These are the new Adobe CC Terms of Use with plain text explanations
[14:42 Thu,20.June 2024 by blip]
As announced, Adobe has now significantly revised its (American) terms of use - a first adjustment at the beginning of June had made waves, as many users misinterpreted the update to mean that Adobe would grant itself rights of use to the content created with the tools, as well as wanting to use the content for training its generative AI model Firefly.
However, Adobe assures us that this is not true; the changes were marginal and of a purely formal nature. To dispel any doubts, the terms of use have now been formulated more clearly and narrowly, and there are easy-to-understand explanations of what is defined in each section.
For example, this explains section 2.2, one of the passages whose change was misunderstood:
"No one but you owns your content, but we need access to your content as necessary to operate Adobe applications and services. We limit our access to very specific purposes. (...) Here’s what we don't do: We don’t scan or review content that is stored locally on your device. We also don’t train generative AI models on your or your customers’ content unless you’ve submitted the content to the Adobe Stock marketplace."
With regard to the rights of use, Adobe explains the following:
"Section 4.3 means:
You own your content. But in order to use our products and services, we need you to give us permission to use your content when stored or processed in our cloud. This permission is called a license.
This license allows us to provide our products and services to you, like if you want to share your content or publish your content on Behance. Because it’s your content — not ours.
This license does not give us permission to train generative AI models with your or your customers’ content. We don’t train generative AI models on your or your customers’ content unless you’ve submitted the content to the Adobe Stock marketplace.
We also ask whether you would like to help us improve our products and services, but it’s never required. When you choose to help us improve our products, we need a limited license to your content for that specific purpose."
The message is clear: if you use Adobe tools, you don't have to worry that the video material you create or use will be used to train generative AI models. However, if this is offered via Adobe Stock, other rules apply.
Incidentally, the German terms of use are still valid as of February 17, 2024 and have therefore not (yet) received a "readability update".
In the meantime, however, new clouds are gathering over Adobe, because as Heise reports, the company is now being sued by the US Department of Justice for non-transparent termination terms for its subscriptions. According to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), it was not made sufficiently clear when the annual, monthly subscription was concluded that the fee for early termination would amount to 50% of the outstanding monthly amounts. Another criticism is that Adobe makes canceling a subscription unnecessarily complicated.
