Well! Adobe updates its Terms, says it is allowed to scan your files.

[thewayne]

This change happened February 17. And, of course, you have to agree to the change in order to continue using the product that you're paying for a subscription to, it's not like you own it or anything. In Adobe's words, they're doing it to prevent child exploitation.

"Adobe's reasoning for giving itself the right to comb through user content is the detection and removal of illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, as well as abusive content or behavior, including spam and phishing."

Ignoring that people do work under NDAs. Or on secret government projects. Or with student records. Or with medical records. Or with actual exploited children. Etcetera.

Alton Brown just tweeted that his company is suspending all use of Adobe products until his attorneys can go over the user agreements with a fine toothed comb.

One content creator complained that he couldn't get ahold of an Adobe spokesdrone, nor cancel and uninstall the software, until agreeing to the new terms.

While I use Adobe products at work, I'm not really using them at home: my operating systems have aged past my ancient software. I do need new photo editing software and a good PDF creator/editor package, though. Shouldn't be hard to find, Adobe's PDF editor has been increasing in suck factor.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/adobe-defends-terms-of-service-changes-amid-gen-ai-explosion/

Comments

[motodraconis]

I'd heard that Adobe were scraping artists work without their consent for AI and burping out "in the style of" pages. I was assuming this was stuff saved on the cloud, surely they are not scraping your computer itself?

Ah, it is stuff on their cloud. I never use that. Years of working with NDA's in the Games Industry, even if it is a constant battle with Adobe to reject this default!

[thewayne]

That is an excellent question.  If it's stored in their cloud, I would think they have a right to scan files stored there.  And I definitely will never store files in their cloud.  If they are scanning files on your computer, that's a clear computer intrusion.  I don't think they can license their way into that.

[motodraconis]

I read through the link you posted, and it said this.

Adobe says that it only scans files on its cloud service and not on users' PCs. According to the software giant, "Adobe performs content analysis only on content processed or stored on Adobe's servers; we don't analyze content processed or stored locally on your device." That verbiage has not changed.

I don't use any of the AI and fancy processing gewgaws of Adobe, so I think I am outside their remit.

[thewayne]

I do recall their File Save dialog is pretty insistent on saving to their cloud, you have to go to some lengths to save locally for Photoshop.  Not so much for Acrobat.

[thewayne]

Excellent cartoon!  Yeah, I save locally.  I'll do backups to OneDrive - and to attached devices.  But I never do primary saves to cloud storage.  My Windows PC does scheduled backups to a second hard drive inside its case.