By Sierra Hartman

The Academy of Art University has received its share of criticism over the years, mostly relating to its shady real-estate dealings. Recently though, students and alumni have lit the torches over a more personal conflict. The license keys to the Adobe CS6 Master Suite — which retails for $2,600 — were recently canceled without warning, prompting students to sign up for Adobe’s new subscription based service, Creative Cloud. As a working photographer who attended classes at the academy, I have a personal investment in this ordeal.

If you’re unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Adobe suite, allow me to explain it briefly. CS6 and all its ancestors, were programs that you could pay for and use in perpetuity. Last year though, Adobe introduced the Creative Cloud as the next evolution in imaging software; requiring monthly fees for continued use. As you might imagine, not everyone in the creative community was super stoked on this.

The reason Academy of Art University graduates including Sarah Ryan, creator of the Facebook page, Adobe Is Stealing From Students and Alumni, are so upset about this is because we believed we had paid for this software as part of our sizable tuition. According to early posts from students posting on the Facebook page, representatives at AAU had no idea why this was happening. Adobe reps in turn were directing students to take it up with the school.

There have been a lot of accusations and arguments being thrown around on message boards and social media so I reached out to Adobe and AAU to get the facts for myself. Here’s what I found out:

The license keys were single-user keys, not volume license keys.

The EULA states that unless otherwise specified, “the license term shall be perpetual.”

No documentation exists specifying otherwise, either from AAU or Adobe.

AAU and Adobe both claim their contract applied only to students who were currently enrolled but CS6 licenses were deactivated for 18,000 current students as well as alumni.

Furthermore, neither side will comment on why the licenses were only now canceled, years after some students graduated.

The last big piece remaining in this convoluted puzzle is whether or not the license keys were included in our tuition. Considering AAU has an annual revenue of at least $247 million and Adobe is a profit-based business like any other, it sounds absurd to say that our tuition payments were not used to purchase these license keys. However, since AAU is a for-profit institution, they are not required to divulge any information about how tuition revenue is spent. The details of that transaction will likely be left for lawyers to squabble over.

While I may not agree with the sense of entitlement expressed by some, this whole situation has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Even if you accept that monthly payment for software is the wave of the future, the Academy of Art can afford not to pull the rug out from under its students and alumni. I refuse to believe that no one in the administration saw this coming. Leaving thousands of photographers, illustrators, and filmmakers scrambling to meet deadlines when their much needed tools suddenly stop working is unprofessional to say the least.