?" Linux was created in Finland by Linux Torvalds, then a student at the University of Helsinki. Perhaps you were thinking of UNIX? Personally, I prefer my technology like my politics: not nationalistic. Civilized culture collaborates, ideas pollinate, and unconventional thinkers realize and manifest great things. Genius is timeless and borderless.
    • How did America get to the point where one person can prevent a company doing business with whoever they want? I thought you guys were the land of the free, but apparently not.

      Adobe has received a U.S. license allowing it to restore its services to users in Venezuela, which it was due to shut down to comply with a U.S. executive order that prohibits trade with the country.

      ...executive order that prohibits trade...

      That is what dictatorships do.

      • I don't know. I'll ask Thomas Edison the next time I see him.

      • How did America get to the point where one person can prevent a company doing business with whoever they want? I thought you guys were the land of the free, but apparently not.

        Adobe has received a U.S. license allowing it to restore its services to users in Venezuela, which it was due to shut down to comply with a U.S. executive order that prohibits trade with the country.

        ...executive order that prohibits trade...

        That is what dictatorships do.

        In free countries, the governments have the power to twist the arms of dictatorships. Sometimes it's a carrot on a stick, e.g. economic engagement, other times it's full on cutting off of trade.

        These are a legitimate power for a democratic government to have.

        So, to answer your idea, no, you don't have a right to help oppress other countries. That decision is to be made by elected leaders, see carrot and stick vs. punishment above.

    • Adobe's stuff is subscription base. So if there are sanctions Adobe can no longer charge the subscription fee once the subscription runs out. That's the issue.

  • Is it just me or what? (Score:3)

    by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Monday October 28, 2019 @04:55PM (#59356272)

    My first thought was, "Oh, So Adobe use of the cloud was giving us valuable intelligence, so let's let them keep doing it please."

    I don't know, maybe I'm just jaded enough to think such stuff... Could be this is all an intelligence operation..

  • Open Source == Sanctions Proof

  • We all knew the DOD runs on PPT.

    Now we also know the CIA runs on PDF.

    How are we to overthrow Maduro if we cant use Acrobat on our laptops in Caracas ????

  • So rather than risk making this a poster case of why cloud services are bad, we're just giving certain companies exceptions to the rules. Move along, citizen.

  • for assistance with Intelligence operations in Venezuela.

    • I'm sure the US intelligence community was happy with Google making a censorshop search engine for China -- imagine how deep they could get their claws into operations. But noooooooo...busybodies had to shame Google out of it.

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