June 6, 2024 • 34 mins
Richard Hoeg delves into Adobe's new terms and conditions, addressing artists' concerns and examining the legal implications. He discusses professional obligations, confidentiality issues, and the broad language in Adobe's terms, along with AI concerns and the impact on user trust.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:39):
Hello, and welcome to another episode ofVirtual I'm your host Richard Hoge, Managing
Member of the Hoaglaw Business Law Firm ofNorthville, Michigan.
And thank you all for being with me today forthe 1st virtual legality in about a month I had
a topic I wanted to talk to you about regardingterms and conditions, which I know is always a
barn burner on the internet, but, honestly, alot of people me about these specific terms and
(01:02):
conditions, so I wanted to talk about them withyou all today.
So let's dive in.
So if you haven't been following any of thisstory on social media, can't blame you.
Social media is the devil.
You should avoid it.
But if you haven't been, you don't know thatthere have been artists across the world that
have flagged a new set of terms and conditionsor at least quote unquote new set of terms and
(01:24):
conditions that Adobe the creators of or atleast the owners right now of Photoshop and
other software products that you may or may notuse have imposed on their users that have
caused these artists some concern.
So here is a tweet from Wetter Schneider thatsays here it is.
If you are a professional, if you are under NDAwith your clients, if you are a creative, a
(01:44):
lawyer, guilty is charged, a doctor, or anyonewho works with proprietary files, it's time to
cancel Adobe, delete all the apps and programs,Adobe cannot be trusted.
Now I'm not gonna sit here on this episode ofvirtual reality and tell you that that's wrong.
Once you see a company change terms andconditions and they break your trust, That's
not something that a lawyer can fix.
(02:05):
Right?
We're gonna talk about what the language inthis document says.
I'm gonna talk about why I think it is a littlebit problematic.
And why I think people have raised concernsabout this language.
I'm also gonna talk as a lawyer with acorporate background who drafts contracts like
this on a daily basis for a living about why itdoesn't exactly say what so many fear that it
(02:26):
does, but that isn't designed to take away fromwhatever concerns I don't use Photoshop.
I'm not in there creating images like you mightsee on the thumbnail to this video.
I'm a lawyer, so I do use Adobe but I useAcrobat and I read PDFs and I get esignatures
and I do those kinds of things rather thancreate pictures of boats and sinks and whatnot
(02:50):
So I have a slightly different interaction withAdobe, but one of the problems that I think
Adobe had and that they're reaping thewhirlwind on with respect to people reading
these contract terms and this update is thatthey've tried to combine basically all of the
terms of use for all of their different piecesof software, including software that uses cloud
uploads, which where I think they really gotinto trouble.
(03:11):
And they've tried to combine them in such a waythat they have a unified contract base, and
that unification always results in broadlanguage that can be read in weird ways when
you're, for instance, creating, a poster for amovie on your own home computer, and I'm not
worried that Adobe's gonna take it and use itfor whatever nefarious means you might think.
So with that as background, I am not gonna tellyou that these people crazy or that they're
(03:36):
overreacting with these kinds of things as youmight expect from me.
We've had videos where I've done that beforewhere I've said, hey.
The Ubisoft terms don't really do anything likewhat you're saying that they do.
Here, I think there is some rough drafting.
I think there is some drafting that maybe couldhave been done better.
The very first thing I will note is that thispage that you're seeing on your screen right
now, this updated terms of use is not formallya part of the contract.
(03:57):
Right?
This is an update that is designed to make surethat the changes they are making in their terms
of use document are legally valid.
Right?
So one problem that you might have when you'vegot software terms of use is that we can change
something.
That's always in the terms.
We'll see that in just a minute.
We can change something, but if we don't tellyou about it, a court later on might say, hey.
You guys were playing dirty.
(04:19):
You you changed some important stuff and youdidn't even mention that that was what you were
changing.
So one of the best practices at softwarecompanies and other companies have taken to
doing is highlighting in kind of short form nonlegalese format what changes they have made
with a reference to the section that you shouldreally look at when you look at these things.
So one of the things you see highlighted onyour screen is that there is concern that they
(04:40):
clarified that we may access your contentthrough both automated and manual methods such
as for content review.
And you can see in this tweet, and we'll lookat a couple others as part of this video that
people are concerned that Adobe is gonna gointo your computer and essentially look at
slash take what it is that you were making aprivate party.
Right?
You see the reference to lawyers and doctorsand 90 a's.
(05:02):
The reason for that is because there areprivate materials that those professionals,
lawyers and doctors in particular, have anethical obligation to keep confidential so they
can't just sign up with any software providerand put any of these things in the cloud.
Right?
This is a problem that I've had with clientsthat are very online and very computer savvy
saying, hey.
Can't we just send that through a dropbox?
(05:23):
Can't we just use platform x?
Whatever it might be, and say, no.
We don't wanna breach confidentiality.
We don't want you to lose that privilege.
We don't wanna have a software platform haveaccess to your personal information.
I'm just a lawyer.
I'm not a a a doctor, but doctors have thateven more with respect to really, really
personal information about people and aboutwhat might or might not be wrong with them.
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So if you think when you read this contractthat Adobe can go into your computer, and look
at that stuff.
And, yeah, you have to be worried aboutbreaching NDAs.
You have to be worried about your ethicalobligations as a professional, and that's all
legitimate, but we have to look at the contractlanguage itself to figure out exactly how
legitimate we think that is.
So with that said, let's pop into there in justa minute.
(06:06):
We do have a super chat from JF I I almost saidJay Effer.
That can't be right.
So Jay Furr, Jennifer, I assume.
Thank you so much, Jen.
Thank you for doing this.
Says in her super chat as a photographer, Iappreciate your unbiased coverage immensely.
I had no idea this was going on.
Actually, it was my photographer wife thatflagged this for me as a video I really should
(06:27):
be doing, and this was one that I had in thebackground as I was reading my social media and
getting DMs and people asking me about it asone that I would potentially do.
But when it was raised to me that my wife andher photographer, professional friends were
really worried about this, I knew that it wassomething that we really needed to talk about
because I don't want people to be worriedunjustly, but I also want people to be aware
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when some of their concerns are justified andsome are maybe a little more, a little more
attune than they need to be in order to beworried about the things that are happening
with respect to this contract.
So with that said, let's take a look at some ofthe language itself.
So a couple of notes here as we pop into theAdobe general terms of use.
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One thing I wanna note here is that this saysit was published February 17 2024.
Now I don't want to claim any expertise overthe the date and time of the universe but I
would note that it is sometime after the datewe traditionally refer to as February 17 2024.
So one of the things that I have as a questionas, again, not a Photoshop user is what exactly
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prompted this kind of conversation that we see.
I've just used this tweet as an example, but3,200,000 views from yesterday or or 2 days
ago, as something that was pushed to them as aphoto user.
And we see that across the internet.
I've got references here from folks that aretalking about it.
So am I reading this right?
As of yesterday, I can't use Photoshop unlessI'm okay with you having full access to
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anything I create, including my NDA work.
And you you see this kind of filtered through awhole lot of conversations online And one kind
of hypothesis I have is that this wasspecifically pushed to Photoshop in the last
couple of days.
And people didn't make note of the fact thatthis change was happening a couple of months
ago and that Adobe, of course, reserves theright to change their terms of service with a
(08:22):
subscription piece software.
You don't have to like that.
I'm just saying that that is in fact the worldin which we live.
We make we may make changes to the terms fromtime to time.
And if we do, we'll notify you by revising thedate, and we may provide you with additional
notice if they think it's something that acourt might not enforce if they don't notify
you as these appear to be So it's possible thatthey didn't think they had them give notice of
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these particular changes because they weren'tthat significant internally at Adobe and then
somebody complained about them and they said,oh, we better push this notice box to Photoshop
users.
I can't know exactly what was happening atAdobe that prompted this, but I did want to
note that if you've been using Photoshop forthe past couple of months, it would seem that
(09:05):
these terms that we're gonna talk about todayhave been applicable for some time.
And I say that not to give you more scares asto how you've been using this software or
platform, but to note that whatever your kindof worst case scenario that you might be
imagining for the use of these terms, if ithasn't kind of shown itself now as Adobe
sneaking in and and taking this documentationor or taking these, photos or whatever else you
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might be working on.
It's unlikely to, which isn't to say it'simpossible.
I don't want people to come away from thisvideo thinking that Hoeg said Adobe was fine
here.
I I think that they've made some kind of broaduse of language here as I said because I think
they've tried to unify your their documentsacross almost all their software.
And that results in the following language.
(09:50):
Right?
This is section 2.2.
Our access to your content.
This is what they refer you to in the stuffthat has been flagged by folks.
And they say we may access, view, or listen toyour content, defining section 4.1 content
below through both automated and manualmethods, but only in limited ways and only as
permitted by law.
And I think that gets skipped a little bitprimarily because whoever was drafting their
(10:13):
summary doesn't mention that it's only forspecific purposes.
But as a lawyer, I read this and say, yeah.
That's gotta be only for the reasons that Iwould normally think of from a market standard.
Not to say I don't read the terms of service,which I don't always do.
But to say this is going to be a kind of marketstandard approach.
We need your we need access to your stuff toimprove our services kind of language And
(10:34):
indeed, if you look at the actual contractitself, you see that.
We can use it only as permitted by law.
We can use it only for limited ways.
For example, now notably from a legalperspective, for example, is not a living
provision.
It's an illustrative provision.
It provides an illustration so you can't readthis as the only reason that they could use
your content.
In order to provide the services and software,we mean we may need to access you or listen to
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your content to respond to feedback.
Sure.
That makes sense.
To detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud,security, legal, or technical issues that
starts to get a little bit frightening If youare reading this as them going into your
computer to read private information and seeenforce the terms as set forth in section 4.1
below.
Okay.
Our automated systems may analyze your contentand creative cloud customer fonts, defining
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section 3.10 creative cloud customer customerfonts below, using techniques such as machine
learning in order to improve our services andsoftware and the user experience.
So, again, what was collapsed into a summaryline of we can use automated manual methods to
to look at your stuff is really starting tofocus more on cloud services.
Right?
Adobe provides not just Photoshop not justAcrobat, but also cloud services that you can
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upload things to that you can interact with onthe cloud and much like a Twitter or a Facebook
or a YouTube when you've got user generatedcontent that has to go on to a server, they
have to be worried about things like, oh, we'reholding content that we're not allowed to hold
by law.
Most specifically, CSAM, child materials thatyou shouldn't have and are illegal to even
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hold.
Let alone create.
So they need to be worried about that from aplatform perspective once they are in the
holding business and not just the providing youcreative software business, And so when we read
it in that context, we see a company whoselawyers said we need to be able to look at
what's in our servers and we need to be able tosay, oh, that's illegal.
We're kicking it out.
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That kind of thing.
And you see that roughly referenced here,perhaps more broadly than it needs to be.
And in the definition of content is where we'rereally gonna get hung up because when we look
at 4.1, content could have said stuff that getsuploaded to our servers.
Right?
I just said that it's really more focused onpreventing things like CSAM on our servers but
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instead because this is broadly drafted forevery piece of software that they make, content
in this instance means any text information,communication, or materials such as audio
files, video files, electronic documents, orimages that you upload, import into embed for
use by That's all fine.
That's what we expected, or create using theservices and software.
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So if you're a lawyer, if your doctor, you'reusing Acrobat, you create something.
It's gonna fall under their definition ofcontent.
Same if you're an artist and you make somethingin Photoshop.
Now we've got a concern because content is sobroadly drafted that if they're allowed to look
at anything in content land, we're a little bitworried that they can look at anything that
they we have on our computers and they can getinto our private information and our customer's
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private information.
Right?
That's the big concern, because the clientsdidn't agree to have their will and testament
or whatever else I might be drafting looked atby Adobe and worse potentially mind for AI and
used for somebody else.
Through Adobe.
So as a lawyer, as a professional, as anybodythat signs an NDA in general, we have to be
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worried about the partners that we work with,the software providers, the vendors that we
have, that they can port with all of ourexisting contractual and ethical applications.
But even though I just said that, I think onceagain that if you're looking at this from a
legal perspective and you understand thatthey're trying to unify their documents and
maybe not doing a great job of it, that whenyou have this last line, it actually provides a
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bit of protection for both you and for Adobe inthe long run.
Information on how Adobe uses machine learningcan be found here at following link.
And this is important because this is what wecall incorporated by reference, into the legal
document.
So this is our agreement between Adobe and youas a user of these services, and then they
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incorporate this other page.
I've mentioned in the past that I don't lovethis format.
This is what software companies and video gamecompanies do all the time.
They link to something else, but you'll knowwhen we look at this something else, They have
what are close to legal obligations in thisdocument, but they aren't necessarily protected
in the same way for users that the actual termswould be.
(15:01):
Right?
We saw that they have to give notice, ifthey're going to change these things, they're
gonna have to change the date on the top oftheir page.
If they wanna do that, and this is less thanthat.
This is a different web page you can see fromthe ads on the side that is referenced in the
contract and could be changed at any minutethat could delete this tomorrow.
Delete this after this video or right now.
They could delete it while we're watching.
I we wouldn't have much to say about it, butthis is important because it does frame out
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what a reasonable user of the Adobe softwareexpects.
These are Adobe's promises to you about howthey will do things.
And so they say in this very same sectionincorporated by reference that Adobe may
analyze your creative cloud or document cloudcontent to provide product features and improve
and develop our products and services.
So, notably, not to grab these things and tosell them to other parties not to use them to
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create our own stuff necessarily, but only toprovide product features and improve and
develop our products and services becausethey're a software company, and that's what
they want to be able to use these things for.
So there's a couple of limits here, bothimprovement of products and services and
creative cloud and document cloud content.
Adobe performs content analysis only on contentprocessed or stored on Adobe servers.
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We don't analyze content processed or storedlocally on your device.
Right?
And this is language, that ideally, we wouldhave right here our access to your content.
We really need this sentence that says we'renot gonna look at the stuff on your computer.
We don't even have capacity to.
Hopefully, we didn't build that into oursoftware.
Right?
But again, talking about the first tweet that Imentioned on as part of this video, who says
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Adobe cannot be trusted.
I understand that feeling when you have theseproblems of breath in the drafting because,
yeah, if they lost your trust, they lost yourtrust.
And at this point, If Hoeg is on virtuallegality saying that you can read this as a
promise into that section, you no longer trustthem.
These are words on a page.
I get that.
I understand why photographers and artists andpeople all around are looking at this as what I
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would consider to be poor or at least roughdrafting in their documentation.
And so I don't blame anybody for that, but I dowanna point out that they specifically have a
promise that says they don't look at your stuffon your computer.
If that makes sense, I wouldn't expect that tobe a feature of the software that they provide.
They also say you may turn off content analysisat any time from your Adobe account.
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And I couldn't get these terms of service totrigger on my Acrobat account.
I I must have approved them months ago.
I I couldn't get anything on this to trigger onmy personal access to Adobe.
So all of this is taken kind of from what Icould find online and from their general terms
of use as shown on their website.
But I do wanna point out that even though thatsays it's from February, even though the
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controversy is right now in June, it does matchup with what people have said about this.
Right?
I pointed out the Sam Santala, tweet about theterms of use, and the language that he
highlights is the language that we're lookingat right now in 2.2 and 4.1.
So as best I can tell, this is an older changeor a rephrasing of some very minor level that
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Adobe probably didn't think rose to the levelof needing to notify their clients at the
Photoshop level until now.
And I I that's not a great practice.
Generally speaking, you wanna always send thenotifications to everyone who's using your
services and who would be responsible underwhatever changes you've made under your terms
of use as soon as you make them, but people arehuman beings, even people that run a big
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company like Adobe are human beings.
It's always a little bit difficult to get allthe ducks in a row.
And so I do want to point out when we havethese conversations, that it's not entirely
clear what any given user is experiencing withrespect to these warning pages and and what
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they are seeing on their own terms of service,terms of use, when they click on these
documents.
So I do wanna give that disclaimer as well.
But as best I can tell, as we look at thesetopics, these are things that are language that
is broad, that is written for a lot ofdifferent pieces of software, and that were
changed a couple of months ago and not in thelast couple of days.
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So only for the purposes of operating orimproving the services and software, you grant
us a non exclusive worldwide royalty free, sublicensable license, To use, reproduce, publicly
display, distribute, modify, create derivativeworks based on, publicly perform, and translate
the content.
This was another bit of language that I sawflagged potentially problematic.
And, again, I think in the context of a usergenerated platform, we should be used to seeing
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this kind of language.
Right?
If you are going to share things on a platformof some kind, then the platform needs to be
able to modify them into different formats andsend them to wherever they're being shared and
basically operate as a platform where I thinkthis bothers people is when they think of it as
just Photoshop on their computer or justacrobat as reading documents or getting people
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to sign them, and I understand that.
I really do think it comes back to oh, excuseme.
That's the wrong page.
This notion of, hey.
We've got all of these pieces of software.
And, essentially, if you click on any of theselinks, They all go to this general terms of use
document, that we see here.
Right?
So we've got general terms of use.
We've got subscription terms, creative cloud,general terms of use.
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Behance, color service, fonts, express, story,CC plus, general terms of use, animate,
audition, bridge, capture, character, animator,etcetera, general terms of use.
And if we look at their archive, we see thiswas not always the case with Adobe.
They had a bunch of different versions.
They had a bunch of different licenseagreements.
They had a bunch of different language.
If we go and we look at some of the generalterms of use here for, like, Acrobat, they look
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completely different back in 2017.
Right?
They're they're almost not able to be kind ofreferenced against what we're looking at right
now.
So when you look at a document like this andyou see what Adobe's tried to do, what they've
tried to do is make it so that all of theirsoftware is operating on the same terms so that
they can look at whatever problems they mighthave or whatever legal issues they might have.
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And know that they apply equally across theirentire universe's software.
But that does mean that the lawyers in chargeof looking at those things can draft things
over broadly.
And so I think content probably is defined alittle bit overbroadly, for purposes of an in
computer use, like a Photoshop or an Acrobat.
And I think that this language here regardingaccess to content probably needs to have more
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directly included this reference to the factthat we're not gonna look at stuff locally on
your device.
But when we see Adobe kind of respond to thison social media, What we see is them saying,
well, of course, we don't do that.
Right?
We wouldn't we would never do that.
We are not accessing or reading substanceusers' projects in any way, says one of the
directors of substance.
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Shape or form nor are we planning to or haveany means to do it in the first place?
I feel to see the point of doing so and everyserious company in the industry would drop us
immediately if it was the case.
Now from a business point of view, I thinkthat's important.
Right?
That is actual that that is absolutely correct.
When we talk about Adobe, if they had to go inand had the right to go in and take movie
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posters or or more specific content or doctor'snotes or lawyer documents, then any company
that is interacting with any of that saw any ofthose products would say you can't use the
Adobe software.
It would kill them and they're standing incertain business markets.
So that's that's correct from a broad point ofview.
It doesn't mean you have to trust Adobe, ofcourse, because they could add it in he then
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says this page goes into details of what theseterms mean, and he leads us back to that
document that we were looking at earlier,right, he to this content analysis fact, which
I do note is inaccurately labeled in both thelink in the contract and, up above, it is
called a machine learning fact as as referencedin the the the search platforms and the links
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and it's really not that.
It's really a statement of what we can look atand then how we look at it.
There are references, of course, to machinelearning.
AI is a topic for every artist in the worldright now.
And, certainly, I think Adobe is trying to setup some of their software to be able to better
mine for ai content and to be better able tolicense that out to other parties.
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So every artist is concerned and sensitive tothat particular topic.
I think they are right to be so But this isn'tthat, at least not yet.
Right?
So Adobe could have lost your trust on thesekinds of changes.
I don't blame anybody for that, but this changeitself is not the one where they say that they
can go onto your computer and they can taketheir your stuff for ai.
It's not that.
(23:38):
Not yet.
Adobe takes your privacy seriously.
Says Adobe.
Your privacy is maintained during contentanalysis for product improvement and
development.
None of your content is included in ourproducts or services unless you make them
public.
The insights obtained through content analysiswill not be used to recreate your content or
lead to identifying any personal information.
Again, that's all fine.
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That's all that's words on a page.
That's a legal obligation, but you do have tohave trust in the vendor that you're using 1st
and foremost.
And I think that's really where all of thiscomes out.
But as a lawyer, I did want to mention what Isaw in these provisions, which is that it is
written a little overly broadly.
This document does in fact come in to limitthat.
This is applicable.
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This is legally something that you could useagainst Adobe if you found that they were
violating this.
But it is not as strong as it could be by beingincluded in this document.
And I think I suspect the problem really comesfrom them trying to unify their software across
their entire universe of products, which is allto say, Hoeg.
If you're an artist and you're worried aboutthis stuff, I get it.
(24:41):
I understand.
I'm not gonna tell you to not be worried, andthey might have reached your trust.
They might not be able to be trusted by you anylonger.
But as far as lawyers and doctors and peopleusing Acrobat, I don't see in their terms or
really in their software specifications oranything else, a right that Adobe holds to go
in and seek your personal information, and Idon't see why in most cases, using Adobe would
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be a a violation of most non disclosureagreements.
Now I say all that with all those disclaimersbecause I'm not looking at whatever NDA you
might have in front of you, I'm not looking atwhat it is that you're doing with the Photoshop
or Acrobat, but on a broad basis, people askme, Hoeg.
What what happens if I've gotten NDA alreadyand the work order, the statement of work,
(25:26):
whatever it might be, asks me to use AdobePhotoshop then I think you have to look at what
is being done and what the NDA otherwiseprevents you from doing.
And whether or not you're using the cloudservices, most notably, but I don't see, on its
face, a violation that has to occur just by thevirtue of using Adobe, and I don't think Adobe
(25:47):
would want to be in the business of searchingthrough all of your stuff on your computer
anyway.
That said, if they breached your trust, I getthat.
And that's one of the reasons I wanted to havethis conversation.
So that all being said, I did wanna flag onelast piece of news for folks that have been in
virtual legality and with me for a long time.
This page, the Yutrion Patreon page, I amlikely going to be taking down pretty soon.
(26:12):
This, as I mentioned at the top of this video,is a virtual reality episode that was about a
month after the last virtual reality episode.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what mypacing is going to be for shows, but I also
don't want those folks that have been sogenerous in supporting the channel to not get
the value that I would otherwise love to givethem.
(26:32):
So I'm I'm probably gonna close those down.
I'm probably gonna have one last episode of aquestion time to thank everybody that I haven't
been able to properly thank in the years sincemy stroke, and to close down the formally.
Now I'm gonna keep memberships up here.
If you wanna support the channel withSuperchats or memberships or anything else, I
(26:52):
absolutely always appreciate that.
We're not closing the channel down.
But I can tell from my pacing right now and thework that I have to do at my firm, that it's
not going to be as often as I would otherwiselike.
So thank you to everyone who has supported methrough those mechanisms, and I am likely to
take those down in the pretty near term.
(27:13):
That said, if you have questions or commentsabout Adobe or photographs or anything else,
Let me know.
I'm happy to answer them as best I can.
I can't give form of legal advice in thisspace.
But if you have general questions about thosethings, Ask them now.
I am here, and then we'll be closing up thevideo pretty soon.
Alright.
So that said, We have our first question fromRobert Stanley.
(27:36):
Hey, Hoeg.
Unrelated to Adobe, but do you keep up with anyof the Michigan alumni, huge Texan's fan, and
love seeing Nico Collins get paid?
I follow the Michigan football players as theyhead to the NFL.
I'm certainly interested to see how JJ McCarthydoes with the Vikings and others of this
national championship team in other places, inthe NFL.
(27:57):
But outside of that, I don't generally keep upwith everybody that ever went to the University
of Michigan because it's so big, but I do havea lot of clients, both that are Wolverine's and
Michigan State spartans.
So I like to keep track of everybody, in myneck of the woods.
Thank you for the question, Robert.
Kelly says please don't leave us completely.
(28:18):
No.
No.
The stroke tried to do that.
I'm here.
I'm not going anywhere.
I just Don't it it it absolutely bugs me todeath to feel like people are backing me up and
are supposed to get things like callouts onvideos, and I can't make enough videos to even
do those callouts.
And I want to make sure that people always aregetting their value from me.
(28:41):
And so I'm closing those down primarily becausethat was an obligation that I had in my head,
and I didn't wanna make poor quality videos oror waste people's time and discussions just to
make content to fulfill those obligations.
So this is a long time coming from myperspective, and I just wanted to note it for
people because I finally came to thatconclusion pretty recently.
(29:05):
Alright.
Me the Warcraft 3 custom game ownershiptransfer.
I there are a lot of cases where, people havelooked at terms and conditions and said, oh my
god.
This is I talked about the Ubisoft 1, which isa video in virtual legality.
I might have talked about Warcraft in the past.
(29:25):
One thing I will say, though, is that I canspeak as a corporate lawyer that reads
contracts every day and say, well, it does thisand this and this and so it's really not as bad
as you think.
To some extent, by the time you think it's bad,it is as bad as you think from a legal
perspective because the contract is with normalfolks that don't read contracts every day.
(29:46):
Right?
And if they think it says something awful, tosome extent, the contract is supposed to be a
meeting of the minds.
And so if they think it says something awful,it kind of does.
A reasonable person would be concerned aboutthis.
If everybody is worried about then they sign itanyway.
And then the next notch, the next temperaturechange for the boiling frog, is also one that
everybody signs anyway.
Then eventually the court say, well, areasonable person would understand what this
(30:09):
means, and so you can get in trouble that way.
That's why I'm not gonna sit here and tellfolks to just shut up and take it.
I don't believe that, and I don't think thatthey should.
I think it's okay to be worried about thesethings.
I think it's great that you're reading them butdon't just stop at the notification page
because that may or may not have been writtenby a lawyer.
And I think certainly even though I think thelegal document itself is overly drafted or or
(30:30):
broadly acted by Adobe, the updatenotification, the little window that people
were reacting to on Twitter and social media iseven worse.
Right?
It's a summary of an a broad bit of language.
So it's it's broad on broad on broad.
And so you never wanna just take for certainwhat those little notice windows say.
(30:51):
You wanna go and you read the section yourselfand then interpret whether or not you should be
worried.
And if you're worried, they're probably doingsomething wrong.
It doesn't mean that they're stealing yourstuff.
Doesn't mean that they're breaking into yourcomputer, but from a legal perspective, they're
probably writing it in a way that is not astight as it should be.
And so I understand people getting concernedabout that kind of thing.
(31:14):
Let's see.
Here we go.
Missus Hoeg says the right things.
Team Hoeg is just realigning some things.
Yep.
It's all a realignment process this last 2years.
Isn't it, honey?
Absolutely.
I just want people to be aware.
I'm gonna I'm gonna send out a community post,I think, on this pretty soon.
But I just want people to be aware.
And so thank you to everybody that hassupported the channel for so long.
(31:38):
I'm continuing to support it with membershipsand being in a chat like this one on all of 20
minutes notice.
I'm gonna try to bring in these videos a littleshorter from now on.
So half hour seems like a good bit of timehere.
Thank you so much for joining me, and please doshare this around with anybody that you think
might find this information useful if they'reotherwise pulling their hair out with respect
(31:59):
to Adobe.
If they're worried about their Photoshopcontent, I think all this information can be
useful to calming some of those waters whilealso highlighting that people are justified in
being concerned about what terms and servicesare applied to them and this for that they use.
Oh, Robert asks one question.
Hi.
I'm from Brazil.
I have a question.
How are these future terms affecting other compcountries are this new terms are real is USA
(32:23):
Hoeg this affect people.
I'm gonna try to translate that a little bit,in short, because the contracts in the United
States allow for a provision that says,essentially, we may modify these terms in the
future and you have the right to essentiallystop using the service if you want to when we
make those terms changes, they're gonna bebroadly applicable to everybody that uses the
(32:45):
software.
Different jurisdictions, including Brazil, mayor may not enforce those particular terms of
the contract.
Different jurisdictions across the world havedifferent feelings on how a contract of
adhesion, meaning a contract that you don't getto negotiate, should be enforced.
And so I can't speak to Brazil.
I'm an American lawyer, but I can't say inAmerica, the process that it'll be has gone
(33:07):
through here by having a terms of use documentfor a subs for a subscription service and then
modifying it as they have and notifying youwith a little window like we saw on that tweet,
that all works in the United States.
And will be enforced as long as it isn't seenas the company hiding the ball and not and
doing something really material, reallysignificant, and not telling people about it.
(33:29):
But other jurisdictions might look at that andsay those Americans are crazy.
And I can't speak to that.
So I apologize for that, but I hope that youget the answers that you need.
Alright, folks.
Thank you so much again for supporting thechannel and for being here.
And I very much appreciate it.
I'll catch you on the next virtual legality.
Hang on some headlines, bit cast, whatever elseyou might see me.
(33:50):
Thank you again so much.
Virtual legality is a YouTube video series withaudio podcast versions presented as commentary
and for education entertainment purposes only.
It does not constitute legal advice and doesnot create an attorney client relationship.
If you have legal questions about the topicsask, please consult your own legal counsel.
Hello, and welcome to another episode ofVirtual I'm your host Richard Hoge, Managing
Member of the Hoaglaw Business Law Firm ofNorthville, Michigan.
And thank you all for being with me today forthe 1st virtual legality in about a month I had
a topic I wanted to talk to you about regardingterms and conditions, which I know is always a
barn burner on the internet, but, honestly, alot of people me about these specific terms and
(01:02):
conditions, so I wanted to talk about them withyou all today.
So let's dive in.
So if you haven't been following any of thisstory on social media, can't blame you.
Social media is the devil.
You should avoid it.
But if you haven't been, you don't know thatthere have been artists across the world that
have flagged a new set of terms and conditionsor at least quote unquote new set of terms and
(01:24):
conditions that Adobe the creators of or atleast the owners right now of Photoshop and
other software products that you may or may notuse have imposed on their users that have
caused these artists some concern.
So here is a tweet from Wetter Schneider thatsays here it is.
If you are a professional, if you are under NDAwith your clients, if you are a creative, a
(01:44):
lawyer, guilty is charged, a doctor, or anyonewho works with proprietary files, it's time to
cancel Adobe, delete all the apps and programs,Adobe cannot be trusted.
Now I'm not gonna sit here on this episode ofvirtual reality and tell you that that's wrong.
Once you see a company change terms andconditions and they break your trust, That's
not something that a lawyer can fix.
(02:05):
Right?
We're gonna talk about what the language inthis document says.
I'm gonna talk about why I think it is a littlebit problematic.
And why I think people have raised concernsabout this language.
I'm also gonna talk as a lawyer with acorporate background who drafts contracts like
this on a daily basis for a living about why itdoesn't exactly say what so many fear that it
(02:26):
does, but that isn't designed to take away fromwhatever concerns I don't use Photoshop.
I'm not in there creating images like you mightsee on the thumbnail to this video.
I'm a lawyer, so I do use Adobe but I useAcrobat and I read PDFs and I get esignatures
and I do those kinds of things rather thancreate pictures of boats and sinks and whatnot
(02:50):
So I have a slightly different interaction withAdobe, but one of the problems that I think
Adobe had and that they're reaping thewhirlwind on with respect to people reading
these contract terms and this update is thatthey've tried to combine basically all of the
terms of use for all of their different piecesof software, including software that uses cloud
uploads, which where I think they really gotinto trouble.
(03:11):
And they've tried to combine them in such a waythat they have a unified contract base, and
that unification always results in broadlanguage that can be read in weird ways when
you're, for instance, creating, a poster for amovie on your own home computer, and I'm not
worried that Adobe's gonna take it and use itfor whatever nefarious means you might think.
So with that as background, I am not gonna tellyou that these people crazy or that they're
(03:36):
overreacting with these kinds of things as youmight expect from me.
We've had videos where I've done that beforewhere I've said, hey.
The Ubisoft terms don't really do anything likewhat you're saying that they do.
Here, I think there is some rough drafting.
I think there is some drafting that maybe couldhave been done better.
The very first thing I will note is that thispage that you're seeing on your screen right
now, this updated terms of use is not formallya part of the contract.
(03:57):
Right?
This is an update that is designed to make surethat the changes they are making in their terms
of use document are legally valid.
Right?
So one problem that you might have when you'vegot software terms of use is that we can change
something.
That's always in the terms.
We'll see that in just a minute.
We can change something, but if we don't tellyou about it, a court later on might say, hey.
You guys were playing dirty.
(04:19):
You you changed some important stuff and youdidn't even mention that that was what you were
changing.
So one of the best practices at softwarecompanies and other companies have taken to
doing is highlighting in kind of short form nonlegalese format what changes they have made
with a reference to the section that you shouldreally look at when you look at these things.
So one of the things you see highlighted onyour screen is that there is concern that they
(04:40):
clarified that we may access your contentthrough both automated and manual methods such
as for content review.
And you can see in this tweet, and we'll lookat a couple others as part of this video that
people are concerned that Adobe is gonna gointo your computer and essentially look at
slash take what it is that you were making aprivate party.
Right?
You see the reference to lawyers and doctorsand 90 a's.
(05:02):
The reason for that is because there areprivate materials that those professionals,
lawyers and doctors in particular, have anethical obligation to keep confidential so they
can't just sign up with any software providerand put any of these things in the cloud.
Right?
This is a problem that I've had with clientsthat are very online and very computer savvy
saying, hey.
Can't we just send that through a dropbox?
(05:23):
Can't we just use platform x?
Whatever it might be, and say, no.
We don't wanna breach confidentiality.
We don't want you to lose that privilege.
We don't wanna have a software platform haveaccess to your personal information.
I'm just a lawyer.
I'm not a a a doctor, but doctors have thateven more with respect to really, really
personal information about people and aboutwhat might or might not be wrong with them.
(05:45):
So if you think when you read this contractthat Adobe can go into your computer, and look
at that stuff.
And, yeah, you have to be worried aboutbreaching NDAs.
You have to be worried about your ethicalobligations as a professional, and that's all
legitimate, but we have to look at the contractlanguage itself to figure out exactly how
legitimate we think that is.
So with that said, let's pop into there in justa minute.
(06:06):
We do have a super chat from JF I I almost saidJay Effer.
That can't be right.
So Jay Furr, Jennifer, I assume.
Thank you so much, Jen.
Thank you for doing this.
Says in her super chat as a photographer, Iappreciate your unbiased coverage immensely.
I had no idea this was going on.
Actually, it was my photographer wife thatflagged this for me as a video I really should
(06:27):
be doing, and this was one that I had in thebackground as I was reading my social media and
getting DMs and people asking me about it asone that I would potentially do.
But when it was raised to me that my wife andher photographer, professional friends were
really worried about this, I knew that it wassomething that we really needed to talk about
because I don't want people to be worriedunjustly, but I also want people to be aware
(06:49):
when some of their concerns are justified andsome are maybe a little more, a little more
attune than they need to be in order to beworried about the things that are happening
with respect to this contract.
So with that said, let's take a look at some ofthe language itself.
So a couple of notes here as we pop into theAdobe general terms of use.
(07:11):
One thing I wanna note here is that this saysit was published February 17 2024.
Now I don't want to claim any expertise overthe the date and time of the universe but I
would note that it is sometime after the datewe traditionally refer to as February 17 2024.
So one of the things that I have as a questionas, again, not a Photoshop user is what exactly
(07:36):
prompted this kind of conversation that we see.
I've just used this tweet as an example, but3,200,000 views from yesterday or or 2 days
ago, as something that was pushed to them as aphoto user.
And we see that across the internet.
I've got references here from folks that aretalking about it.
So am I reading this right?
As of yesterday, I can't use Photoshop unlessI'm okay with you having full access to
(07:58):
anything I create, including my NDA work.
And you you see this kind of filtered through awhole lot of conversations online And one kind
of hypothesis I have is that this wasspecifically pushed to Photoshop in the last
couple of days.
And people didn't make note of the fact thatthis change was happening a couple of months
ago and that Adobe, of course, reserves theright to change their terms of service with a
(08:22):
subscription piece software.
You don't have to like that.
I'm just saying that that is in fact the worldin which we live.
We make we may make changes to the terms fromtime to time.
And if we do, we'll notify you by revising thedate, and we may provide you with additional
notice if they think it's something that acourt might not enforce if they don't notify
you as these appear to be So it's possible thatthey didn't think they had them give notice of
(08:42):
these particular changes because they weren'tthat significant internally at Adobe and then
somebody complained about them and they said,oh, we better push this notice box to Photoshop
users.
I can't know exactly what was happening atAdobe that prompted this, but I did want to
note that if you've been using Photoshop forthe past couple of months, it would seem that
(09:05):
these terms that we're gonna talk about todayhave been applicable for some time.
And I say that not to give you more scares asto how you've been using this software or
platform, but to note that whatever your kindof worst case scenario that you might be
imagining for the use of these terms, if ithasn't kind of shown itself now as Adobe
sneaking in and and taking this documentationor or taking these, photos or whatever else you
(09:30):
might be working on.
It's unlikely to, which isn't to say it'simpossible.
I don't want people to come away from thisvideo thinking that Hoeg said Adobe was fine
here.
I I think that they've made some kind of broaduse of language here as I said because I think
they've tried to unify your their documentsacross almost all their software.
And that results in the following language.
(09:50):
Right?
This is section 2.2.
Our access to your content.
This is what they refer you to in the stuffthat has been flagged by folks.
And they say we may access, view, or listen toyour content, defining section 4.1 content
below through both automated and manualmethods, but only in limited ways and only as
permitted by law.
And I think that gets skipped a little bitprimarily because whoever was drafting their
(10:13):
summary doesn't mention that it's only forspecific purposes.
But as a lawyer, I read this and say, yeah.
That's gotta be only for the reasons that Iwould normally think of from a market standard.
Not to say I don't read the terms of service,which I don't always do.
But to say this is going to be a kind of marketstandard approach.
We need your we need access to your stuff toimprove our services kind of language And
(10:34):
indeed, if you look at the actual contractitself, you see that.
We can use it only as permitted by law.
We can use it only for limited ways.
For example, now notably from a legalperspective, for example, is not a living
provision.
It's an illustrative provision.
It provides an illustration so you can't readthis as the only reason that they could use
your content.
In order to provide the services and software,we mean we may need to access you or listen to
(10:58):
your content to respond to feedback.
Sure.
That makes sense.
To detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud,security, legal, or technical issues that
starts to get a little bit frightening If youare reading this as them going into your
computer to read private information and seeenforce the terms as set forth in section 4.1
below.
Okay.
Our automated systems may analyze your contentand creative cloud customer fonts, defining
(11:22):
section 3.10 creative cloud customer customerfonts below, using techniques such as machine
learning in order to improve our services andsoftware and the user experience.
So, again, what was collapsed into a summaryline of we can use automated manual methods to
to look at your stuff is really starting tofocus more on cloud services.
Right?
Adobe provides not just Photoshop not justAcrobat, but also cloud services that you can
(11:47):
upload things to that you can interact with onthe cloud and much like a Twitter or a Facebook
or a YouTube when you've got user generatedcontent that has to go on to a server, they
have to be worried about things like, oh, we'reholding content that we're not allowed to hold
by law.
Most specifically, CSAM, child materials thatyou shouldn't have and are illegal to even
(12:09):
hold.
Let alone create.
So they need to be worried about that from aplatform perspective once they are in the
holding business and not just the providing youcreative software business, And so when we read
it in that context, we see a company whoselawyers said we need to be able to look at
what's in our servers and we need to be able tosay, oh, that's illegal.
We're kicking it out.
(12:30):
That kind of thing.
And you see that roughly referenced here,perhaps more broadly than it needs to be.
And in the definition of content is where we'rereally gonna get hung up because when we look
at 4.1, content could have said stuff that getsuploaded to our servers.
Right?
I just said that it's really more focused onpreventing things like CSAM on our servers but
(12:52):
instead because this is broadly drafted forevery piece of software that they make, content
in this instance means any text information,communication, or materials such as audio
files, video files, electronic documents, orimages that you upload, import into embed for
use by That's all fine.
That's what we expected, or create using theservices and software.
(13:13):
So if you're a lawyer, if your doctor, you'reusing Acrobat, you create something.
It's gonna fall under their definition ofcontent.
Same if you're an artist and you make somethingin Photoshop.
Now we've got a concern because content is sobroadly drafted that if they're allowed to look
at anything in content land, we're a little bitworried that they can look at anything that
they we have on our computers and they can getinto our private information and our customer's
(13:35):
private information.
Right?
That's the big concern, because the clientsdidn't agree to have their will and testament
or whatever else I might be drafting looked atby Adobe and worse potentially mind for AI and
used for somebody else.
Through Adobe.
So as a lawyer, as a professional, as anybodythat signs an NDA in general, we have to be
(13:57):
worried about the partners that we work with,the software providers, the vendors that we
have, that they can port with all of ourexisting contractual and ethical applications.
But even though I just said that, I think onceagain that if you're looking at this from a
legal perspective and you understand thatthey're trying to unify their documents and
maybe not doing a great job of it, that whenyou have this last line, it actually provides a
(14:20):
bit of protection for both you and for Adobe inthe long run.
Information on how Adobe uses machine learningcan be found here at following link.
And this is important because this is what wecall incorporated by reference, into the legal
document.
So this is our agreement between Adobe and youas a user of these services, and then they
(14:40):
incorporate this other page.
I've mentioned in the past that I don't lovethis format.
This is what software companies and video gamecompanies do all the time.
They link to something else, but you'll knowwhen we look at this something else, They have
what are close to legal obligations in thisdocument, but they aren't necessarily protected
in the same way for users that the actual termswould be.
(15:01):
Right?
We saw that they have to give notice, ifthey're going to change these things, they're
gonna have to change the date on the top oftheir page.
If they wanna do that, and this is less thanthat.
This is a different web page you can see fromthe ads on the side that is referenced in the
contract and could be changed at any minutethat could delete this tomorrow.
Delete this after this video or right now.
They could delete it while we're watching.
I we wouldn't have much to say about it, butthis is important because it does frame out
(15:25):
what a reasonable user of the Adobe softwareexpects.
These are Adobe's promises to you about howthey will do things.
And so they say in this very same sectionincorporated by reference that Adobe may
analyze your creative cloud or document cloudcontent to provide product features and improve
and develop our products and services.
So, notably, not to grab these things and tosell them to other parties not to use them to
(15:49):
create our own stuff necessarily, but only toprovide product features and improve and
develop our products and services becausethey're a software company, and that's what
they want to be able to use these things for.
So there's a couple of limits here, bothimprovement of products and services and
creative cloud and document cloud content.
Adobe performs content analysis only on contentprocessed or stored on Adobe servers.
(16:11):
We don't analyze content processed or storedlocally on your device.
Right?
And this is language, that ideally, we wouldhave right here our access to your content.
We really need this sentence that says we'renot gonna look at the stuff on your computer.
We don't even have capacity to.
Hopefully, we didn't build that into oursoftware.
Right?
But again, talking about the first tweet that Imentioned on as part of this video, who says
(16:33):
Adobe cannot be trusted.
I understand that feeling when you have theseproblems of breath in the drafting because,
yeah, if they lost your trust, they lost yourtrust.
And at this point, If Hoeg is on virtuallegality saying that you can read this as a
promise into that section, you no longer trustthem.
These are words on a page.
I get that.
I understand why photographers and artists andpeople all around are looking at this as what I
(16:57):
would consider to be poor or at least roughdrafting in their documentation.
And so I don't blame anybody for that, but I dowanna point out that they specifically have a
promise that says they don't look at your stuffon your computer.
If that makes sense, I wouldn't expect that tobe a feature of the software that they provide.
They also say you may turn off content analysisat any time from your Adobe account.
(17:20):
And I couldn't get these terms of service totrigger on my Acrobat account.
I I must have approved them months ago.
I I couldn't get anything on this to trigger onmy personal access to Adobe.
So all of this is taken kind of from what Icould find online and from their general terms
of use as shown on their website.
But I do wanna point out that even though thatsays it's from February, even though the
(17:42):
controversy is right now in June, it does matchup with what people have said about this.
Right?
I pointed out the Sam Santala, tweet about theterms of use, and the language that he
highlights is the language that we're lookingat right now in 2.2 and 4.1.
So as best I can tell, this is an older changeor a rephrasing of some very minor level that
(18:04):
Adobe probably didn't think rose to the levelof needing to notify their clients at the
Photoshop level until now.
And I I that's not a great practice.
Generally speaking, you wanna always send thenotifications to everyone who's using your
services and who would be responsible underwhatever changes you've made under your terms
of use as soon as you make them, but people arehuman beings, even people that run a big
(18:26):
company like Adobe are human beings.
It's always a little bit difficult to get allthe ducks in a row.
And so I do want to point out when we havethese conversations, that it's not entirely
clear what any given user is experiencing withrespect to these warning pages and and what
(18:46):
they are seeing on their own terms of service,terms of use, when they click on these
documents.
So I do wanna give that disclaimer as well.
But as best I can tell, as we look at thesetopics, these are things that are language that
is broad, that is written for a lot ofdifferent pieces of software, and that were
changed a couple of months ago and not in thelast couple of days.
(19:09):
So only for the purposes of operating orimproving the services and software, you grant
us a non exclusive worldwide royalty free, sublicensable license, To use, reproduce, publicly
display, distribute, modify, create derivativeworks based on, publicly perform, and translate
the content.
This was another bit of language that I sawflagged potentially problematic.
And, again, I think in the context of a usergenerated platform, we should be used to seeing
(19:33):
this kind of language.
Right?
If you are going to share things on a platformof some kind, then the platform needs to be
able to modify them into different formats andsend them to wherever they're being shared and
basically operate as a platform where I thinkthis bothers people is when they think of it as
just Photoshop on their computer or justacrobat as reading documents or getting people
(19:56):
to sign them, and I understand that.
I really do think it comes back to oh, excuseme.
That's the wrong page.
This notion of, hey.
We've got all of these pieces of software.
And, essentially, if you click on any of theselinks, They all go to this general terms of use
document, that we see here.
Right?
So we've got general terms of use.
We've got subscription terms, creative cloud,general terms of use.
(20:19):
Behance, color service, fonts, express, story,CC plus, general terms of use, animate,
audition, bridge, capture, character, animator,etcetera, general terms of use.
And if we look at their archive, we see thiswas not always the case with Adobe.
They had a bunch of different versions.
They had a bunch of different licenseagreements.
They had a bunch of different language.
If we go and we look at some of the generalterms of use here for, like, Acrobat, they look
(20:41):
completely different back in 2017.
Right?
They're they're almost not able to be kind ofreferenced against what we're looking at right
now.
So when you look at a document like this andyou see what Adobe's tried to do, what they've
tried to do is make it so that all of theirsoftware is operating on the same terms so that
they can look at whatever problems they mighthave or whatever legal issues they might have.
(21:03):
And know that they apply equally across theirentire universe's software.
But that does mean that the lawyers in chargeof looking at those things can draft things
over broadly.
And so I think content probably is defined alittle bit overbroadly, for purposes of an in
computer use, like a Photoshop or an Acrobat.
And I think that this language here regardingaccess to content probably needs to have more
(21:26):
directly included this reference to the factthat we're not gonna look at stuff locally on
your device.
But when we see Adobe kind of respond to thison social media, What we see is them saying,
well, of course, we don't do that.
Right?
We wouldn't we would never do that.
We are not accessing or reading substanceusers' projects in any way, says one of the
directors of substance.
(21:47):
Shape or form nor are we planning to or haveany means to do it in the first place?
I feel to see the point of doing so and everyserious company in the industry would drop us
immediately if it was the case.
Now from a business point of view, I thinkthat's important.
Right?
That is actual that that is absolutely correct.
When we talk about Adobe, if they had to go inand had the right to go in and take movie
(22:08):
posters or or more specific content or doctor'snotes or lawyer documents, then any company
that is interacting with any of that saw any ofthose products would say you can't use the
Adobe software.
It would kill them and they're standing incertain business markets.
So that's that's correct from a broad point ofview.
It doesn't mean you have to trust Adobe, ofcourse, because they could add it in he then
(22:31):
says this page goes into details of what theseterms mean, and he leads us back to that
document that we were looking at earlier,right, he to this content analysis fact, which
I do note is inaccurately labeled in both thelink in the contract and, up above, it is
called a machine learning fact as as referencedin the the the search platforms and the links
(22:56):
and it's really not that.
It's really a statement of what we can look atand then how we look at it.
There are references, of course, to machinelearning.
AI is a topic for every artist in the worldright now.
And, certainly, I think Adobe is trying to setup some of their software to be able to better
mine for ai content and to be better able tolicense that out to other parties.
(23:18):
So every artist is concerned and sensitive tothat particular topic.
I think they are right to be so But this isn'tthat, at least not yet.
Right?
So Adobe could have lost your trust on thesekinds of changes.
I don't blame anybody for that, but this changeitself is not the one where they say that they
can go onto your computer and they can taketheir your stuff for ai.
It's not that.
(23:38):
Not yet.
Adobe takes your privacy seriously.
Says Adobe.
Your privacy is maintained during contentanalysis for product improvement and
development.
None of your content is included in ourproducts or services unless you make them
public.
The insights obtained through content analysiswill not be used to recreate your content or
lead to identifying any personal information.
Again, that's all fine.
(23:58):
That's all that's words on a page.
That's a legal obligation, but you do have tohave trust in the vendor that you're using 1st
and foremost.
And I think that's really where all of thiscomes out.
But as a lawyer, I did want to mention what Isaw in these provisions, which is that it is
written a little overly broadly.
This document does in fact come in to limitthat.
This is applicable.
(24:19):
This is legally something that you could useagainst Adobe if you found that they were
violating this.
But it is not as strong as it could be by beingincluded in this document.
And I think I suspect the problem really comesfrom them trying to unify their software across
their entire universe of products, which is allto say, Hoeg.
If you're an artist and you're worried aboutthis stuff, I get it.
(24:41):
I understand.
I'm not gonna tell you to not be worried, andthey might have reached your trust.
They might not be able to be trusted by you anylonger.
But as far as lawyers and doctors and peopleusing Acrobat, I don't see in their terms or
really in their software specifications oranything else, a right that Adobe holds to go
in and seek your personal information, and Idon't see why in most cases, using Adobe would
(25:05):
be a a violation of most non disclosureagreements.
Now I say all that with all those disclaimersbecause I'm not looking at whatever NDA you
might have in front of you, I'm not looking atwhat it is that you're doing with the Photoshop
or Acrobat, but on a broad basis, people askme, Hoeg.
What what happens if I've gotten NDA alreadyand the work order, the statement of work,
(25:26):
whatever it might be, asks me to use AdobePhotoshop then I think you have to look at what
is being done and what the NDA otherwiseprevents you from doing.
And whether or not you're using the cloudservices, most notably, but I don't see, on its
face, a violation that has to occur just by thevirtue of using Adobe, and I don't think Adobe
(25:47):
would want to be in the business of searchingthrough all of your stuff on your computer
anyway.
That said, if they breached your trust, I getthat.
And that's one of the reasons I wanted to havethis conversation.
So that all being said, I did wanna flag onelast piece of news for folks that have been in
virtual legality and with me for a long time.
This page, the Yutrion Patreon page, I amlikely going to be taking down pretty soon.
(26:12):
This, as I mentioned at the top of this video,is a virtual reality episode that was about a
month after the last virtual reality episode.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what mypacing is going to be for shows, but I also
don't want those folks that have been sogenerous in supporting the channel to not get
the value that I would otherwise love to givethem.
(26:32):
So I'm I'm probably gonna close those down.
I'm probably gonna have one last episode of aquestion time to thank everybody that I haven't
been able to properly thank in the years sincemy stroke, and to close down the formally.
Now I'm gonna keep memberships up here.
If you wanna support the channel withSuperchats or memberships or anything else, I
(26:52):
absolutely always appreciate that.
We're not closing the channel down.
But I can tell from my pacing right now and thework that I have to do at my firm, that it's
not going to be as often as I would otherwiselike.
So thank you to everyone who has supported methrough those mechanisms, and I am likely to
take those down in the pretty near term.
(27:13):
That said, if you have questions or commentsabout Adobe or photographs or anything else,
Let me know.
I'm happy to answer them as best I can.
I can't give form of legal advice in thisspace.
But if you have general questions about thosethings, Ask them now.
I am here, and then we'll be closing up thevideo pretty soon.
Alright.
So that said, We have our first question fromRobert Stanley.
(27:36):
Hey, Hoeg.
Unrelated to Adobe, but do you keep up with anyof the Michigan alumni, huge Texan's fan, and
love seeing Nico Collins get paid?
I follow the Michigan football players as theyhead to the NFL.
I'm certainly interested to see how JJ McCarthydoes with the Vikings and others of this
national championship team in other places, inthe NFL.
(27:57):
But outside of that, I don't generally keep upwith everybody that ever went to the University
of Michigan because it's so big, but I do havea lot of clients, both that are Wolverine's and
Michigan State spartans.
So I like to keep track of everybody, in myneck of the woods.
Thank you for the question, Robert.
Kelly says please don't leave us completely.
(28:18):
No.
No.
The stroke tried to do that.
I'm here.
I'm not going anywhere.
I just Don't it it it absolutely bugs me todeath to feel like people are backing me up and
are supposed to get things like callouts onvideos, and I can't make enough videos to even
do those callouts.
And I want to make sure that people always aregetting their value from me.
(28:41):
And so I'm closing those down primarily becausethat was an obligation that I had in my head,
and I didn't wanna make poor quality videos oror waste people's time and discussions just to
make content to fulfill those obligations.
So this is a long time coming from myperspective, and I just wanted to note it for
people because I finally came to thatconclusion pretty recently.
(29:05):
Alright.
Me the Warcraft 3 custom game ownershiptransfer.
I there are a lot of cases where, people havelooked at terms and conditions and said, oh my
god.
This is I talked about the Ubisoft 1, which isa video in virtual legality.
I might have talked about Warcraft in the past.
(29:25):
One thing I will say, though, is that I canspeak as a corporate lawyer that reads
contracts every day and say, well, it does thisand this and this and so it's really not as bad
as you think.
To some extent, by the time you think it's bad,it is as bad as you think from a legal
perspective because the contract is with normalfolks that don't read contracts every day.
(29:46):
Right?
And if they think it says something awful, tosome extent, the contract is supposed to be a
meeting of the minds.
And so if they think it says something awful,it kind of does.
A reasonable person would be concerned aboutthis.
If everybody is worried about then they sign itanyway.
And then the next notch, the next temperaturechange for the boiling frog, is also one that
everybody signs anyway.
Then eventually the court say, well, areasonable person would understand what this
(30:09):
means, and so you can get in trouble that way.
That's why I'm not gonna sit here and tellfolks to just shut up and take it.
I don't believe that, and I don't think thatthey should.
I think it's okay to be worried about thesethings.
I think it's great that you're reading them butdon't just stop at the notification page
because that may or may not have been writtenby a lawyer.
And I think certainly even though I think thelegal document itself is overly drafted or or
(30:30):
broadly acted by Adobe, the updatenotification, the little window that people
were reacting to on Twitter and social media iseven worse.
Right?
It's a summary of an a broad bit of language.
So it's it's broad on broad on broad.
And so you never wanna just take for certainwhat those little notice windows say.
(30:51):
You wanna go and you read the section yourselfand then interpret whether or not you should be
worried.
And if you're worried, they're probably doingsomething wrong.
It doesn't mean that they're stealing yourstuff.
Doesn't mean that they're breaking into yourcomputer, but from a legal perspective, they're
probably writing it in a way that is not astight as it should be.
And so I understand people getting concernedabout that kind of thing.
(31:14):
Let's see.
Here we go.
Missus Hoeg says the right things.
Team Hoeg is just realigning some things.
Yep.
It's all a realignment process this last 2years.
Isn't it, honey?
Absolutely.
I just want people to be aware.
I'm gonna I'm gonna send out a community post,I think, on this pretty soon.
But I just want people to be aware.
And so thank you to everybody that hassupported the channel for so long.
(31:38):
I'm continuing to support it with membershipsand being in a chat like this one on all of 20
minutes notice.
I'm gonna try to bring in these videos a littleshorter from now on.
So half hour seems like a good bit of timehere.
Thank you so much for joining me, and please doshare this around with anybody that you think
might find this information useful if they'reotherwise pulling their hair out with respect
(31:59):
to Adobe.
If they're worried about their Photoshopcontent, I think all this information can be
useful to calming some of those waters whilealso highlighting that people are justified in
being concerned about what terms and servicesare applied to them and this for that they use.
Oh, Robert asks one question.
Hi.
I'm from Brazil.
I have a question.
How are these future terms affecting other compcountries are this new terms are real is USA
(32:23):
Hoeg this affect people.
I'm gonna try to translate that a little bit,in short, because the contracts in the United
States allow for a provision that says,essentially, we may modify these terms in the
future and you have the right to essentiallystop using the service if you want to when we
make those terms changes, they're gonna bebroadly applicable to everybody that uses the
(32:45):
software.
Different jurisdictions, including Brazil, mayor may not enforce those particular terms of
the contract.
Different jurisdictions across the world havedifferent feelings on how a contract of
adhesion, meaning a contract that you don't getto negotiate, should be enforced.
And so I can't speak to Brazil.
I'm an American lawyer, but I can't say inAmerica, the process that it'll be has gone
(33:07):
through here by having a terms of use documentfor a subs for a subscription service and then
modifying it as they have and notifying youwith a little window like we saw on that tweet,
that all works in the United States.
And will be enforced as long as it isn't seenas the company hiding the ball and not and
doing something really material, reallysignificant, and not telling people about it.
(33:29):
But other jurisdictions might look at that andsay those Americans are crazy.
And I can't speak to that.
So I apologize for that, but I hope that youget the answers that you need.
Alright, folks.
Thank you so much again for supporting thechannel and for being here.
And I very much appreciate it.
I'll catch you on the next virtual legality.
Hang on some headlines, bit cast, whatever elseyou might see me.
(33:50):
Thank you again so much.
Virtual legality is a YouTube video series withaudio podcast versions presented as commentary
and for education entertainment purposes only.
It does not constitute legal advice and doesnot create an attorney client relationship.
If you have legal questions about the topicsask, please consult your own legal counsel.
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