Exclusive: Adobe pushes for global AI creator protections

Adobe is pressing regulators worldwide to address gaps in creators' rights, with chief legal officer Louise Pentland calling for protection against commercial AI imitation of artists' styles and safeguards for licensing and using creative work.

Style rights

"We've gone to different parts of the world to really understand what the creator rights are in those countries, and then we've been advocating for different creators in different countries where there are gaps. So, for example, here in the United States, we've been putting our support behind the Creator Act, which was an act designed to allow protections for creators that the copyright laws do not provide," said Louise Pentland, chief legal officer, Adobe.

The CREATOR Act, introduced in the US House of Representatives on 2 June 2026, proposes a federal intellectual property right distinct from copyright and trademark. It would give visual artists or rights holders control over specified commercial exploitation or public distribution of stylistic impersonations.

The proposed right would exclude ideas, genres, artistic movements and commonly used visual styles. The bill also includes exclusions for criticism, research and certain parody, subject to conditions concerning commercial exploitation intended to mislead about source, sponsorship or approval.

Copyright protection for AI-assisted work raises a separate question. In its January 2025 report, the US Copyright Office said using AI to assist creation does not itself prevent copyright protection. Human-authored expression, creative arrangements and modifications may qualify, while prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control over expressive elements.

Global lobbying

"I completely agree; it's a global issue, but every country has its own set of rules, and we don't want to assume that everyone has the same need as the U.S. So we're being very methodical, and I'm travelling a lot and I'm going around to all of the different government agencies and having this conversation with them," said Pentland.

"But it's going to take time because, as you probably know, lots of governments are wrestling with: do they regulate? Do they not regulate? They're scared to overregulate and stifle innovation. So it's a very active conversation that we're having with a lot of regulators around the world," added Pentland.

"We often bring them with us and bring them into the conversation. And it's super powerful when governments hear from individual creators, hear how their lives are being disrupted by this technology revolution," said Pentland.

Model choices

"Look, the great thing about the way we've made the integration is the customer, the creator, is entirely in control of what models they use. If you want that sort of commercially safe experience, you'll stay within Firefly. If you want to pull in the models, then you decide what data you give those models. You decide what inputs you want, what prompts you want, and we put you completely in the centre of that control decision," said Pentland.

"But then that's your decision what you do with your data in that situation. We're not passing that data. You're making that decision within whatever creative project you're on," added Pentland.

Adobe's Firefly documentation describes its initial commercial model as trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and public-domain material whose copyright has expired. Adobe presents this training approach as part of its effort to design Firefly for commercial use.

For enterprise customers, Firefly Foundry provides tailored models trained on proprietary branded content. Adobe announced the service in October 2025, describing private models integrated with products including Creative Cloud and GenStudio.

The collaboration with Walt Disney Imagineering includes models customised on Imagineering assets. Adobe's June 2026 announcement outlined planned uses: turning sketches into concept art, generating franchise-specific creative assets and producing 3D prototypes from two-dimensional designs.

Content Credentials

"It's an open-source technology, and it's designed to build the metadata into the creator product. And what that does is it provides the provenance and the data of how and when that was created. And I think that allows the creator control over what they want in that content credential, and it's a combination of, if you think of it almost like a nutritional label where you can put in a lot of different information, who created it, and then you can over time show if it was ever modified," said Pentland.

Content Credentials use a specification hosted by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity. They can reveal how content was created and its editing history.

"Some creators are really focused on proliferating their creation; they want to make sure that as many people get to see it and experience it as possible. And others are very intent on making sure that they control exactly where it goes. And things like content credentials allow them to do that," said Pentland.

"So I think a lot of the solutions in the future will be technology solutions. It won't just be the technology taking over. The technology can help as well. I think it can provide some of that assurance and that comfort that people can then continue to create. Because if they don't, then future models of AI will not be effective, and we need them to continue to create," added Pentland.