Striking the right bargain for creativity and innovation

Axios

a day ago

The rules of creativity and AI are being rewritten — but the ink isn't dry yet.
Generative AI is unlocking new ways to brainstorm, build and express ideas faster than ever. For creatives, that means more tools, more opportunity — and more reach.
The potential is massive: Artists can remix ideas, streamline workflows and collaborate in ways that weren't possible even a year ago.
Adobe believes the future will be one that amplifies human creativity — not replaces it.
The background: With AI's power to create realistic content in seconds, new questions are emerging around AI training data availability, attribution, credit and control. That's especially true when it comes to style imitation — a gray area in copyright law.
The challenge: Without the right guardrails, generative AI models trained on public images can replicate an artist's unique style, even without copying a specific work. Because copyright doesn't protect style, this opens the door for AI-generated content to closely imitate creators and compete with them in the marketplace.
The impact: The continued economic output of the creative industry hangs in the balance. The future success of AI to be able to continue innovating and learning also depends on creators being protected from bad actors using AI to misappropriate their style.
The goal: Ensure that creators can continue to produce works in their distinctive styles without the fear of confusion in the marketplace — and thrive in the process.
"Creativity is a fundamentally human trait that AI can never replace," says Jace Johnson, Adobe's vice president of government affairs and public policy. "But creators today have very limited ways to keep control or credit attached to any of their work." Adobe believes that this can change — with the help of industry and policymakers.
Why it's important: Copyright law wasn't built to anticipate the era of synthetic content. Legal clarity remains elusive, especially around training data.
"Fair use is going to be decided in the courts... and it's likely that AI systems are going to be allowed to train on some copyrighted works," Johnson says.
Without clearer rights or attribution, creators risk losing visibility — and control.
The strategy: Focus on the area where change is possible no matter how questions around training and fair use get resolved: AI outputs.
Johnson says policymakers can move fast to protect creators from the economic harm of similar AI-generated outputs. That's why Adobe supports legislation like the Preventing Abuse of Digital Replicas Act, which would protect artists' likeness and voice from being misused commercially.
It's also why Adobe advocates for a broader right to ensure that artists and creators don't have their signature styles copied using AI.
This shift in focus underpins Adobe's support of legislation that would curb unauthorized digital impersonation.
"This type of federal anti-impersonation right would give that artist a right they currently don't have to go into a courtroom and stop content that is too similar to their style if it is economically disadvantageous to them," explains Johnson.
An expert take: Before any policy can work, creators must be visible.
"You have to give them a way to protect their identity and get credit for their work first," Johnson says. "If there's no way to identify the artist, then it is really difficult to talk about a policy that may help them."
That's the principle behind Content Credentials, a digital provenance system (or "nutrition label" for digital content) that travels with an image, video or audio file. Creators can choose to attach Content Credentials to share information about their content like who made it, how, and whether AI was involved. Adobe has been advocating for widespread adoption of Content Credentials.
"We now, for the first time, offer them a way to get credit for their work, and express their intent with the work that they've created," Johnson says. "It's a great way for them to have some control over any specific pieces of content that they don't want going to train AI."
By restoring attribution and control, creators can reassert agency — and transform their work from a lost digital artifact into a living, protected asset.
"Everybody has a story to tell... and Content Credentials give life to that. It gives a voice to that person and to that story. And letting creatives be discoverable turns their art into an asset for them as opposed to an artifact," says Johnson.
For many, the AI era brings uncertainty — about ownership, credit and economic survival. Adobe believes that clearer rights, paired with transparency tools, can change that.
Because when AI mimics a creator's work without consent, it doesn't just threaten their identity, it undermines their income, reputation and role in the creative economy.
Looking ahead: Creativity isn't being replaced; it's being redefined and greatly expanded.
As generative tools reshape how we communicate and collaborate, Johnson sees a future where the next wave of innovation centers not on code, but on imagination.
"The next unicorns are likely to not be tech," says Johnson. "They're likely to be creatives."