--- title: "Adobe Now Charging Extra to Use Pantone Colors Because We Live in Capitalist Hell" description: "Pantone's will soon require users to pay a not-tiny monthly subscription fee to use its fancy colorways on Adobe products. " date: "2022-10-29" modified: "2022-11-04" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/adobe-pantone-subscription" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "adobe" - "design" - "photoshop" - "the digest" --- # Adobe Now Charging Extra to Use Pantone Colors Because We Live in Capitalist Hell ![Pantone's will soon require users to pay a not-tiny monthly subscription fee to use its fancy colorways on Adobe products. ]() *\Image: Pantone / Futurism\* ## Industry Standard Want more reason to hate everything? Look no further than Pantone's latest money-grabbing gambit, which will soon require users to pay a not-tiny monthly subscription fee to use its fancy colorways on Adobe products. First [spotted by designer Iain Anderson](), users will have to pay $21 per month to get access to Pantone's encyclopedic color catalog — and that moreover, this move appears to be retroactive, and would remove any Pantone-trademarked color from any Adobe file you open starting in November, regardless of the age of one's software or the file itself. https://twitter.com/funwithstuff/status/1585850262656143360 If you're confused, you're not alone. As [*Kotaku* notes]() in its writeup of the change, the move comes after complex twists and turns, with [Adobe announcing]() last year that it would be dropping Pantone colors. Since then, nobody's really known what was up between two of the most important monoliths in the design world, with timelines of Adobe's promised "alternative solution" coming and going repeatedly before Anderson spotted the change this week. "As we had shared in June, Pantone decided to change its business model," an Adobe spokesperson told us. "Some of the Pantone Color Books that are pre-loaded in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign were phased-out from future software updates in August 2022. To access the complete set of Pantone Color Books, Pantone now requires customers to purchase a premium license through Pantone Connect and install a plug-in using Adobe Exchange." "We are currently looking at ways to lessen the impact on our customers," they added. "In the meantime, customers also have access to up to 14 extensive color books through Creative Cloud subscriptions." ## Anti-Intellectual Property Beyond the annoyance of the whole endeavor, it also opens up a whole philosophical can of worms, given that attempts to trademark colors are equal parts goofy, bizarre, and difficult. "Owning colors is a terrible idea and technically, it's not possible to do so," copyright watchdog [Cory Doctorow asserted on his blog](). "Neither UPS Brown nor John Deere Green are 'owned' in any meaningful sense, but the companies certainly want you to believe that they are." "The law is clear that colors aren't property," he added, but companies like Pantone are going to keep trying to say that they are — and keep charging people to use them — until everyone decides in tandem to turn their backs on these sorts of industry standard-bearers. *Updated with remarks from an Adobe spokesperson.* **More design follies:** [*Watch AI Generate Dozens of Fashion Designs in a Mesmerizing Video*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()