Users of Adobe‘s Creative Cloud applications, including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Illustrator, are expressing concerns over recent changes to the company’s terms of use. The updated terms now grant Adobe the right to access user content through both automated and manual methods.
A recent update notice within Adobe apps indicated that the company would access user content for “content review.” However, the full terms reveal that Adobe can also use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to improve their software and services.
Last year, Adobe introduced a suite of generative AI features, including Photoshop’s Generative AI Fill, competing with tools like DALL-E and Midjourney. And as response to the OpenAI Sora video generator, Adobe added AI-powered video editing capabilities to its Premiere Pro app. The company said that the first Firefly model was trained using its own stock image library and other publicly available media on the internet.
With Adobe’s push towards generative AI, many users suspect that the updated terms will enable the company to use high-quality, user-created content to train its AI models. This raises concerns, especially for professionals who rely on Adobe’s apps and may inadvertently breach confidentiality agreements.
The full terms of use webpage revealed that it was updated back in February 2024. But the changes went largely unnoticed, until Adobe began displaying pop-ups within its apps to notify its users. The update has sparked significant backlash, both from casual users to prominent figures.
Another section of the terms grants Adobe a “non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free sublicensable license to use, reproduce, publicly display, distribute, modify, create derivative works based on, publicly perform, and translate the Content.” While Adobe claims this is solely for operating or improving their software and services, the language appears intentionally vague, offering users limited control over how their content is used and how it is shared.
The controversy is heightened by the fact that Adobe no longer sell its apps like Photoshop as a one-time purchase. With Adobe Creative Cloud, users must pay for a monthly subscription, making them vulnerable to Adobe’s ongoing feature and legal updates.
Adobe’s website includes a content analysis FAQ webpage stating that the it “doesn’t analyze content processed or stored locally on user devices.” Creative Cloud subscription plans include 100GB of cloud storage, and while there is an opt-out switch, Adobe can still access data in “limited circumstances.”
Via: Android Authority