Adobe has announced a new free web app, Adobe Content Authenticity, which is designed to help creators protect and receive attribution for their work with Content Credentials.
As per the company, Content Credentials are like a ‘nutrition label’ for digital content, serving as secure metadata that users can attach to their work to share information about themselves and provide context about how their content was created and edited.
As concerns over misinformation and AI-generated deep fakes have grown, Content Credentials have become a useful tool for publishers, allowing them to provide key information about digital content to help consumers assess its trustworthiness, the company further stated.
Now with the web app, Adobe is unlocking the full potential of Content Credentials, helping creators protect their work from misuse or misrepresentation and build a more trustworthy and transparent digital ecosystem for everyone.
A new Adobe study on creator perspectives on generative AI shows that amid rising concerns over unauthorised sharing of their work or misattribution, 91% of creators are seeking a reliable method to attach attribution to their work. Additionally, 56% of creators said they are worried about their content being used to train genAI models without their consent.
The Adobe Content Authenticity web app was developed in close collaboration with creators, incorporating their feedback at every stage, through one-on-one listening sessions, group discussions, user experience testing and more, to ensure it is truly built by and for creators.
Content Credentials are already supported in Adobe Creative Cloud apps that creators use today to unleash their creativity, including Photoshop, Lightroom and Firefly. The web app will integrate with these Creative Cloud apps and others, serving as a centralised hub for managing Content Credentials preferences.
With the web app, creators can easily apply Content Credentials in batch to sign their digital work- including images, audio and video files. Furthermore, Creators have control over the information included in Content Credentials, such as their name, website and social media accounts, with Adobe planning to offer more customization options. Attaching this information can help creators receive attribution for their work, protecting it from unauthorised use or misattribution and ensuring recognition.
Meanwhile, Adobe only trains Adobe Firefly, its family of creative generative AI models, on content it has permission to use- never on customer content. However, not all generative AI models on the market follow this approach.
With the Generative AI Training and Usage Preference in the web app, creators can use Content Credentials to signal if they do not want their content used by or to train other generative AI models on the market. Adobe is actively working to drive industry-wide adoption of this preference so that other generative AI models that support it do not train on or utilise creators’ work. Spawning, an opt-out aggregator for generative AI has committed to recognizing this preference.
In addition, content marked with this preference indicating that the creator does not want their work used for generative AI training will not be eligible for submission to Adobe Stock. Firefly is trained on licensed content from Stock, and this preference helps ensure that Adobe respects creators’ content use choices.
Some social media platforms and websites today do not retain visible provenance information such as Content Credentials when the content is posted online, limiting the level of transparency available to consumers. To bridge this gap as the adoption of Content Credentials grows, Adobe is releasing the Content Authenticity extension for Google Chrome and the Inspect tool within the web app to recover and display any Content Credentials associated with the content, including edit history when available.
Content Credentials applied with the web app stay securely connected to the creator’s work throughout the content lifecycle and can be recovered even if the provenance information is removed or when someone takes a screenshot of the content. To enable this, Content Credentials combine digital fingerprinting, invisible watermarking and cryptographically signed metadata, helping to ensure that Content Credentials remain intact and verifiable across the digital ecosystem.
A free, public beta of the Adobe Content Authenticity web app will be available in Q1 2025. Creators can learn more about the web app and sign up here to be notified when the beta is available. A free beta of the Content Authenticity extension for Google Chrome is available. Also, Adobe will also preview the web app at its booth (booth 424) at Adobe MAX, the world’s largest creativity event, running from October 14 to 16 in Miami Beach.
Speaking about the launch, Scott Belsky, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President, Design and Emerging Products, Adobe, said, “Adobe is committed to responsible innovation centred on the needs and interests of creators. Adobe Content Authenticity is a powerful new web application that helps creators protect and get recognition for their work. 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. The Adobe Content Authenticity web app will not only benefit creators but also help consumers navigate the digital ecosystem with greater clarity.”
