Ethics and Legal Issues

Adobe and Training AI

Over the years there have been many ethical and legal issues that have surfaced in the art industry. A lot of these issues surround originality, ownership or even situations regarding personal morals. With the rise in digital media and digital art as a whole, many have developed ways to enhance their art by using a variety of assets and tools (CGI, Textures, AI- generated elements). However, in recent times there have been more questions surrounding the integration of AI tools. What is the limit to the use of AI and how long before the work loses its authenticity? Will artists be replaced by AI?

As an inspiring artist I feel like understanding these ethical and legal implications are critical to ensuring the rights of all creators are respected. The latest news of this topic is the misuse of AI-Generated content. There has been a surge in instances of people using AI tools to either mimic the work of existing artists. Many argue that this ultimately devalues the efforts and work of human artists.

A great current example that explores this topic is the recent controversy with Adobe and their update to the terms of service that gave Adobe the right to have access to the users’ work. This was all under guise for ‘Content Review’ however users noticed that that included machine learning. In other words, Adobe would be using users’ work to train AI. In addition, the document also stated that Adobe has “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.”

In a legal sense, this raised concerns about intellectual property rights as AI blurs the lines regarding ownership. Adobe’s programs are considered industry standard; this means that most people use them to produce their work. The biggest part of this issue is that Adobe no longer has one time purchases for their products, they have monthly subscriptions. Meaning everyone that uses the program has no choice but to concede to any updates made to the terms and conditions or else they will not have access to the software.

In order to avoid this issue, what some creators have resolved to is switching over to other software (like Clip Studio Paint instead of Photoshop). However, with how dominant Adobe has been in the industry over the years, their programs offer features and tools that the majority of competitors have not been able to catch up with yet. This will then limit the capabilities of those who chose to make those switches.

Resources

• Android Authority. (2024). Adobe wants to use your work to train its AI, and everyone is mad at it. [online] Available at: https://www.androidauthority.com/adobe-terms-update-ai-content-3449332/