Adobe Photoshop Users Are Outraged at the Company’s New Terms: ‘Am I Reading This Right?’

Adobe’s new terms and conditions have creatives in an uproar.

By Sherin Shibu | edited by Melissa Malamut | Jun 06, 2024
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Key Takeaways

  • Adobe’s new terms allow it to access user content, even content protected by NDAs.
  • Creatives have pushed back on social media.
  • Adobe chief product officer for creative cloud Scott Belsky said that the company does not train AI on customer content.

Adobe’s changes to its terms of use have sparked outrage on social media, as creatives publicly push back against Adobe having full access to the work they create.

Adobe recently its terms of use to clarify that it can access user content automatically and manually “using techniques such as machine learning.”

The company can use, replicate, or “create derivative works” based on what its users create on Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator. It can also look at subscriber content, even if the user is under a non-disclosure agreement, which effectively breaks the NDA, per .

The language of the new terms also opens the door for Adobe to use content created by subscribers, even pieces protected by NDAs, to train its AI image generator Firefly.

Related: Adobe’s Firefly Image Generator Was Partially Trained on AI Images From Midjourney, Other Rivals

In a post on X liked more than 71,000 times and viewed by more than 9.5 million people, creative concept artist Sam Santala called out Adobe for its new terms.

“So am I reading this right?” Santala wrote. “I can’t use Photoshop unless I’m okay with you having full access to anything I create with it, INCLUDING NDA work?”

Santala noted that he couldn’t talk to Adobe’s support chat, uninstall Photoshop, or even sign in and his subscription unless he agreed to the terms.

Santala’s post was one in a chorus. Other creatives, from toy to movie , also publicly took issue with Adobe’s new terms.

Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief product officer for Adobe Creative Cloud, to Santala’s post and stated: “Adobe does NOT train any GenAI models on customer’s content, and we obviously have tight security around any form of access to customer’s content.”

The Adobe Creative Cloud an estimated 33 million subscribers.

Key Takeaways

  • Adobe’s new terms allow it to access user content, even content protected by NDAs.
  • Creatives have pushed back on social media.
  • Adobe chief product officer for creative cloud Scott Belsky said that the company does not train AI on customer content.

Adobe’s changes to its terms of use have sparked outrage on social media, as creatives publicly push back against Adobe having full access to the work they create.

Adobe recently its terms of use to clarify that it can access user content automatically and manually “using techniques such as machine learning.”

The company can use, replicate, or “create derivative works” based on what its users create on Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator. It can also look at subscriber content, even if the user is under a non-disclosure agreement, which effectively breaks the NDA, per .

Sherin Shibu • News Reporter

Âé¶¹Éç Staff
Sherin Shibu is a business news reporter at Âé¶¹Éç.com. She previously worked for PCMag, Business... Read more
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