Adobe Responds To Content Creation, Cloud Service Terms Backlash
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, June 7, 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to complicate how companies can access, view, or listen to content to protect against fraud, monitor security and legal issues, and enforce Terms of Use or Terms of Service.
Adobe's recent changes to its Terms of Use sparked a backlash on social media, causing content creators to publicly push back against the company after Adobe required broad access to the work designers create across Adobe cloud services. The company late Thursday updated its terms to clarify.
In the clarification, Adobe explained it had recently published an update to its Terms of Use with the goal of providing more clarity on a few specific areas. It reissued what it called a "re-acceptance of those terms to Adobe Creative Cloud and Document Cloud customers" after receiving "a number of questions resulting from this update."
Adobe said it remains committed to transparency and protecting the rights of creators and enabling its customers to do their best work.
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"The focus of this update was to be clearer about the improvements to our moderation processes that we have in place. Given the explosion of Generative AI and our commitment to responsible innovation, we have added more human moderation to our content submissions review processes," Adobe wrote in the update.
AI technology embedded in workflows have become predictive to determine media budgets and creative options, but updated terms of use for Adobe creative cloud services aimed at providing additional transparency made some users uncomfortable, rather than comfortable, after realizing how much access to content they had to give to continue using its products.
"I can't even uninstall Photoshop unless I agree to these terms??" Sam Santala, creature concept artist and founder of Songhorn Studios, wrote in an X post. "Are you f**king kidding me??"
Azzy, who runs a small design shop in Pennsylvania, thought it "neat how they can change the legal agreement" after signing and paying to use the services.
Until Adobe clarified the terms, users thought the language opened the door for Adobe to use content created by subscribers, even pieces protected by non-disclose agreements, to train its AI image generator Firefly.
