Adobe Terms of Service Update Impact on Landscape Photographers

[@huymaivan8671]

Ok I would love to debunk some of your point here: Section2.2: + Abode is not a social media where every one including children who can see what people share. It’s a tool for user to work, so the content should be and only be available for user to access. We don’t pay to have some one moderator over what we did with the tool. As you can see, if you legally buy a gun, the gun store have no responsibility over what you do with that gun anymore. + Take into account that they carefully mention “machine learning” (a method to train AI generative), But they never confirm if AI generative is part of their” Services and Software” or not. That should be a big red flag. + They access to “Your content and Cretive Cloud Customer Fonts” Which mean it is not limited to what you update to Creative Cloud, but your content as overall. My next comment I'll debunk other section aswell, because it's too long to write all in one single comment

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

From the June 10th Update: "You have a choice to not participate in our product improvement program. We may use usage data and content characteristics to improve your product experience and develop features like masking and background removal among others through techniques including machine learning (NOT generative AI). You always have the option of opting out of our desktop product improvement programs."

[@huymaivan8671]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography in their Term of use I dont see that "(NOT generative AI)" either? Did you take those information from the disclaimer blog post? blog post's worthless on the court. only ToS is matter. You dont have a choice to refuse them that [Royalty- free sublicensable] , so a choice to not participate in their product improvement program is just an illusion.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

@@huymaivan8671 In the same June 10th update, they've advised they are additing additional clarity to the ToS by June 18th. Adobe has worked to clarify, it is obvious some people have latched on to these leaps of logic when Adobe has clarified multiple times what their intent was. If you've chosen not to believe Adobe, that is fine - there are plenty of options out there.

[@marksimmons8162]

Thank you for this video. Its great to get a non-biased, non-clickbait, balanced and not hysterical view.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

I was getting tired of all the misinformation and “clickbait-rage” videos, articles, etc, myself! I thought a more tempered commentary would be helpful.

[@huymaivan8671]

Here is my debunk for your point at Section4.1: + Again with the suspicious term: ”Services and Software”. They never define what including inside ”Services and Software”. Does it including “generative AI” inside those term? + They can have access to user content which “upload, import to, ember for use by, or creat”. That mean they indeed have access to not only what you upload to Creative Cloud but also including what you "created” using their tool in your computer aswell ( "upload" for Creative Cloud content, "creat" for other offline tool like Photoshop, Illustrior, After Effect...) + And they admit they even have the power to delete your content from the “Services and Software” let alone the power to access and look into the file. So their trick is never mention what exactly inside those term “Services and Software”.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

From the June 10th Update: "Adobe does not scan content stored locally on your computer in any way. For content that you upload to our servers - like all content-hosting platforms - Adobe automatically scans content you upload to our services to ensure we are not hosting any child sexual abuse material (CSAM). If our automated system flags an issue, we will conduct a human review to investigate. The only other instances where a human will review your content is upon your request (per a support request) if it is posted to a public facing site, or to otherwise comply with the law."

[@huymaivan8671]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Please focus on the main question here: So did they even mention those term “Services and Software” doesn't including any kind of generative AI as a part of it in the ToS ???? Just an answer for "yes" or "no" should be more than enough.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

How does that directly relate to your Section 4.1 debunks? What is the relevance?

[@walker2837]

Maybe there is no problem with the revised TOS. The language is so vague it doesn't give me any comfort at all. In any event, I've just decided I don't need the hassle or the monthly fee. Have switched to Affinity.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

I do agree more clarity is warranted. Their clarifying statements I think have been been very good, especially the one released on June 10th. I am hoping they do follow through and bring those clarifications into the actual ToS. I've heard good things about Affinity (I use their Publishing software for PDFs and ebooks). I *almost* picked it up with their recent sale they were running to play with it a bit more. Probably won't get it this time around, but maybe Black Friday. Several friends have said very good things about it.

[@nobodyisperfect1564]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography It's offer TIME 50% off!

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

@@nobodyisperfect1564 I should probably just pick it up now... Probably not see another sale like that for quite some time.

[@russellyeley2561]

Don't use any adobe products other than PDF viewer. When they expired my copy of Photoshop Elements after 5 years I decided it was time for a change, so i went to ACDsee 2023.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

There are plenty of good alternatives to Adobe products for folks that want them. I haven’t used ACDsee, but have dabbled with other products, just to be aware of what is out there. And there is lots of capable software out there to choose from!

[@huymaivan8671]

This is my debunk for your point at Section4.2: + Adobe want [Royalty- free sublicensable] over user’s content. So what is [sublicensable]? =>This means that a licensee can give the intellectual property rights to a third party without direct permission from the IP owner. =>Most licenses are sublicensable and transferable which affords the licensee the option to perform either. =>Or should I say [Royalty- free sublicensable] which they want over your content is just as legal weight as license. The difference is you still own your content but they can do whatever they want with your content. =>With [Royalty-free sublicense],they dont even need to sell or commercial use of your work and can still profit over your content: they can use your work to train their AI and use that AI for commercial use instead. That's how they go around the law. + “Sole purposes of operating or improving the Services and Software”. Again with this the suspicious term: ”Services and Software”. It’s just another way to say” we can use your content to operating or improving our AI “.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

From their June 10th update: "The licenses we require to operate and improve our products on your behalf should be narrowly tailored to the activities needed. The licenses required to operate our products on your behalf use the standard statutory copyright rights but will now include plain English examples of what they mean and why they are required. We will also separate out and further limit the licenses required to improve our products and emphasize the opt-out option. We will reiterate that, in no case do these license grants transfer ownership of your content to Adobe."

[@huymaivan8671]

​@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Please stop the debate if all the "June 10th update" information you got there from the Adobe blog post. To think that some one would believe a blog post over the ToS is beyond me. On the court the judge'll only look at the ToS to make decision, and they 'll look at it carefully word by word, definition by definition.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

​@@huymaivan8671 People have selectively misinstrepted the ToS by grabbing bits and pieces. Adobe has already said they will clarify the ToS by the 18th to reflect their clarifications. I understand how a ToS works and changes are in the works. If you don't trust Adobe, that's fine with me. As I said in the other reply, there are plenty of options out there, so using Adobe is not a requirement.

[@TC_Conner]

Creatives, me included, sometimes give kneejerk reactions to stuff! Very helpful info Jeffrey, thanks for putting this out. 💜

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

I do think skepticism is good, I just think some people really misinterpreted the intent of a good portion of what people were upset about. Even post-Adobe clarifications I keep seeing new posts upset about it, when Adobe has released two updates, including saying they will update the ToS to be more concise. Thanks for watching!

[@DavidCampling]

Great balanced video,I certainty think Adobe shot themselves in the foot with the way they communicated and I looked for alternative software in case ! However after reviewing all the other mainstream and free options I see nothing that can replace the functionality or ease of use of LR classic ( I my case) thanks for the video.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Thank you! I do agree, Adobe certainly could have made things more clear from the beginning instead of having to release multiple clarifications. I am hopefully they have learned a bit and future updates will be done with more clarity. I tend to use Adobe LR Classic and PS because it is super easy to find tutorials if I am looking to accomplish something in them, there's just so many out there. Plus, I've been in LR for so long that just the file organization system I lean on heavily and the tool more or less stays out of my way.

[@jordanking7711]

I get that skepticism is a good thing, especially in this day in age, and yes Adobe could have been more transparent from the start, but at the same time, KZbinrs need to stop putting out videos to put fear into people UNTIL they have looked into it themselves and confirmed it. Let's be honest, this whole issue started from Tony Northrup's video.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Yep. I don't mind the skepticism, it is the fear mongering around it that is crazy. Several of the things Tony talked about in his video are flat out incorrect, made even more obvious by Adobe's clarifications along the way.

[@jordanking7711]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Exactly. And while I'm on the subject of things that Tony said that were incorrect, right in the middle of the video he makes a plug for his new book that he's 'supposedly' writing right now. Correct me if I'm wrong (and please feel free), unless I'm mistaken and unless that particular video was made months ago, while yes the 'paperback' version ships in Fall of 2023, it seems to me that the 'digital' version is ready do download right now. Regardless though, as I've said, KZbinrs in general need to STOP putting fear into people unless of course they have done their research and actually confirmed it.

[@stevestrickland446]

Great video. I have read these agreements end to end as well as their competitors. This agreement is very similar to competitors here in the States as well as the EU. However, I think they tried to oversimplify the agreement and it was written sloppy. I agree with you that the cloud and servers need licensing and monitoring. However, the agreement needed to distinguish between local and cloud. Local and cloud based ai processing is almost indistinguishable and completely seamless. This is a legal document that may be used in court. If it’s not in writing then it’s hard to assume anything.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

I’m hoping they come through on their clarification from June 10th and get portions for the ToS updated for that clarity.

[@jonmichaelgalindo]

If Adobe wants to train on your data, they will, and their lawyers will use these terms to get off scott free. "For the purposes of operating" 100% includes AI training as long as the AI has at least some internal operational use.

[@jonmichaelgalindo]

For example, Firefly has a diffuser and a VAE. VAEs can also be used for compression and search. The diffuser is the creative part that does the guided generation. They can 100% throw all your cloud images into training their VAE. None of those images will ever end up in a generared image, and you'll never know. They probably already did this.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Except, they clarified in their statements they are not using cloud data for generating AI content: From June 10th Update: "We don’t train generative AI on customer content. We are adding this statement to our Terms of Use to reassure people that is a legal obligation on Adobe. Adobe Firefly is only trained on a dataset of licensed content with permission, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired."

[@jonmichaelgalindo]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography They just call the VAE something else internally (SD's original release used a preexisting VAE, so technically Stable Diffusion only referred to the diffuser UNet, just like Firefly probably only refers to the DiT backbone), and you'll *never* know. You don't control your data.

[@huymaivan8671]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Again with those unreliable blog post information, would you?? As the guy already said, there's many way to twist the word: "We don’t train generative AI on customer content" doesn't mean "We will never train" "We don’t train Adobe Firefly on customer content" which mean they can alway change the name of the AI to some thing else like "Adobe Butterfly" and train it anyway. The only way to belive them is if they write exactly this in their ToS: "We will never train any kind of generative AI on customer content" See, that way closed any door so they cant exploited user's content anymore.

[@irenedp4947]

I don't store any data (images) in Adobe's cloud nor would ever do. So they don't need to protect my data. Thankfully EU laws are a little bit more stringent than the US ones.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Yeah - the vast, vast majority of my stuff is only kept locally and not in the Adobe Cloud. I have a few small collections that sync, but that's about it. So when keeping things locally, the automated processing and review doesn't apply, as it isn't in their cloud. They aren't "protecting" data stored locally. I generally haven't been too concerned about not having GDPR here, but where that concern is bigger for me is on Meta not allowing users that aren't covered by GDPR to opt out of THEIR AI initiative. Of all the issues that surfaced over the past few weeks *that's* the issue that should be most concerning for non-GDPR regions. Everyone leaping to conclusions on this Adobe stuff and ignoring the Meta piece which is much worse in my mind is focused on the wrong thing/issue.

[@ianslingsby3415]

Great video, non emotional and factual.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Thank you! Glad it was helpful!

[@DennisBater]

As you said, you are not a lawyer.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Nope, I am not. Hoeg Law did review the ToS and came to very similar conclusions as I did on my read of it. So while not being a lawyer, I don't think I am too far off of base with my commentary. So far I've seen lots of people writing outlandish headlines, but if you read what they are saying it is obviously a misinterpretation of the ToS. Add in that Adobe has clarified and will be releasing an update to the ToS, it is simply not as big of a deal as folks are trying to make. Anyone not covered by the GDPR should be *way* more up in arms over the Meta thing and how *they will* use content to feed their AI engines.

[@huymaivan8671]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography Auto opt-out should be default standard, dont you think so? Apparently auto opt-in is a big red flag that they're using customer 's data to train their AI. Face book already did this trick, Instagram already did this trick, so at this point I wont suprise if Adobe use the same trick as them.

[@cody484848]

I think people read the headlines and fail to read the statement in-depth If they did, it would clarify what exactly Adobe is doing. Great explanation Jeff. Glad to see Adobe respond, so promptly to an issue that I think was blown out of proportion. Folks are so afraid of this AI. If you recall, it was the same effect when we went from DSLR to mirrorless. Again, great video my friend!

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

100% agree! And the headlines of the articles that were already making leaps in their interpretation. When this first came out last week, I did a read through of the updates and I was like - this isn't what they are saying - and that was even before Adobe put the first statement out. And that second statement was even better. And definitely agree that I am pleased with Adobe's responses. They could have been more clear initially, but I think they are handling things well and doing the right thing now. Glad you liked the video! Thanks for watching!

[@robmcd]

Give an inch take a mile

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

@@robmcd How so? Specifically? Based on Adobe's most recent update on June 10th?

[@robmcd]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography stating that Adobe will only do what’s legal is out the window when you’re forced to consent. I can take your camera equipment for free if you give consent.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

You can always remove your content from the cloud and cancel your subscription. This is typical of any subscription service you might be using - creative related or not, they nearly always reserve the right to change the terms of use at any time. This is not unique to Adobe.

[@nobodyisperfect1564]

You will also believe in the Easter bunny. 🤣

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Not sure how that is when I am choosing to look at what is actually said in the ToS and the subsequent updates from Adobe versus the clickbait, get attention articles based on huge leaps of logic.

[@nobodyisperfect1564]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography In my country, it is a criminal offense if I do my jobs with Adobe. I don't live in China.

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

@@nobodyisperfect1564 In what country is it illegal? And specific illegal to use Adobe to work with local files and not store them in the cloud? I understand not being able to store them in the cloud for certain reasons, just like there are any number of cloud providers one probably couldn't use with similar documents?

[@nobodyisperfect1564]

@@JeffreyTadlockPhotography "adobe: 4.2 Licenses to Your Content. Solely for the purposes of operating or improving the Services and Software, you grant us 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." I am not allowed to license any artwork from Clients/Customers.

[@nobodyisperfect1564]

Of course, English is not my native language, but I understand when I give up my rights. I live in Switzerland.