We know many of you have questions around the recent news dealing with third-party software and Cricut. As a creative company, it’s important for us to both protect the intellectual property of Cricut machines, as well as protect the community of independent artists, designers, and programmers we work with.

Click the link to read the official statement from Provo Craft.
http://www.cricut.com/statement/

What is so sad is that there is so much better software available to use with dicutting style machines. Cricut has the general crafter in mind, but the capabilities of the software is very limited. There was a much better 3rd party software available, but since Cricut sued them, you can no longer cut with their software. This was a terrible injustice to many. I own not only the Expression, but also the Cake. I own the Gypsy, DS, the (obsolete) Jukebox, and about 80 cartridges and still found this software to be not only useful, but better than the DS software that is so limited. Now you would think that Cricut would hire the makers of this software to overhaul the DS that is terrible to use and make more money because it would make using the cricut machines so much easier and so much more versitile.
What is sad to me is that Cricut company lost many many loyal customers that were using their machines with 3rd party software. They are now swearing never to buy another Cricut product again and even badmouthing all that Cricut has done for the crafting community.
I believe that instead of being so small minded, that Cricut open their eyes to the fact that their are many other diecutting machine makers in the world and that ultimately they lose out on keeping and or getting new customers from the terrible press that they have recently received over their lawsuits of smaller software businesses. It's sad to me because I used both the cartridges for very specific cutesy designs that cricut offered as well as the gypsy and design studio to create my projects and a third party software. I was recommending the purchase of the cricut cake to other cake decorators. ( I am a cake decorating instructor) Now I do not recommend it because it is far too expensive and far too limited for them to afford. Before, I could justify it to them. Now it is just too much of an investment for such specific needs. I feel that Cricut has cut off it's nose to spite it's face and will now suffer the consequences of it's hideousness to customers who were once in love with not only what Cricut had to offer but what it stood for. Now they are just thought of as money grubbers and jerks. I hate to say it, but it's true. Cricut has offended so many. It's sad.
The lawsuits had nothing to do with protecting artists. It had to do with Cricut bottom line of revenue. They thought they were going to or had lost revenue. How does it feel now Cricut? How does it feel when loyal customers who have continued to purchase products over 5 years decide that enough is enough and they will not give your money grubbing company another dime? Just wondering...

You know, I understand the law suit. I don't like it, because it means that I can't buy make the cut, like I planned. What I really wish, is that Provo Craft would learn from MTC (which I tested, but didn't buy unfortunately). Create a second computer program, separate from design studio that allows users to create their own cuts just like we do with MTC. OR, revamp design studio and give us all the opportunity to skew, shape, and stretch the cricut designs to meet our needs. Make us pay for it, just like people pay for MTC. I wasn't testing MTC with anything cricut related, I was just making my own designs that weren't possible with design studio. I still bought design studio and use it, I still buy cricut cartridges. It is frustrating that I spent $300 on an E and now PC gets to decide how I use it. I don't have another $300 to buy a cutter that works with third party programs.

At the very least, PC please learn from these other programs. The welding feature is crap in design studio because you can't re-size your image without destroying your welds. in MTC when you weld, it stays together no mater what you do!

for this whole mess, PC gets a big

Thank God I purchased my Cricut at Costco because they take returns no questions. I purchased during my "busy season" thinking I would download the 3rd party software when I got back - I KNOW it was available when I purchased the Cricut.

Thanks but no thanks for offering your cartridges for sale. Sell me a software that will work with your machine. I'm not a scrapbooker, but I am a designer and using someone elses artwork contradicts my ethics. This machine is useless to me now. Off to Costco in the morning.

Interesting. Circut is and always has been a cartridge based cutting system. That's the way it was developed, manufactured and marketed. I still don't understand why people who don't want to use cartridges even buy a Cricut. And why it's PC's fault you bought one and now aren't happy because you have to use cartridges with it.

I went to the Cricut website today and the saying "Your results with the Cricut are only limited by your imagination." is still a claim. Cricut needs to qualify that by adding the word cartridges somewhere in there since the results are limited by the carts you own. It would be difficult to create a cat or bird from the Ornamental Iron 2 cartridge even if you could imagine it.

LOL.

to be honest ive always wanted a cricut.. ive looked at them for years but i wanted to use it for my own designs i create.
when i saw the design studio came out i told the wife i it is time to get one, she bought me the Expression last
xmas and then i went to buy the design studio and was so bummed you can't use your own design. i bought a few cartridges
but i ended putting the cricut im my closet.

then when i found 3rd party apps i bought make the cut, and ive made and bought svg files. i almost ran out to get a
cricut cake, when i found out about the lawsuit, and took a step back from that.

the funny thing is i didnt know there was few low cost cutters for the computer till after i bought my cricut and looked for
software to do what i wanted to do. I felt company loyalty for showing me what i can do with this technology but now after the
lawsuit, one can not use the software that expanded the use of the product.

As if my hp printer would not let me print with inkscape would i support them for limiting what one can do with hardware
i paid for? i think not.

i might not be the usual user of a cricut device, and they might not make the big bucks from me getting a extensive cartridge library.
But would have gotten my money buying more hardware and accessorizes for it.

now it looks like i can not support the company anymore, wile i am just one person. im sure there are more people that feel the way
i do. thanks for making a wonderful product im just sorry it will not work for what my needs are any more.

jim mottl

I just purchased a Cricut Expression 2 and have purchased some cartridges that had desins I needed, but I also wanted to use my new Cricut to cut my own designs. I didn't realize until after I purchased the machine that Provo had put a stop to 3rd party software use with the Cricut machines. I will be returning my Cricut or selling on Ebay ASAP. My imagination is much larger than their cartridge base! Very, very disapointed as I was very excited to get this and start creating.

Dear Moderator's/Managers/Developers/and CEO,

I have unfortunately come to the same realization this morning, that most here have in this post...I am severely limited in my creative ability. After seeing what was available for cartridges, I thought I had made the correct cutter decision.

It has become crisply clear that "the money is in the cartridges". What limits my creativity....the cartridges. I have so much in my head I want to create, but would have to pay $30-$60 (per cartridge no less - new) to get only a small portion of that design on a cartridge and then cannot finish the rest of that design I envisioned because it simply doesn't exist. Nor does the means to use some well designed and adaptable software package that allows for such creativity to be expressed using your devices exist.

I am a photographer and stained glass artist. I had hopes of using this machine (Expression 2) for both of these arts, but as it stands now will only get 20% of the 100% usage from my CE2 that I had hoped for. I did a bit of research before purchasing my CE2, and was of the opinion I had made the correct decision. Now having further asked and researched the creativity issues I'm of the distinct opinion that I am limited to what Cricut comes up with and that's it. There is apparently no interaction on the customer level to influence, create, or request design types or styles from the developers themselves. This is not a difficult problem to overcome. It's simply a well thought out business decision.

I hate to say it, but it's my own fault. I had hoped for more from this innovative company, but am unfortunately left with not much else to say except "Bye, bye E2"! My ETSY business needs more than you are willing to provide for my customers, and I as a creator/owner cannot limit myself to only providing limited creativity for my clients/customers. I need a software package that lets me create virtually limitless designs. Something I'm more than willing to pay for, but do not see this company progressing without.

Ditch the plastic cartridges, make the designs digital and downloadable (no S/H, user gets the design faster, environmentally friendly), involve your customers in the creative design process (open source/use popular customer creations for future sale/make this software versatile so we can be blown away by the creativity that customers share with us and through your company can then become available for download to us) -bec. then and only then will it be "Limitless". Then I'll reconsider this company and it's products. But you need to listen to your patrons, there are too many examples of what happens when a business doesn't listen. When a business listens, it's fiscally obvious.

Edited by user Wednesday, February 08, 2012 12:48:28 PM(UTC)  | Reason: spell check

There are lots of software based cutters on the market. Many were there when PC developed the Cricut cartridge based cutter and more have been developed since. The Cricut fills a huge need/market in the crafting world. When every other cutter was software based, PC chose to go a different direction, forge a new path and create a cart based system, which has been very well received and successful. Why would they change and do what every other software cutter can do?

Thats true but 7 years ago when i bought my cricut DS didn't exisisted. There was no choice of cutter as you have today. The seller told me, one day you will be able to use this with your computer. The day DS came out, i bought DS and i installed it on XP 32 bit computer. and everything works fine for me. Then i bought SCAL. And that was the top. Because at that time 3 years ago cricut didn't had a lot of choise in font cartridges.

So i believe you have to place everything in time. I love my cricut on XP computer.

I hate cricut on windows 7. I'm almost a year figuring out why it won't work for me.
And this is really frustrating.

I tried almost everything on this forum to get it work. And as a programmer and a designer i can tell that this is for me a bug in the system. With the latest update DS works fine on a windows 7 64 bit system. But in the driver for the original cricut and the firmware for the original cricut don't work as they have to work.

I even tried craft room. But i'm not turning off my security software. Knowing that my firewall allows input and output for craftroom. Still it isn't working.

So i know that i'm not the only one having those problem. And this frustrats me most that cricut developers theyselve are not helping out on there one product. Thats no service.

Seven years ago when i bought my cricut i couldn't forseen that this will be today the statements of cricut. So can you blame me, that i make a wrong choice seven years ago ?!?!?
Knowing that until today i still by cartridges and i'm looking forward to by the expression.

Because i still love the product. It's owesome. As long that my XP computer continues working.

So Please cricut developers i just ask you keep me satisfied and do something about the bugs.

Karin