Creators opened Photoshop this week and saw a fresh pop-up informing them about changes to the terms of service. This in itself isn’t that unusual: companies change their Terms of Service all the time, and in order to avoid pop-ups, you’ve probably signed up for your life (so to speak) more times than you can count.
However, upon closer inspection, Adobe’s changes in this case are unacceptable: developers reading the popup realized that Adobe was not changing a permission here and a permission there; rather, the company claims that it now has the right to access work generated by these programs for a myriad of purposes, including, but not circumscribed to, training artificial intelligence.
Terms of service, as listed on Adobe’s website, appears to be from February 17 this year and appears to apply to all Adobe applications. However, this week appears to be the first time the company has made the popup available to Photoshop users. While there are many sections describing those regarding the fresh changes, section 2.2 summarizes the situation:
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2.2 Our access to your content. We may access, view or listen to Your Content (defined in Section 4.1 (Content) below) through both automated and manual means, but only in circumscribed ways and only to the extent permitted by law. For example, in order to provide the Services and Software, we may need to access, view or listen to Your Content to (A) respond to feedback or requests for support; (B) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, legal, or technical issues; and (C) enforce the Terms as further set forth in Section 4.1 below. Our automated systems may analyze User Content and Artistic Cloud Client Fonts (defined in Section 3.10 (Artistic Cloud Client Fonts) below) using techniques such as machine learning to improve our Services and Software and your user experience. Information about how Adobe uses machine learning can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/go/machine_learning.
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The creators obviously didn’t take the fresh rules well. Sam Santala, founder of Songhorn Studios, sent to X, criticizes Adobe for blocking him from Photoshop unless he agrees to give the company full access to his work:
The tweet may have been deleted
Principal Duncan Jones was equally irritated: In his post, he criticized Adobe for interfering with his video and the absurd nature of demanding access to the creators’ work solely because they exploit the company’s software to produce the work. Jones has since deleted the post.
Source: Jake Peterson
Adobe pop-up blocks creators from using Photoshop until they agree to changes to their terms of service. Santala says it can’t even uninstall Photoshop without first agreeing to the changes, which effectively binds creators: either allow Adobe unrestricted access to your work, or let Photoshop turn into a digital paperweight on your computer.
X is full of creators making similar complaints against Adobe, though the company doesn’t seem to have commented on the situation yet. As of this article, the terms of service continue to reflect these changes.