Adobe Photoshop’s New Terms of Service Require Permission to Access Your Work
This week, authors opened Photoshop and found a new pop-up window informing them of changes to the terms of service. This in itself is nothing unusual: companies change their TOS all the time, and just to get around the pop-ups, you’ve probably signed your life away (so to speak) more times than you can count.
However, upon closer inspection, Adobe’s changes go beyond the scope: the creators, upon reading the pop-up, realized that Adobe did not change a resolution here and a resolution there; rather, the company argues that they now have the right to access work created using these programs for a variety of purposes, including AI training.
The terms of servicelisted on Adobe’s website appear to be in effect as of February 17th of this year and apply to all Adobe applications. However, this week the company appears to have introduced the pop-up to Photoshop users for the first time. Although there are several sections describing the new changes, section 2.2 summarizes the situation:
2.2 Our access to your content. We may access, view or listen to your Content (defined in Section 4.1 (Content) below) through either automated or manual methods, but only in limited ways and only as permitted by law. For example, in order to provide the Services and Software, we may need to access, view, or listen to your Content in order to (A) respond to Feedback or support requests; (B) detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security, legal or technical issues; and (C) enforce the Terms as set forth in Section 4.1 below. Our automated systems may analyze your Content and Creative Cloud client fonts (defined in Section 3.10 (Creative Cloud Client Fonts) below) using techniques such as machine learning in order to improve our Services and Software and the user experience. Information about how Adobe uses machine learning can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/go/machine_learning.
Naturally, the creators did not take the new rules very well. Sam Santala, founder of Songhorn Studios, posted a message on X criticizing Adobe for blocking his access to Photoshop unless he agreed to give the company full access to his work:
Director Duncan Jones was equally incensed , accusing Adobe of interfering with his film and absurdly demanding access to the creators’ work for the sole reason that they use the company’s software to create that work. Jones subsequently deleted the post.
Adobe’s pop-up prevents creators from using Photoshop until they agree to changes to their terms of service. Santala says he can’t even remove Photoshop without first agreeing to the changes, effectively tying creators into either allowing Adobe unrestricted access to your work or allowing Photoshop to become a digital paperweight on your computer.
X is full of creators making similar complaints against Adobe, although the company appears to have yet to comment on the situation. As of this writing, the terms of service still reflect these changes.