Firefly: Adobe would have trained its AI with its own stock of images, but not only…

Adobe’s image generative AI, Firefly, wanted to distinguish itself by its ethical side, respectful of artists’ copyrights. But it seems to have failed!

With the advent of AI, those who wish to benefit from images representing any idea can now do so very quickly, thanks to generative AIs like Midjourney or Dall-E. The problem is that the latter, to achieve their ends, use artists’ productions, which has since led to endless controversies on the question of copyright. A pitfall that Adobe had claimed not to come up against with Firefly, which should only be supplied with royalty-free images.

Firefly used in Midjourney footage

Adobe would ultimately not be so different from its big rivals. This is what the major newspaper essentially states Bloomberg, according to whom the digital giant’s AI also ingested images normally protected by copyright. Enough to hurt the brand image that Adobe tried to build for Firefly.

Indeed, with the impressive number of proprietary images and videos from Adobe, one would have thought that the group would have enough to power its AI. But he also turned to third-party images, all formally free of copyright… like Midjourney’s productions. Except that if the creations from Midjourney do not have copyright, the images from which it was inspired do.

The marketplace problem

Adobe’s assertion is therefore based on an ambiguity, since, based on this information, it would in fact be more true to say that Firefly does not directly use any copyrighted images.

This issue originates from the Adobe Stock marketplace, where users can sell their creations to users on site. But as an intermediary, Adobe also gives itself the right to use these same images to feed Firefly. Images, some of which were produced by Midjourney.

According to Adobe, around 5% of the images integrated into Firefly for training purposes are artificially generated images. And some can carry potential problems with them for non-compliance with copyright. A legal question which is still far from having been resolved.

Source : Bloomberg, Tom’s Guide