Adobe Chrome Extension That Encouraged Photo Theft Now Warns You About Stealing
Earlier this month, PetaPixel reported that Adobe’s Acrobat Chrome extension made it absurdly easy to steal other people’s photos, including AI-powered watermark removal. Since that report, Adobe has made changes to its extension.
Much like we work to hold companies to account when they do something we think is wrong and hurts photographers, we should equally celebrate their successes. It would be wonderful if companies never made decisions that harm photographers at all, but alas. When a company is as large as Adobe, it has a lot of competing interests, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence.
In any event, Adobe has tweaked its Acrobat extension for Google Chrome which previously encouraged users to take an image — any image — and edit it with no consideration for image rights. Oddly, the extension still does not mention Adobe Express integration at all despite its obvious addition, and the Chrome store listing doesn’t include a breakdown of what has changed inside the extension with each update — the most recent of which was on September 11 — but we have tested the latest version of the Acrobat extension and found some welcome changes.
First, there is no longer an Adobe Express icon inside Facebook when browsing in Chrome. Previously, this extension would make an Adobe logo pop-up on an image and prompt users to edit the image inside Express on the web.
Perhaps even more importantly, when users elect to edit an image on the web using Express, there is a new banner across the top of the Express user interface that reminds people that they shouldn’t steal pictures that don’t belong to them.
“This content may be subject to copyright. Make sure you have the rights to use it,” the new notice reads inside the Express user interface.
No, this isn’t a huge change; it’s still extremely easy to steal other people’s photos using the Adobe Acrobat Chrome extension. However, there is, at the very least, new awareness from Adobe that its tools can be used for nefarious purposes. Some copyright theft online is by accident, as we have seen time and again. There are plenty of people who don’t understand that the images they see online are not necessarily free for the taking. With that in mind, at least the Express integration in Chrome warns people about it.
As we initially reported, the Acrobat extension had already changed in the short window when we were testing it and communicating with Adobe. While it was initially possible to use the extension on Getty Images to remove watermarks from stock photos, that functionality was removed after our initial emails to the software giant. The company has still yet to provide an official comment on the Chrome extension, by the way, or acknowledge to us that it has made any changes to the software. However, something has obviously changed, both behind the scenes and front and center.
Even though these changes won’t prevent all image theft, there is little more that Adobe can do while continuing to have Express integration into the Acrobat extension in Chrome. And ultimately, even removing that integration would not prevent people from swiping images off the web. That said, the ability to steal images was never the point of PetaPixel‘s report. Stealing images has been extremely simple for decades, it just felt like gross negligence for Adobe to actively encourage its users to engage in theft. At least there’s a warning to be responsible with the tools being foisted upon them, and that might be the best that can realistically hoped for.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
