60% of Photoshop Users are PIRATES!
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me ‘earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
So here it is… the one week results from our previous poll on software piracy. In that short time, we've had nearly 500 photographers cast their votes and the outcome is quite interesting. It looks like Adobe's high-end photo editing software packages (like Photoshop and Lightroom) are hot items in the pirated software market.
I'm not here to make judgments or anything — I'm just presenting the results from our little study. I'd also like to mention that my computer is 100% free of pirated or “borrowed” software and that the poll results are no indication of my own habits.
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Each of the results below have two graphs. The first is a measure of how many of us use a particular piece of software: users versus non-users. The second graph takes the users and splits them into pirates and non-pirates. Also, I'm going to leave the polls running for a while to see how things progress over time.
PHOTOSHOP USERS
Wow… I expected the number of Photoshop pirates to be high, but not quite that high! 58%?!? So for every legal copy of Photoshop, there's a pirated counterpart… and then some! An equally interesting observation from the poll is that 87% of the people who read this blog are Photoshop users of some sort. I'm sure we represent a higher density population of Photoshoppers, but my guess is that well over 50% of digital photographers have access to Photoshop.
LIGHTROOM USERS
Although Lightroom isn't quite as popular as Photoshop with the general public (with only 58% of the voters), the users of Lightroom are just as willing to pirate the software. I assumed that Lightroom would be less pirated because it's newer software and because the price is slightly lower than that of Photoshop. I assumed wrong. Then again, if you're going to pirate a copy of Photoshop, why not Lightroom too?
OTHER SOFTWARE USERS
We have quite a few “other software” users in the mix too. I didn't break down the polls into every piece of software on the market, so I clumped everything other than Photoshop and Lightroom into this category. Interestingly, the rate of piracy (at 38%) is much lower than with the high-end Adobe products. I can't imagine that other software would be more difficult to steal, so this lower number is probably a factor of popularity, price, and availability.
FREE & OPEN SOURCE USERS
And out of the four groups in the poll, this was the only one with absolutely no piracy. Go figure. I'm actually impressed at how many people use free and open source software for photo editing — 64%! And only 19% of those are using the software that came with their cameras. The rest is all open source and freeware/shareware. Good for you guys! Although, there's probably some percentage of free software users who have pirated copies of commercial software.
What do you guys think? Are the results surprising? Should Adobe care about this? I'm sure they're aware of Photoshop and Lightroom being pirated, but I wonder what their position is on the topic.
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Janne
March 28, 2008One instructive way to see this is that Photoshop is in a sense the one to beat. It is the industry standard and is available for free to anyone (legally or not). And yet, secondary offerings like Lightroom and Gimp; or specialist software like Hugin are not disappearing; they are in fact slowly taking market share – and doing so synergistically; once you make someone comfortable with the idea that all image processing does not have to be done with the same piece of software, people become more open to other tools in generalt
Shawn
March 28, 2008Damn.. I had a feeling that it would be pretty high. Hell, I was thinking of pirating it myself given how much I wanted it and how expensive it was… But, alas, I waited until I bought my new Mac last month and actually bought a copy of it. I’m glad I did.
Tom Steele
March 28, 2008Photoshop is outrageously priced, that is why it is pirated so much. I’ve found that Paint Shop Pro does 95% of what PS will do, including layers and other advanced editing, at 10% of the cost. Adobe has apparently taken the “we’ll charge the bejeezus out of corporate users, who need sophisticated color management and can’t risk getting caught pirating, and ignore the casual user who steals our software.
It is not unlike Microsoft 10-15 years ago, when Excel cost $399 and Word cost $399 and so on… and most people stole it for home use and paid for it at work.
MS seems to have found it more profitable to make their software affordable enough that people will pay for it, rather than rationalize stealing it.
For me, I found an alternative that serves my purpose and saves me a bundle of money while not stealing from Adobe.
Jonathan Enns
March 28, 2008This is one of the reasons I began using Linux. Now I have no pirated software…
I use GIMP for manipulation, Picasa for Organization, and even have easy to use open-source HDR software, panorama software!
There are a few newer linux apps getting popular which feel much more like photoshop such as Krita or the non-open- source Pixel.
My photos have more value in a sense knowing that I have not compromised any ethical, moral, or legal lines.
Tim Solley
March 28, 2008I’ve always known that Photoshop is highly pirated. I’m sure Adobe knows it too. But you have to ask yourself, is pirating all bad for Adobe?
Sure, they lose some money from people getting the software for free. But of those 60 percent, how many would pay for it if not able to pirate? 10 percent? So let’s just say Adobe loses the cash from those 10 percent.
But pirating has one benefit: the increased use of Photoshop (whether legal or not), increases their market share and makes Photoshop the industry standard. That leads to more sales. Which leads to more pirating, which leads to more sales. A bit of a snowball.
So you have to wonder if they’re really losing that (fictitious) 10 percent, or are they more than making up for it with increased sales thanks to being used all over. I would bet it’s the latter.
George
March 28, 2008It feels good to be in the last category and know you’re not alone. I do have Photoshop 6 LE with my cam, but Gimp is just way ahead of that old version (It is a Nikon DC995, yeah, old) and it doesn’t run on Linux distros without some wine anyway.
Tyler Lee
March 28, 2008As a proud owner of their first copy of legit photoshop. I must say that for many years (high school through most of college) it was just too much for me, but also vital to my chosen industry. Its not like it was slightly out of budgetary reach but for a college student on intern salary it was a full month or six week pay. I tried the gimp and others but nothing matches it, thats common knowledge.
Anyways, now I am legit.
David
March 28, 2008If Adobe doesn’t care that they are losing millions of dollars that’s just nuts. I also use GIMP to do my work (both in web design and photos, and sometime effects)
It’s funny because most of the pirate users wouldn’t actually use it to do professional stuff, instead they waste their time doing signatures, avatars or whatever comes up to their mind. Of course that’s what I think..
Nevil Nayak
March 28, 2008Pirating software isn’t necessarily a bad thing… just like music. Lets take an example of music first.
Someone that does not listen to a particular type of music will probably never ever think of purchasing certain artists creations – let that person get some free songs (pirated or whatever), and now, you’ve suddenly exposed that person to something they’ve never heard of. Imagine if they like that music, they might buy their music.
Now lets extrapolate this reasoning to pirated software.
Music Lovers, Software Piraters etc. are of abundance in college/high-school. Thats where they learn their tricks of trade. Download some mp3’s, some pirated software, some of this and that. An artist hears about PhotoShop, a math whiz runs across Mathematica, Statistician runs across SAS, some movie producer runs across ACID, etc. and downloads a copy… maybe starts producing revenue using that software…. eventually moving up and making enough money to purchase a genuine copy. If the person doesn’t make it on their own, they will get a job at a corporate, and recommend their company to purchase a license or two or three. You don’t expect some college freshmen to pay $600 for photoshop, or $60 for educational version, do you?
Mike
March 28, 2008I’m actually surprised it isn’t higher, though I think that’s due to the sample source.
You polled photographers, who only make up one subsect of Photoshop users. And it’s a subsect that can often (especially in the case of professional photographers) afford Photoshop.
If you had polled the internet at large, I suspect you’d find even higher instances of piracy. Don’t forget all those tens of thousands of ‘netizens’ who use Photoshop in very limited capacities but still own it because it’s easier to just download it than it is to learn a new program (like Gimp or Paintshop Pro)
Aaron Anderer
March 28, 2008I agree with Jonathan Enns, I’m a big fan of GIMP. I use it on Linux and XP for the basic stuff that I need to do. I love Photoshop and have owned copies in the past, but I can’t afford to keep upgrading if my tasks are pretty basic and don’t require any major automation. I think that you’ll find that any niche software package will have a high piracy rate unless it is exceedingly inexpensive.
king kong
March 28, 2008haha i think its really realistic, i was expecting more people! but i think it takes some resources to be able to get pirated software!! pirate bay where art thou’!!
Michael
March 28, 2008I once heard a discussion on the high rate of photoshop piracy on an early TWIT podcast, and I believe it was Kevin Rose who said that Adobe purposefully doesn’t try to hinder the piracy. There is no way young users who are beginning to get interested in photography or graphic design are going to pay hundreds of dollars for a software program they don’t know or have experience with. Adobe is trying to build market share and gain potential customers by “giving” (not hindering the piracy) new users a copy. Hopefully, if they become a professional in the field, they will then purchase the program.
David
March 28, 2008If you’re a student or instructor, you can get an academic license for all kinds of software for a small fraction of the retail price. Definitely look into it while you have the chance!
James
March 28, 2008Great article, whilst I didn’t think the figures are that high I’m not surprised, if Adobe sold Photoshop at half the price, I personally would be tempted to buy it and probably would, I don’t like the fact that they know they have the best piece of software and hence can charge what they want for it.
It also doesnt help that I’m based in the UK, and we get charged stupid amounts for Photoshop when compared to US counterparts.
Eric Gruber
March 28, 2008That’s not surprising. What is surprising is how software manufacturers aren’t getting the message: their products are priced too high.
Hardware keeps coming down in price, so its reasonable to expect that software would do the same. But does it? Heck no.
It makes you wonder, would they have even more adopters if the prices were lower? I do believe there’s a danger is not charging enough for your product, but software prices have gotten out of hand.
Aimee Klark
March 28, 2008Photoshop is simply way too damn expensive. If Adobe charged a more reasonable amount, people would be more willing to pay for it.
Paul
March 28, 2008Who need PS where one can get Paint.Net for free!
Penguin Pete
March 28, 2008More striking is the fact that after people pirate software they’ll go brag about it in an online poll…
ferris
March 28, 2008Photoshop is way over priced, though I do not condone pirating software you can certainly understand this as a natural reaction to way overpriced software. The real problem is there is no decent competition forcing Adobe to lower its price. Think about people in other countries, they would laugh when you tell them its 700 dollars for legal copy of this software then walk down to the corner and buy it illegally for a dollar.
Jonas
March 28, 2008I use a copy of Photoshop and there is no moral issue stopping me.
Quite simply, I cannot afford Photoshop as its priced way too high.
Am I stealing from Adobe ? Nope, I’m copying their software for personal use.
If I couldn’t copy it I wouldn’t be using it so their loss for me is actually $0.
If anything I’m contributing to Adobe by telling other people I know to use Photoshop.
If only 1 of those many people I’ve told buys Photoshop then Adobe makes profit of the fact that I copied it.
John
March 28, 2008Jonas wrote:
“Am I stealing from Adobe ? Nope, I’m copying their software for personal use.
If I couldn’t copy it I wouldn’t be using it so their loss for me is actually $0.
If anything I’m contributing to Adobe by telling other people I know to use Photoshop.
If only 1 of those many people I’ve told buys Photoshop then Adobe makes profit of the fact that I copied it.”
Love this ridiculous rationalizing. Are you precluded from telling others to use Photoshop if you actually purchased a legitimate copy? Or does Adobe only “make profit” when you steal it and then tell others who might actually buy it? And you’re not stealing if you’re only “copying their software for personal use”? Are you retarded?
The fact is, as others have stated, Adobe doesn’t care about those individuals who steal (yes it is still stealing even if you get away with it); they just gouge the corporations who have to buy legit licenses.
Steve
March 28, 2008Some people say that Piracy is much greater in Europe over the US. I think this is because the prices are so different. People can go to the US site, see the price, do a conversion and then look at the Europe site, when they see that they are being fleeced they pirate it. People are willing to pay a fair price, but will not accept being discriminated against. Adobe don’t seen to have realised this.
Chris Waterstone
March 28, 2008I am wondering if anyone has ever been penalised for using a pirate copy of Photoshop. I am also wondering why it is so expensive.
Dave
March 28, 2008I’m sad to say that I have a pirated copy. I’m not a graphics person by any means, so $700+ for a graphics package is not going to happen. I don’t use it much, just editing the occasional website image, cleaning up artifacts, cropping pictures…pretty minimal stuff.
The free packages are just not intuitive, not very good, missing that ONE feature I needed, or just lack the polished feel to them, otherwise, I’d just use them. Photoshop is kickass from what I’ve seen others do, I haven’t even attempted to try more than 5% of the features.
Can I rationalize stealing it? No I can’t. The only thing I can say is Adobe wouldn’t have made a sale regardless. If I were to pay for what I’ve used, I’d owe them maybe $50. I don’t think they take donations.
If I was a graphics designer, then I’d buy it. I buy all my other software/games/music/movies/etc. that is on my machine that isn’t freeware.
interl0per
March 28, 2008Well no shit, Photoshop is expensive, and I am not a pro graphics designer either. Great tool, but $600 plus expansions great? Sell it for $50 I might actually get a copy like the other 60% 🙂
justin
March 28, 2008One thing to bear in mind regarding software piracy of high end software is that the pools of users who are trained to use it through piracy (hobbyists, students, dabblers etc.) end up pushing up the user base and popularity.
At uni we used 3ds max, and I pirated it at home while I trained to use it – now I am employed to use that software (which my company pays for) so I represent a bum on a seat for Autodesk – one more asset to their user base.
I think the same applies to Photoshop.
I’m not excusing all piracy, but I think it’s worth taking this position into account.
jd
March 28, 2008And people wonder why software companies treat users like criminals…over half of them are!! If I had over 50% of people stealing from me, I would be outraged.
hrmm
March 28, 2008Well at the current price point I don’t think it’s right to say that pirated photoshop actually is costing them money. If they could wipe out piracy tomorrow and keep the same price I’d wager they’d see no eyeopening increase in sales of it, even without software like GIMP around.
That is to say it is a great piece of software, but I imagine a lot that have it illegally don’t have compelling uses for its features and it’s really just a fun “toy” to them that they could happily survive without even if they had never heard of it.
If it was knocked down to fit in “everyman’s” budget I’d think the point of view of lost revenue for Adobe would be more accurate, and they would also generate more sales because you start to include more impulse buyers that may be budget strained, ease the justification of purchase for people that don’t need all of the features but recognize the name etc.
Ameer
March 28, 2008But is it really stealing if that 50% wouldn’t have had the money/would not have bought it in the first place? All it does is just increases Adobe’s exposure. People who know how to use Photoshop are more likely to recommend Photoshop to someone else, or if pursuing a graphical line of work, suggest to their workplace to invest in a few copies of Photoshop.
This is where Adobe make the money.
Statistics are often misleading or too vague to take credibly without considering the other factors.
misterblister
March 28, 2008The CS3 suite (photoshop, illustrator, flash) is often stolen by people who are curious to learn the software, are exposed to its incredible power, and then when they wish to use it in a professional capacity, purchase a legitimate copy. Professionals cannot afford to take a chance with stolen software, they are going to then purchase the software that they already know. This is exactly why it is the most dominant software of its type.
Another example,
Maya is an incredible 3-D rendering software, it too is more often stolen than purchased for its $3000 price tag. It dominates the professional 3-D design marketplace, even though competitor’s software costs less, no professional wants to take the time to learn another interface, they stick to what they know works. These products are geared for the professional, who cares if amateurs steal it to learn on, these products still dominate the market they are focused on.
SQ
March 28, 2008I was introduced to Photoshop in High school and have pirated it since then. Honestly, if I had not pirated it, I would’ve never bought it. When I got into college I was still pirating it, and then bided my time until Adobe bought Flash and it was released with CS3. I then scraped money together and bought Production Premium at the low, student price of a bit under $600. (I was a video major with graphic design hobbies thrown in).
Honestly, had the educational discount not existed, I’d still be pirating Adobe products. I realize how amazing they are, but the way the (separate) programs are priced, it’s just a rip off. The packages are slightly better in pricing, but if the packages can be that low, the separate products should be low as well.
Jonas
March 28, 2008John wrote:
“…And you’re not stealing if you’re only “copying their software for personal use”? Are you retarded?…”
Copying is NOT the same as stealing. Copying an application you are not and will never be charged for theft, you are charged for Copyright infringement. In certain countries it’s not even illegal to download or copy for personal use.
With your reasoning you can just call copying MURDER because you take away all the money so the company employees can’t buy food and die of starvation. Copying is exactly what it is, COPYING.
LA LA
March 28, 2008If your like me and in Graphic Design then your design firm will be in partnership with adobe paying about £300 a year to get every single piece of Adobe software available for just recomending the product to others and using it yourself!
This software can be copied as many times as you wish within the office or aslong as it is being used on a computer owned by the firm! Great for me as I got my boss to buy my laptop through the company! FREE Photoshop without breaking laws…
Max
March 28, 2008I don’t think it’s correct to group shareware/freeware with open source software. They are very different. Someone could very well have been directed to the software through an ad or something similar.
Cyler
March 28, 2008I wonder why Adobe hasn’t released the student/educational/non-commercial version to the general public. It seems that there is a significant number of people who would pay for their programs if they were more affordable. Businesses would still be forced to purchase a full commercial version. Sure, there would still be rampant piracy of their programs, but I know they would make more sales. Maybe I’m missing something.
Rob
March 28, 2008This is the result of Adobe wanting to milk corporations for big money. It’s not worth $649 for some home user to touch up their personal photos. But people do want to learn it so they can use it on the job. And yes, Adobe can still make money in this scenario. If I pirate Photoshop and other Adobe products, what do you think I’m going to recommend my company go out and purchase?
If, on the other hand, I stay legit and get intimately familiar with Gimp … I’ll likely tell my company I don’t need them to pony up for Photoshop.
I really think Adobe would sell much more software if they lowered the price. But it has to come without crippling it. Nobody wants a “lite” version of this kind of product.
Steve Byrum
March 28, 2008If they did not charge two arms and a legg for the full version people would buy it. If they lowered thier prices by 75% they would increase sales by 150-200%. They can to the math because we dont know thier proffit margin but it would be better for them I bet!
gus
March 28, 2008If it was half the price it wouldn’t double the users, that’s why they charge what they do. Most of those pirates are not lost sales, theyr’e just the undercurrent of freeloaders that actually helps keep the software popular, IMHO. The alternative is that over half the photoshop users out there wise up to GIMP and other alternatives, and that would be VERY BAD for Adobe. Adobe’s strategy should be to coax, cajole and scare as many into legal ownership as possible without chasing those who will never purchase it away to other products. This has always been the reality for smart software firms.
Eli
March 28, 2008That’s great that you can afford Photoshop. I personally don’t have $700 burning a hole in my pocket, and even if I did I would rather spend it on hardware.
Adobe has priced themselves out of the market of affordable software, so as a result, everyone gets their software the easy way. If they were to drop the price to $200 or so, I bet you’d see the number of pirated copies drop by a good 75%. As it stands, it’s unaffordable for anyone without a trust fund or a corporate budget to back them up.
Mike
March 28, 2008I have had PS since 3.0 and used the upgrade path to save money. To be honest, I could be using PS 7.0 and never upgrade if I could get the magnificent Raw import options in CS3. I do feel like I am paying for all kinds of features that I am not using, and I have tried PSP, the Gimp, Pixel, and several other Raw Importers to set up for clients to do simple editing. Nothing else is PS. That being said, I hate bridge and use Picasa for organization.
If I had to pay full retail tomorrow, I would because I have to, but I agree with the pricing issue, it is too damn expensive. Now that Adobe has such a commanding market share, we need to look out for monopolistic practices that they are already employing to some degree… e.g. CS3 deletes the registry entry to display Illustrator & Photoshop Thumbs on windows machines, forcing users into bridge. Did I mention that Bridge sucks for windows?
In reality, PS development should have progressed faster and with more attention to user requests, but there were 2 major factors that slowed it. First, when Adobe purchased Aldus, they moved the engine from Photostyler into their product and viola; minus one competitor and they now had the superior product. Years ahead of Corel photopaint, arguably the closest competitor, Photoshop was out in front and using a “filter” engine to allow 3rd party development inside their software. When Kai’s power tools was released, it showed the synergistic capacity of this technology. Imagine if Kai Krause had spent his time at Metatools (which would become Metacreations) developing a competitor? Painter doesn’t count, because I said so.
I have used most of the software mentioned and there is no substitute for PS. Anyone who is using it as a pro will agree. The right tool for the right job.
joe
March 28, 2008Adobe doesn’t care to “get more customers”. Photoshop is the industry standard image editing software. That means the “industry” will shell out what it needs to shell out to have those licensed copies. I guarantee you that 90% of those pirates aren’t creative professionals, because the first thing a creative professional does is buy legitimate versions of the software they’ve learned to use (that is, if they are freelancers. Gigs at firms, not so much; they buy what you need). If you’re just touching up photos, or making shitty anime fanart to post on devART, then by all means use whatever software you’d like, but if we’re talking about professional work-flow here, GIMP and PaintShop Pro are laughable.
Adobe does not market to the amateur… at ALL. They are company that makes PROFESSIONAL tools. Asking them to lower the price to something like $50-$100, as mentioned above, is ridiculous.
It’s like asking to buy a bulldozer for 10 bucks, when all you need is a shovel.
Tony Sleep
March 28, 2008One reason Photoshop has so many illiegal users is that it has been counterfeited and sold in huge numbers. The counterfeits are so good that they are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, being shrinkwrapped, packaged, and including a manual, and probably made using Adobe’s own postcript files liberated from their manufacturing partner in Singapore. Adobe have known about this for a long time.. See https://tonysleep.co.uk/blog/photoshop-cs2-on-ebay
michael
March 29, 2008A little bit of statistics for you….
Just because 58% of the people who responded to your poll claim to use pirated Photoshop certainly does not mean that 58% of everyone who uses Photoshop uses a pirated copy.
You need a much better polling scheme with some actual science behind it to make statements about your poll representing people other than just those who responded to it.
Michael
Franksnbeans
March 29, 2008What is with all these pussies that “dont condone” piracy. Well I condone piracy. Piracy is good. I only pay for the few pieces of software that I have used daily for years. And I pay directly to the authors, not to publishers and other middlemen that end up taking 90%.
Tim Thompson
March 29, 2008It seems to me that the issue around “software” is that it isn’t “hardware”. No one would think it was right to shoplift cameras, or lenses or printers, ie. “hardware”. But something that we can’t hold in our hands seems to be less real and thus easier for people to justify it’s theft, whether it is Photoshop, or movies, or songs.
As far as price, I purchased Photoshop last year and in 20 plus years of computing I have never spent anywhere near that amount for a piece of software, but I’ve spent thousands on computers and upgrades. Really, what’s the difference. The costs of producing a quality piece of software, and of always being on an upgrade path are just as real as the costs to produce new computers, new cars, new TVs, etc.
The camera lens I would like is $2000. The printer I’m about to purchase is at least $1200 and I would prefer the $2000 model. $600 for Photoshop, also an essential tool for a serious photographer is a bargain compared to the “hardware”.
Stealing is stealing no matter how hard you try to justify it.
Brad Hart
March 29, 2008I think this actually says more about photoshop and adobe than it does the photographers themselves. As the owner and user of many non pirated versions of adobe products. I think if you looked at non photographic users and targeted this survey to college kids, your percentage of pirated users would probably be around 90% or higher. Photoshop as are most adobe product great pieces of software, but simply put they aren’t affordable for most users. When such a high percentage of things start falling off the back of a truck on the information superhighway there is usually something wrong on the business end of things.
I had to wait years to find an affordable used copy on ebay that I was sure was legitimate. Sure PS 6 is old but it is still a great product and was only $25 What does this say about me? I am guessing it means I don’t really need all the new toys in version whatever we are up to now.
Brian Auer
March 29, 2008This is true… actually I now have evidence that more than 60% of Photoshop users are pirates. Since this article has been featured on Digg the number of voters for the poll has doubled. The result? Now 72% of Photoshop users are claiming to be pirates, and 65% of Lightroom users.
I stand by my numbers. With a population count of nearly 1000, I find it hard to believe that only the pirates are responding to the poll. My readers have been quite good at providing indicative data in the past (ie. 50% Canon users, 25% Nikon), and 500 of them first sounded off during the first week of the poll.
If anybody has better information from a more controlled survey, I’d be happy to take a look at it. Until then, you’ll have to take my results with a grain of salt and understand that there’s probably a 5-10% error tolerance.
Fedka the Convict
March 29, 2008The evidence does not support your assertion that 60 percent of Photoshop users have pirated versions. The most you can conclude is tha 60 percent of readers of this particular blog; or 60 percent of the people who chose to respond to the survey, are pirates. That’s signifcantly different from saying that 60 percent of ALL users are pirates.
ulric
March 30, 2008i doubt there are so many people using freeware and open source software for image editing.
Many people in this poll probably *think* the software is freeware when it isn’t.
That software may be pirated, or may be shareware that they are not paying. Shareware is not free, it’s trialware.