Someone Just Recreated Adobe With AI… FOR FREE!
theideasmithy.com
Someone just used AI to recreate 7 of Adobe's biggest applications, including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and After Effects… and they're giving them away for FREE! But is this actually legal, and could Adobe sue?
ArtCraft is making waves with seven free, open-source alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud, developed with the help of AI. And while the software is impressive, the bigger story might be what happens if Adobe decides to fight back.
Could a lawsuit against AI-built software have broader implications for photographers, filmmakers, musicians, and artists concerned about AI copying their work?
In this video, I break down what ArtCraft is, why it's suddenly getting so much attention, how these applications compare to Adobe's professional tools, and the potential legal consequences. We also look at real AI copyright cases and the complicated question of what AI can legally recreate.
As someone who's worked as a filmmaker and content creator for years, I find this fascinating. AI is opening up incredible opportunities, but it's also raising some serious questions about intellectual property, creative ownership, and the future of professional software.
**🔗 EXPLORE ARTCRAFT**
ArtCraft — All 7 Free Applications:
https://getartcraft.com/apps
ArtCraft Open-Source GitHub:
https://github.com/storytold
PhotoCraft (Photoshop Alternative):
https://github.com/storytold/photocraft
FilmCraft (Premiere Pro Alternative):
https://github.com/storytold/filmcraft
**📚 SOURCES & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION**
U.S. Copyright Office — Copyright and Artificial Intelligence:
https://www.copyright.gov/ai/
Adobe's $150 Million Subscription Settlement — U.S. Department of Justice:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/adobe-agrees-150-million-settlement-and-injunction-resolve-alleged-violations-restore
**💬 LET'S TALK ABOUT IT**
Should Adobe be able to stop someone from recreating its software using AI? And should independent artists and creators have similar legal protections when their work is copied or imitated by AI?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Subscribe to Reach Films for more videos covering technology, cameras, filmmaking, editing software, and the tools changing the way we create.
**⚖️ LEGAL DISCLAIMER**
I am not a lawyer, and nothing in this video constitutes legal advice. This video is intended for informational, educational, and commentary purposes only. Discussions of potential lawsuits and legal outcomes are speculative and based on publicly available information. At the time of production, I have not verified any lawsuit filed by Adobe against ArtCraft. For advice regarding specific legal matters, please consult a qualified attorney.
#Adobe #ArtCraft #AI #Photoshop #PremierePro
Tech discussed in todays video:
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The NVME SSD I use: Crucial T500 2TB Gen4 NVMe M.2 Internal Gaming SSD:
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Bluesound speaker:
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My Editing Computer: https://amzn.to/4qHo2AO
The Camera I use:
https://bhpho.to/3V77ELO
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The ND Filter I use:
https://amzn.to/3LokyiN
The Key Light I Use:
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The Softbox I use:
https://link.amazon/B00HKMD82
Chapters:
0:00 AI Recreated Adobe’s Biggest Apps
0:40 What Is ArtCraft? 7 Free Adobe Alternatives
1:25 Why ArtCraft Is Going Viral
2:10 Are These Apps Actually Any Good?
3:00 Can Adobe Sue ArtCraft?
3:55 What Does Copyright Actually Protect?
4:45 What This Means for AI and Creators
5:45 The Bigger Threat to Adobe
6:30 Final Thoughts
source
Remember, Adobe feeds their user work to AI. If they can do it, we also can.
its not free theres a year or mothly subscription
Ya know, AI is costing me a ton of money. RAM and storage costs are insane now. Electricity costs are up thanks to datacenters. I think they owe the common user some kind of benefit other than AI video clips. This is at least a useful implementation of AI.
Lord Gaben said it best. Pirating is not a pricing issue, it’s a service issue.
They will no longer need professional legal services should adobe decides to take them to court. AI will take care of it.
"For free" doing a lot of heavy lifting here — until you factor in the GPU credits, the prompt engineering rabbit hole, and the three hours you spent getting the export to not look like a fever dream.
fyi: script made with AI
This is stupid. Don't steal IP from adobe.
If you're pissed at adobe, stop paying for it. Quit.
Move on to competitors. None exist? Build with Llms. Sure.
Just don't copy adobe because it gives them ammo to sue. Now other AI made products are at risk as well.
Moreover, even if adobe is evil, if it is legit IP from adobe it's WRONG to steal it, whether legally valid or not.
Don't become the monster just because you fight monsters. You're just next adobe in that case.
You can have AI or you can have IP.
exit fee tipped the scales for the dev. fck Adobe!
The copyright section was the most interesting part, not just whether ArtCraft is any good. Has anyone swapped Premiere for it on a real project?
If you can answer the question, why Abobe without any questions or answers to or from its paying users is forcefully using everything users upload into the Creative Cloud is used by adobe itself and is sold to train image producing AI. So if some asks make me a pictrue in the style of, lets say, Geaff Fagien" that person would get a lookalike that is very close to your produced work. But if someone ask an AI to create a program "in the style of Adobe Photoshop" then that would be a problem?
The first principle in law is: Who's making money? That's who you sue.
If nobody is making money, there is no basis for a lawsuit. Adobe can go pound sand.
If nothing was written by Adobe, but was generated by the AI, based on observable system behavior, it is therefore public domain. (†)
Adobe's smart move would be to use the AI to extend its product. Sell its skill in determining what makes for a useful feature.
†) AIs are not persons. They can't own anything. Everything they generate is public domain.
The thing is Adobe can't sue and the fact is that the idea wasn't stolen it was taken and build on top of so now the developers must change it even more and improve it as they release the final product when it is ready.
so its not for free?
The real issue is not subscription pricing itself. Subscription models can be entirely legitimate where they reflect ongoing development, support, security updates and genuine customer value.
The concern arises when commercial practices are designed not merely to attract customers but to make leaving prohibitively difficult. At that point, the business model ceases to rely primarily on competitive superiority and begins to rely on customer lock-in.
When a software provider charges customers primarily for access rather than actual utilisation, imposes significant financial penalties for exiting a service, restricts interoperability with competing products, maintains proprietary formats that impede migration, or creates barriers to accessing a customer's own work, the effect can be to reduce competitive pressure within the market.
Such practices raise broader public policy questions because they may have the practical effect of lessening competition. Customers remain not because the product is necessarily superior, but because the cost, complexity and risk of changing suppliers have been deliberately increased.
Over time, this can produce outcomes that competition law has historically sought to prevent: reduced consumer choice, weakened competitive discipline, higher prices, diminished innovation and increased concentration of market power.
A genuinely competitive market is one in which customers can move freely between providers, take their data and intellectual property with them, compare alternatives on equal terms, and choose products based on capability, performance and value rather than contractual or technical barriers to exit.
Saying that they’ve copied the Adobe suite is not quite correct because if it was a copy that would be a legitimate copyright issue. What they have done is clone the software in the software sense which means that it’s functionally equivalent. It can open the the Adobe created files but the internal implementation is different.😊
It’s only illegal to distribute the software, otherwise it’s legal for personal use 👍
All ownership is theft. So, Adobe, you could say are communists. This is so funny. Everybody gonna get stung by AI. I'm already frustrated with all the AI communications. Can't speak to a real person on the phone in companies and government anymore. Enjoy what has been sown.
Adobe suing a person for using AI to replicate almost their exact software is not anywhere near the same ballpark as artists suing AI companies for theoretically, possibly referencing their artwork simply by virtue of the fact that their artwork happens to be on the internet.
Remember that Claude built the application not brandon. And Adobe has no rights on the EULA for AI writing code.
Realize that applications like DaVinci Resolve was being developed by several people and wound up being sensational. I may try the web version of this, but I will wait a bit before giving my credit card to pay for any the subscriptions.
Personally, I hope that Adobe gets their ass handed to them. The Photography Plan used to only be $9. All they've done is continually raised the rates AND on top of that - now you have to PAY FOR CREDITS. Plus, as Brandon has shown, they make it hard for you to find the cancellation button and also make you pay heavy fines.
Adobe brought this on themselves.
I'm divided. On one hand, I can see subscription fatigue and not wanting to be at the mercy of a monthly payment. On the other hand, I see companies such as Adobe cutting hundreds or perhaps thousands of jobs due to plummeting sales. And that isn't good either. I am a software developer myself but my products are 100% one-time payment, lifetime license. Always have been, always will. Just like the old days. Just like it should be.
Art craft software is fast too as it is written in rust.
I'm a proud owner of Photo Craft 🤣
Its not as good as Adobe as its still new
But in few years it will catch up
Clean Room.
They can't sue. There is nothing to sue over. The code? Nah, this open source suite is 100% Rust. And to my knowledge, not a single line of Rust exists in Adobe's suite. So... yeah, they can't claim ownership of the code. The name? What, are they going to claim owning the word Photo? Not going to go over well with any court, anywhere on the world. All that would be left is the look and feel of the suite and whereas there are similarities of course, there's an issue there as well -- GIMP.
GIMP has been around for 30 years, almost as long as Photoshop has and it has a very similar look and feel to Photoshop. And, yet, Adobe haven't even attempted to get GIMP shut down once, to the best of my knowledge. Or, if they have, they've not been successful.
They also can't claim ownership of the functionality. Because, well, that would run into antitrust laws.
So, what would they sue over? And who would they sue?
Are they going to sue the nearly 10,000 people who have forked the project by now on Github? Good luck with that, Adobe. OK, this leaves just one thing they might be able to sue over but then they'd have to go after a different target. They could claim that Claude used Photoshop source leaks for its training. But, if they go down that route, they cannot sue the creator of the ArtCraft suite. They would have to sue Anthropic for using copyrighted material as training data.
Good luck with that, Adobe. Really, good luck with that.
Adobe can't sue. They won't sue. Their lawyers probably already told them all of the points I raised just now. If those lawers haven't, they should not be in the field.