Jul 27, 2026
Nintendo reserved the right to kill your Switch 2.
The Switch 2 User Agreement lets Nintendo render the console permanently unusable.
Adobe shut down its servers and quietly shifted away from software ownership.
Adobe ended perpetual licenses in 2013, trapped users' work in proprietary formats, shut down activation for older software people already paid for, and made canceling so costly that the FTC sued, leading to a $150 million settlement in March 2026.
Published Aug 03, 2026
What happened
In 2013 Adobe killed its perpetual license model and forced everyone onto a Creative Cloud subscription.
The day you stop paying the subscription, you lose access to functional apps, and your work is trapped in Adobe-only formats like .psd for Photoshop that no other software fully reads.
Even people who legally bought an older perpetual license of Creative Suite can't reinstall, because Adobe shut down the activation servers for those versions.
Canceling your subscription is expensive by design. If you're on an annual plan paid monthly, canceling early means paying half of what's left on your contract, and prepaid annual plans give no refunds at all.
It got so bad the FTC sued Adobe, accusing them of concealing critical terms of its subscription plans and creating obstacles to cancellation.
On March 2026, Adobe settled the lawsuit for $150 million, which was split into $75 million in penalties and $75 million worth of free services to customers.
From dead servers and buried fees to dealing with a $150 million settlement. Adobe didn’t slip up, they created a business model where the consumer doesn’t own ANYTHING.
FULU's takeaway
Every time a company replaces ownership with a subscription, you lose control over tools you depend on and work you created, so read the terms before you sign up and support open file formats that keep your files usable no matter who you pay.
Why this is a law problem
Most of these entries involve a digital lock guarding copyrighted software, and a lock like that sits under Section 1201 of the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. 1201. Subsection 1201(a)(1) makes it unlawful to bypass a lock that controls access to a copyrighted work, even when no copyright is infringed. Subsections 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1) separately ban making or distributing the tools that do the bypassing.
Every three years the Librarian of Congress can exempt narrow classes of uses from the first ban. An exemption expires after three years and has to be re-argued, and the rulemaking has no authority over the tool bans, so a granted exemption still leaves no lawful supplier for the means to use it. FULU exists to reform or revoke this statute.
If you want this law changed, donations fund the work. FULU is a 501(c)(4). Donations to FULU are not tax-deductible, which is the tradeoff for being able to lobby without a limit.
Nothing on these pages says any company named here violated Section 1201. FULU is not a law firm, and this is not legal advice.
The original post
The slides below are the originals as posted. Where a slide and the text on this page disagree, go by the text; the text is the corrected, sourced record. Some slides also print an old wiki address that no longer works. The links on this page are current.
Originally published as an Instagram carousel on Aug 03, 2026: See Instagram post.
More entries
Jul 20, 2026
Sony: your purchased movies are actually a long-term rental.
Sony deletes movies people paid for from PlayStation libraries, and its terms of service say a purchase transfers no ownership.
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