ASMP's open letter response to Adobe's recent AI ads

[Phil]

"Skip the photo shoots"??

 

https://www.asmp.org/press-release/an-open-letter-to-adobe/

 

https://petapixel.com/2024/05/03/adobe-throws-photographers-under-the-bus-again-skip-the-photoshoot/

Edited May 26 by Phil
typo

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

Related:

 

from ~2016-2022, have successfully bought & sold ADBE at profit several times;

but last bought 2022 & still holding, waiting for profit again....

the point: company not growing like it used to...

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=adbe+stock+price&sca_esv=35b2ac92d41e214b&sxsrf=ADLYWIL0wnLTRv1N8DbHCl4ELL_zlG3idQ%3A1716751786935&source=hp&ei=qo1TZq60NZ-XwbkP7dKg8AM&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZlObun7i-RkQYohTYZg6xjJgHMPolt2P&ved=0ahUKEwiusbLjhqyGAxWfSzABHW0pCD4Q4dUDCBc&uact=5&oq=adbe+stock+price&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhBhZGJlIHN0b2NrIHByaWNlMg0QABiABBixAxhGGPoBMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAESKNnUABYv2FwCXgAkAEBmAGbBKABzxmqAQwxMi41LjAuMS4yLjG4AQPIAQD4AQGYAh2gAsIawgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAgoQABiABBixAxgKwgIHEAAYgAQYCsICChAAGIAEGLEDGA3CAgcQABiABBgNwgIGEAAYDRgewgIGEAAYFhgewgIIEAAYFhgeGA_CAggQABgIGA0YHsICBxAhGKABGAqYAwCSBwoyMC40LjEuMS4zoAfEmgE&sclient=gws-wiz

 

Edited May 27 by Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg

[Chuck Nacke]

10 hours ago, Phil said:

"Skip the photo shoots"??

 

https://www.asmp.org/press-release/an-open-letter-to-adobe/

 

https://petapixel.com/2024/05/03/adobe-throws-photographers-under-the-bus-again-skip-the-photoshoot/

I support ASMP and their linked statement above.  This has made me think for the first time since I purchased PS2 about other options to using or licensing Adobe products.

 

Chuck Nacke ( a current CC paying client )

[Phil]

Adobe CEO's thoughts on AI.   Not very comforting for more traditional creatives.

 

https://petapixel.com/2024/05/18/adobes-ceo-is-just-not-on-the-same-wavelength-as-artists/

[wilkopix]

I don't disagree ... but Adobe are the only company that actually pay artists and photographers for their work to be used in AI learning. The rest just steal it.

[mickfly]

I cancelled my Adobe subscription tonight and after many many years paying a monthly fee they have charged me an early cancellation fee (50% of the remaining annual plan) cheeky buggers.

[Harry Harrison]

I don't know if this is related and I don't use the CC subscription version myself anyway but there is a lot of indignation on some other forums about changes to the Adobe Terms of Service that appears to give them rights to access to all works created with their software, a number of diehard Adobe users are also cancelling their subscriptions. Those seeking to defend Adobe suggest that their software will need this to perform correctly and that this is just covering it in legal terms, others suggest more sinister motives up to and including AI of course.

 

https://lifehacker.com/tech/photoshops-terms-of-service-demands-the-right-to-your-content

Edited June 9 by Harry Harrison

[Julie Edwards]

I am surprised by a number of the responses here. I thought this storm is a teacup had gone away (terms of service). The terms have been there a few years and merely clarified.

 

These updates have nothing to do with Ai.. They have everything to do with storing and delivering images, software improvement  + a bit on ensuring ner-do-wells are not storing illegal content on thier servers.  There have been a number of clarifications..

 

Any time you use a web service, say to pass information or pics back to the client , you break an nda. (I.e email/dropbox etc)

 

Storage of the image/data requires a “right”/“license” for the image/data..

 

Be sensible-this is outrage from those that do not understand how services work..

 

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use

 

Edit: Clarified to I mean  the terms of service - I  am 100% with the original post, letter and anti  the "skip  the photoshoot" advert 

 

Quote

To be clear, Adobe requires a limited license to access content solely for the purpose of operating or improving the services and software and to enforce our terms and comply with law, such as to protect against abusive content.

 

Edited June 9 by Julie Edwards

[Harry Harrison]

6/6/24 - 3 days ago - Adobe Communications Team - "We will be clarifying the Terms of Use acceptance customers see when opening applications."

 

Maybe that is part of the problem then.

[mickfly]

25 minutes ago, Julie Edwards said:

I am surprised by a number of the responses here. I thought this storm is a teacup had gone away. The terms have been there a few years and merely clarified.

 

These updates have nothing to do with Ai.. They have everything to do with storing and delivering images, software improvement  + a bit on ensuring ner-do-wells are not storing illegal content on thier servers.  There have been a number of clarifications..

 

Any time you use a web service, say to pass information or pics back to the client , you break an nda. (I.e email/dropbox etc)

 

Storage of the image/data requires a “right”/“license” for the image/data..

 

Be sensible-this is outrage from those that do not understand how services work..

 

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use

 

 

This is similar to the recurring posts on Facebook (Facebook owns your pics, etc) with the users stating that they dont give the rights to Facebook to use their images, so realisticaly, Facebook couldn't show that users images on the platform.
It looks like uninformed scaremongering.
I only cancelled my own Adobe sub as a cost saving effort in retirement and have been trying other software, but, I'll admit, I have made a mistake as nothing seems to come close to the Lightrooom features which I use, so, I will carry on with LR Classic on my computers.

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, mickfly said:

This is similar to the recurring posts on Facebook (Facebook owns your pics, etc) with the users stating that they dont give the rights to Facebook to use their images, so realisticaly, Facebook couldn't show that users images on the platform.
It looks like uninformed scaremongering.
I only cancelled my own Adobe sub as a cost saving effort in retirement and have been trying other software, but, I'll admit, I have made a mistake as nothing seems to come close to the Lightrooom features which I use, so, I will carry on with LR Classic on my computers.

 

Did you try DXO? That's the one I have my eye on if I ever want to cancel my subscription.

 

Paulette

[mickfly]

22 hours ago, NYCat said:

 

Did you try DXO? That's the one I have my eye on if I ever want to cancel my subscription.

 

Paulette

 No Paulette.
I make very simple edits in LR which I find very intuitive, but I also like the database catalogues which can be searched across many fields, ie camer model, lens, and after reading the thread about denoise I have been searching my library for high ISO images which I might rework using that method.
I bought the Infinity software but have reverted back to LR Classic very quickly.
My real beef with Adobe is that I don't want anything except LR classic and can only get LR on its own if I get the cloud version which saves up to a terrabyte of images to the cloud for the same price per month as the photo package... but I seem to suffer with perpetual internet slowness on my travels, so don't want the cloud.

[NYCat]

1 hour ago, mickfly said:

 No Paulette.
I make very simple edits in LR which I find very intuitive, but I also like the database catalogues which can be searched across many fields, ie camer model, lens, and after reading the thread about denoise I have been searching my library for high ISO images which I might rework using that method.
I bought the Infinity software but have reverted back to LR Classic very quickly.
My real beef with Adobe is that I don't want anything except LR classic and can only get LR on its own if I get the cloud version which saves up to a terrabyte of images to the cloud for the same price per month as the photo package... but I seem to suffer with perpetual internet slowness on my travels, so don't want the cloud.

 

I definitely rely on the catalog to keep track of everything. So far they are letting people keep that capacity if they cancel the subscription but you have to do your developing elsewhere. At this point I am able to afford the subscription to Lightroom Classic. People seem to like DXO a lot. I don't know anything about their cost 

 

Paulette

[Mark Scheuern]

On 09/06/2024 at 04:29, Julie Edwards said:

 

 

These updates have nothing to do with Ai.. They have everything to do with storing and delivering images, software improvement  + a bit on ensuring ner-do-wells are not storing illegal content on thier servers.  There have been a number of clarifications..

 

 

"Adobe Stock: Content submitted by contributors to Adobe Stock may be used for machine learning." Though this is not new. 

Edited June 10 by Mark Scheuern

[Mark Scheuern]

On 09/06/2024 at 04:39, Harry Harrison said:

6/6/24 - 3 days ago - Adobe Communications Team - "We will be clarifying the Terms of Use acceptance customers see when opening applications."

 

Maybe that is part of the problem then.

 

I would have thought they would have some awareness that they already have a trust problem amongst creatives and could have handled this TOS change in a less ham-fisted way. 

[Julie Edwards]

5 hours ago, Mark Scheuern said:

 

"Adobe Stock: Content submitted by contributors to Adobe Stock may be used for machine learning." Though this is not new. 

Adobe’s continued commitments

Our commitments to our customers have not changed.

• Adobe does not train Firefly Gen AI models on customer content. Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired. Read more here: https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/faq.html#training-data

 

[Martin L]

 

From https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/using/machine-learning-faq.html

 

When does content analysis opt-out not apply?

Additionally, if you use features that rely on content analysis techniques (for example, Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop), your content may still be analyzed when you use those features to help improve that feature.

[Mark Scheuern]

5 hours ago, Julie Edwards said:

 

Adobe’s continued commitments

Our commitments to our customers have not changed.

• Adobe does not train Firefly Gen AI models on customer content. Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired. Read more here: https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/faq.html#training-data

 

At what point and how did Adobe stock contributors agree to this? Were they allowed to opt out?

[Harry Harrison]

It does rather look as if Adobe messed up over this, apologetic Adobe blog post from 6th June announcing that they will be updating their Terms of Use:

 

https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/10/updating-adobes-terms-of-use

 

Comment in The Verge from yesterday 10th June:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/10/24175416/adobe-overhauls-terms-of-service-update-firefly

 

[Phil]

On 12/06/2024 at 17:04, Harry Harrison said:

It does rather look as if Adobe messed up over this, apologetic Adobe blog post from 6th June announcing that they will be updating their Terms of Use:

 

This TOS/AI issue is snow-balling on Adobe.  

 

It appears many wanted to terminate their Adobe subscription plan.  But they were blind-sided by Adobe's early termination fees and other hidden gotchas.

 

So much so that the US Federal Trade Commission has filed a Federal lawsuit against Adobe:

 

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/06/ftc-takes-action-against-adobe-executives-hiding-fees-preventing-consumers-easily-cancelling

 

 

Edited July 9 by Phil
typo

[Harry Harrison]

7 minutes ago, Phil said:

This TOS/AI issue is snow-balling on Adobe. 

I'm on the Negative Lab Pro forum, a Lightroom plugin for colour negative processing. There has been a surge in requests for a standalone version from disaffected Adobe users, I get the impression that they are mainly young people, not good to be alienating that age group.

[M.Chapman]

And... Affinity are now offering 6 month free trials and 50% off. Possibly trying to entice disgruntled Adobe users?https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/

 

Mark

[Rebecca Ore]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

And... Affinity are now offering 6 month free trials and 50% off. Possibly trying to entice disgruntled Adobe users?https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/

 

Mark

 

The "gotcha" is . "Trials cannot be used for commercial purposes."

[M.Chapman]

On 09/07/2024 at 19:30, Rebecca Ore said:

 

The "gotcha" is . "Trials cannot be used for commercial purposes."

I'm not sure it's that simple. I assume you extracted that quote from the Trial FAQ where the full Question with Answer is

 

Q. Can I use the trial on all my devices?

A.  Yes, the same Affinity ID tied to the trial can be used on all of your devices you personally use. Trials cannot be used for commercial purposes.

 

The licence that has to be agreed to when installing the in the UK states (my bold)

 

3.    The licence granted to you is limited, non-transferable and non-exclusive. Except to the extent any rights cannot be excluded by law, you are permitted:

(i) if you are a private individual, to download, install, use and run for personal use, one (1) copy of the Serif Software directly on each computer running macOS (“Mac Computer”) that you personally own or control. Commercial use is permitted but only use by you and not by any other users of any Mac Computers that you own or control.

 

The chairman has also made a strong pitch indicating the longer trial is to allow busy professionals longer to try the software (my bold). 

 

Affinity CEO Ashley Hewson says: “More people than ever are talking about the different creative software options available. And every day thousands more designers, artists and photographers take the decision to move to Affinity, joining the millions who already trust our software for their everyday professional workflow over the last ten years.

“One of the things we hear from potential customers is that they would value having an extended period to run Affinity alongside their existing software, to get used to the differences and adapt their working methods.

“So we’re saying ‘try everything and pay nothing’ because we understand making a change can be a big step, particularly for busy professionals.

 

My interpretation of the above, and other clauses elsewhere is that, in return for your email registration you can, as a private individual, download and use the software for 6 months including for commercial use by you only. What you cannot do is download the trial and then install it on multiple computers in a business for you and your staff to use.

 

That's my interpretation in the UK anyway.

 

Mark (not a lawyer!)

Edited July 11 by M.Chapman

[Sally Robertson]

On 10/07/2024 at 01:10, M.Chapman said:

And... Affinity are now offering 6 month free trials and 50% off. Possibly trying to entice disgruntled Adobe users?https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/

 

Mark

I bought a stand alone version of Affinity Photo for a grand total of $35 Australian dollars in 2020 which is a perpetual license. I found it great to use and was always able to find an online tutorial to work out anything new I wanted to try. At the time I was using it alongside the then freely available version of Capture One and used Affinity Photo for anything the free version of Capture One couldn’t do. I now use Capture One Pro which costs a lot more but I’m super happy with it. It will be interesting to see if Capture One ventures into similar AI functionality as Adobe or whether they offer a sort of alternative with their own features that set them apart. Although there is increasing AI functionality in what Capture One can do, I haven’t seen the same kind of marketing that Adobe is doing in terms of making big strides with AI. By that I mean I see Adobe AI ads come up all the time on YouTube, but I guess that makes sense as Adobe are still the most dominant player. It’s a complex field now and I imagine each photography software company is working out how to position themselves in the market in the context of AI development.

 

Having just said that, I found the following from Capture One. It follows their usual approach of new styles you can purchase for specific AI functionality. I guess that allows photo editors to tailor a collection of styles specifically to the type of photography and editing they do and the style collection will keep expanding over time.

 

https://www.captureone.com/en/explore-features/ai-photo-editing