Adobe to Offer Free App to Help with Labeling AI-generated Content

Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)
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Adobe to Offer Free App to Help with Labeling AI-generated Content

Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Adobe logo is seen on smartphone in this illustration taken June 13, 2022. (Reuters)

Adobe said on Tuesday it will offer a free web-based app starting next year, aimed at helping the creators of images and videos to get credit for their work used in AI systems.

Since 2019, Adobe and other technology companies have been working on what the firms call "Content Credentials," a sort of digital stamp for photos and videos around the web to denote how they were created.

TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance, has already said it will use Content Credentials to help label AI-generated content, Reuters reported.

San Jose, California-based Adobe said it will offer a free service to allow the creators of photos and videos to affix Content Credentials to their work.

In addition to indicating that they authored the content, the creators can also use the free app to signal if they do not want their work to be used by AI training systems that ingest huge amounts of data, the company said.

The use of data in AI training systems has sparked legal responses in multiple industries, with publishers such as the New York Times suing OpenAI, while some other firms have opted to work out licensing deals.

As yet, no large AI company has agreed to abide by Adobe's system for transparency. In a release, Adobe said it was "actively working to drive industry-wide adoption" of its standards.

"By offering creators a simple, free and easy way to attach Content Credentials to what they create, we are helping them preserve the integrity of their work, while enabling a new era of transparency and trust online," Scott Belsky, chief strategy officer and executive vice president for design and emerging products at Adobe, said in a statement.



Reddit Sues AI Giant Anthropic Over Content Use

Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
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Reddit Sues AI Giant Anthropic Over Content Use

Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP

Social media outlet Reddit filed a lawsuit Wednesday against artificial intelligence company Anthropic, accusing the startup of illegally scraping millions of user comments to train its Claude chatbot without permission or compensation.

The lawsuit in a California state court represents the latest front in the growing battle between content providers and AI companies over the use of data to train increasingly sophisticated language models that power the generative AI revolution.

Anthropic, valued at $61.5 billion and heavily backed by Amazon, was founded in 2021 by former executives from OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

The company, known for its Claude chatbot and AI models, positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development.

"This case is about the two faces of Anthropic: the public face that attempts to ingratiate itself into the consumer's consciousness with claims of righteousness and respect for boundaries and the law, and the private face that ignores any rules that interfere with its attempts to further line its pockets," the suit said.

According to the complaint, Anthropic has been training its models on Reddit content since at least December 2021, with CEO Dario Amodei co-authoring research papers that specifically identified high-quality content for data training.

The lawsuit alleges that despite Anthropic's public claims that it had blocked its bots from accessing Reddit, the company's automated systems continued to harvest Reddit's servers more than 100,000 times in subsequent months.

Reddit is seeking monetary damages and a court injunction to force Anthropic to comply with its user agreement terms. The company has requested a jury trial.

In an email to AFP, Anthropic said "We disagree with Reddit's claims and will defend ourselves vigorously."

Reddit has entered into licensing agreements with other AI giants including Google and OpenAI, which allow those companies to use Reddit content under terms that protect user privacy and provide compensation to the platform.

Those deals have helped lift Reddit's share price since it went public in 2024.

Reddit shares closed up more than six percent on Wednesday following news of the lawsuit.

Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued the various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment.

AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally changes the original content and is necessary for innovation.

Though most of these lawsuits are still in early stages, their outcomes could have a profound effect on the shape of the AI industry.