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Adobe drops unpopular online Photoshop terms

Under new Photoshop Express terms of use, Adobe no longer is permitted to use your photos for any purpose it wants.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
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Responding to criticism, Adobe Systems has modified the legal terms for using its online Photoshop Express service, a move the company promised would happen.

"Adobe has retained only those limited rights that allow us to operate the service and to enable you to do all the things the service offers," the company said in a statement. "If you decide to terminate your Photoshop Express account, Adobe's rights also will be terminated."

The earlier Photoshop Express terms of service had raised hackles among those concerned about a clause that gave Adobe sweeping rights to photos stored at the site. Those terms granted Adobe "a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such content and to incorporate such content into other materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

The new terms of service can be read at the company's site.