Adobe Content Authenticity Ushers in a New Era of Transparency and Accountability
We’ve long been navigating the age of content proliferation. Pictures and graphics move around our digital universe faster than you can say gigabytes. This maze of sharing, downloading, and screenshotting often strips content of its original use, intent, and creator. At the same time, digital literacy about the proper use of others’ creative work has not kept pace.
Those over forty-five may remember the days of the rigorous permissions and licensing process. Unfortunately, many now believe that if something exists online, it is fair game (attribution is an afterthought). That’s why, as content traverses the internet, it’s critical to establish mechanisms like content provenance to ensure proper attribution and preserve the integrity of digital work.
The Growing Complexity of the Digital Content Landscape
The digital content landscape is growing more complex, fueled by the surge of synthetic media created through generative AI and other forms of manipulation (we’re looking at you, deepfakes). As creative assets are shared and disseminated, it becomes harder to find the original source or creator of digital content.
Digital creators—designers, photographers, illustrators, and brands—are losing track of their work, not to mention the ability to properly attribute their original photography, logos, illustrations, and other graphic design work.
The Public Beta of the Adobe Content Authenticity App
Building on that work, today the company announced the public beta of the Adobe Content Authenticity app at Adobe MAX in London. Adobe Content Authenticity is a free app designed to help curb the misattribution, misuse, and unauthorized use and sharing of original digital content. This free app enables anyone, anywhere, to add Content Credentials to their creative work, whether or not they created it using Adobe tools.
Put simply, Adobe Content Authenticity puts durable content attribution in the hands of creators, making it easier than ever for creators to attach Content Credentials and securely “sign” their digital work.
The Future of Content Credentials
As Content Credentials become more widely adopted and viewable across the internet, Adobe has bridged the gap through the app’s Google Chrome extension and Inspect tool mentioned earlier.
We love that through Content Credentials, you can indicate if you want AI to train on your creative work, establishing a foundation for a creator preference. Adobe says it is working with industry partners and policymakers to establish creator-friendly opt-out mechanisms through Content Credentials.
Empowering Creators and Consumers Alike
Creative content attribution is about more than just ownership for creators; it’s about building an awareness pipeline that could lead to future commissions and prevent others from profiting off creative work that is not their own. Protecting creators has a net positive effect on content consumers, too.
With the release of the Adobe Content Authenticity app, we’re excited to see this new era of transparency, accountability, and protection for creators and consumers unfold. Bookmark the Adobe Content Authenticity app and make it part of your creative workflow. Keep up with all things PRINT by subscribing to our weekly email newsletter.
