editing · Adobe
You’re creating on Adobe Express, which means…
You keep your work, and Adobe writes down what it will not do with it — in the General Terms, which Adobe Express’s own Product Specific Terms override on conflict and which are not this document. What you can lose here isn’t the copyright — it’s access to the files.
What they own
Nothing. Section 4 opens with Adobe’s own gloss — “Your content is your content — you own it, and we don’t.” The binding sentence sits under it in 4.2: “We do not claim any ownership rights to your Content.” Adobe warns in its opening paragraph that “Only the terms themselves are legally binding, not these summaries.” On this point the two agree. But read the caveat below first: these are the General Terms, and Adobe Express has its own Product Specific Terms that override them.
What you own
All rights and ownership of everything you upload, import or make. The licence you hand back is non-exclusive, so the same file can be sold, licensed or posted anywhere else. One exception: if your seat came from an employer or a school, Adobe may give that organisation the ability to “access, use, remove, retain, and control” your profile and every file in it.
What you don’t
The two words that usually do the damage are not here — “perpetual” and “irrevocable” appear zero times in these terms. What you don’t get is a guarantee you keep the files. Thirty days after your licence ends they “reserve the right to delete your Content”, a free account that goes quiet can be deleted too, and even content you delete yourself may sit in backups for a while. Adobe’s total liability is capped at US $100 or three months of fees, whichever is greater. Disputes go to arbitration on an individual basis with no class actions — unless you send written notice within thirty days and opt out, or the claim is small enough for small claims court.
What they can do with it
Reproduce it, distribute it, create derivative works of it, publicly display it, publicly perform it, and sublicense those rights to contractors — but only “Solely for the purpose of operating the Services and Software on your behalf”. A second, narrower licence lets them study how you use the product; that one you can switch off. Anything you put on their servers may be scanned automatically; files that stay on your own machine are not. They also commit in writing to three things they will not do: sublicense more than you gave them, use your work to market Adobe, or train generative AI on it.
The clauses
The terms that govern Adobe Express are not the terms in front of you
We know this language can seem complex, so as you’re reading through our terms, we are providing summaries as a helpful overview of what you’re agreeing to. Only the terms themselves are legally binding, not these summaries.
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Our Services and Software are licensed, not sold, to you, and also may be subject to one or more of the additional terms below (“ Product Specific Terms ”). If there is any conflict between the terms in the General Terms and the Product Specific Terms, then the Product Specific Terms govern in relation to those Services or Software.
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Adobe Acrobat Services (DC APIs) Adobe Acrobat Sign Adobe ColdFusion Adobe Collaboration Space Adobe Developer Adobe Express Adobe Fonts Adobe Generative AI Adobe Spark Adobe Stock Adobe Stock Contributor
A document we have not read
Adobe Express is named in 1.2 as a product with its own Product Specific Terms. Those terms are not in this corpus and nothing below should be read as reporting what they contain.
They win on conflict
Where the two disagree, “Product Specific Terms govern in relation to those Services or Software”. Every finding on this page describes the General Terms, and the Express terms sit above them.
Only the terms bind
The plain-English boxes headed “Section 4 means” are not the contract. Every excerpt on this page is taken from the operative text underneath them, because Adobe says the summaries carry no weight.
Subject to change
The same clause says the Product Specific Terms can be updated under section 1.5. The document that overrides this one is also the one you are least likely to have opened.
The grant, and the phrase that fences it in
As between you and Adobe, you (as a Business User or a Personal User, as applicable) retain all rights and ownership of your Content. We do not claim any ownership rights to your Content.
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(A) License to Cloud Content to Operate the Services and Software on Your Behalf. Solely for the purpose of operating the Services and Software on your behalf, and subject to section 4.2 (Ownership) above which states that in all cases you own your Content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to do the following with your Cloud Content: reproduce (for example, to create copies of your Cloud Content on our servers in order to allow you to upload your Cloud Content to our servers, to allow you to copy and paste your Cloud Content between multiple Adobe Express projects, to make copies of your Creative Cloud libraries, to make copies across servers to help prevent data loss, or to cache your Cloud Content on content delivery networks to improve how quickly you can view and download content stored on our servers); distribute (for example, to publish your work under your direction to third party platforms or services, to share Cloud Content under your direction through our Services to your friends, family, and colleagues, or to allow these authorized people to download your Cloud Content with your permission); create derivative works (for example, to compress an image to use as a thumbnail, to remove an image background at your direction, or to translate the Cloud Content into another language); publicly display (for example, for an image or document, to publish the image or document on a public property such as Behance or a third-party platform at your direction but not to use your image or document to market or promote Adobe); publicly perform (for example, to enable the playback of a video on public properties or third-party platforms at your direction but not to use the video to market or promote Adobe); and sublicense the foregoing rights to third parties acting on our behalf (for example, we utilize trusted cloud infrastructure providers and content delivery networks subject to confidentiality and privacy restrictions to provide you with faster access to your Cloud Content).
“Solely for the purpose”
The whole licence hangs on those four words. Every verb that follows is tied to running the product for you — which is a real limit, and also one only Adobe is in a position to police.
Five verbs and a pass-through
Reproduce, distribute, create derivative works, publicly display, publicly perform — then the right to hand all five to someone else. Each one arrives with an example attached, and the example is always something you asked for.
Sublicensable, narrowly
They can pass the rights on, but the sentence names who: “third parties acting on our behalf”. That is contractors and infrastructure, not partners at large, and the licence they get cannot be bigger than the one you gave.
The other route out
Sublicensing is not the only way these rights reach a stranger. Section 18.4 says “We may assign or transfer our rights under the Terms to a third party without your consent.” Whoever buys or inherits the agreement inherits this licence with it.
The words that aren’t there
Neither “perpetual” nor “irrevocable” appears anywhere in this document. The survival clause at 11.3 lists what outlasts termination — “Your indemnification obligations, our warranty disclaimers and limitations of liabilities, and the dispute resolution provisions stated in the Terms will survive.” The content licence is not on that list.
Cloud only
The grant covers Cloud Content — what you upload to or create on their servers. Files that stay on your own machine sit outside it, which is a narrower carve-out than it sounds; see the next clause but one for what happens to the files that do go up.
The limits Adobe puts in writing
Adobe General Terms of Use — Section 4.3(A), “What Adobe Does Not Do”. ↗
We will not (and cannot) grant a sublicense to a third party that is greater than the rights you give us. Under this clause 4.3(A), we do not have the right to, and will not, use your Content to market or promote Adobe. We will not use these rights to train generative AI models on your Content and will not use the sublicense rights to have anyone else train generative AI models on your Content, except at your specific request (like you asking us to train a custom model on your Content).
Rare, and worth naming
Most content licences list what a company may do and stop. This one lists what it may not. That is the substantive difference between this contract and the ones it sits next to.
Scoped to one clause
The promise not to market or promote Adobe with your work is expressly “Under this clause 4.3(A)”. It is a limit on that licence, not a blanket rule across the whole agreement.
The AI door, and who opens it
No generative AI training on your content — “except at your specific request”. The exception needs you to ask, not to fail to object.
What gets looked at, and the second licence
(B) No Scanning or Review of Local Content. For Content stored locally on your device (“ Local Content ”), we do not scan or review your Content. (C) Illegal and Abusive Cloud Content. For Content that you have uploaded to our servers or create using our cloud-based Services (“ Cloud Content ”), Content may be automatically scanned to ensure we are not hosting illegal or abusive content, like Child Sexual Abuse Material.
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Solely for the purpose of our internal analysis of how you use our Services and Software and the characteristics of your Content (such as file type and structural attributes) (together, “ Content Analytics ”), you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to do the following to improve our Services and Software: reproduce (for example, to make copies of your Cloud Content in our internal file storage repositories); create derivative works (for example, to convert between file formats, or crop the Cloud Content); and sublicense the foregoing rights to third parties acting on our behalf (for example, we may utilize trusted vendors and contractors subject to confidentiality and privacy restrictions to do Content Analytics on our behalf).
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Opt-out Rights. You have the right to opt out of us performing Content Analytics using your Content ( https://www.adobe.com/go/contentanalysisfaq ) and usage data ( https://www.adobe.com/go/usagedatafaq ). Generative AI. We will not use your Content to train generative AI models except for Content you chose to submit to the Adobe Stock marketplace, and this use is governed by the separate Adobe Stock Contributor Agreement.
Local no, cloud yes
Adobe says plainly that it does not scan files kept on your device. The very next paragraph says files on its servers “may be automatically scanned to ensure we are not hosting illegal or abusive content”. Both sentences are true and only one of them usually gets quoted.
A separate grant
This is a second licence, not a restatement of the first. It covers copying your files into Adobe’s internal repositories and converting or cropping them so Adobe can study how the product gets used.
Off by default is not how this works
It runs unless you find the setting and turn it off. Adobe links the opt-out from inside the clause, but the licence is live until you use it.
Adobe Stock is the carve-out
The no-AI-training promise stops at the Stock marketplace. Content you submit there falls under the separate Adobe Stock Contributor Agreement, which this document does not set out and which is not in this corpus.
Keeping the files
At the end of your license term, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to allow you to transition your Content out of the Services. The transition must be completed within thirty (30) days from the date of the termination or expiration of your license term. At the end of this 30-day transition period, we reserve the right to delete your Content. You should download any Content that you have stored in the Services before your license ends.
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If you delete Content from the Services and Software, we will stop making that Content publicly available within a reasonable amount of time. Some copies of your Content may be retained for a period of time as part of our routine backups, and we are not responsible for any use of Content that you have Shared or made public.
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If you don't sign into your account periodically, we reserve the right to assume your account is inactive, and you agree that we may permanently delete your Content stored in the account or close your account entirely.
Thirty days
The clock starts at termination or expiry, not at the day you notice. After it runs out, the archive is theirs to delete — and the effort to help you move it out is only “commercially reasonable”.
Delete is not delete
Deleting content stops it being public “within a reasonable amount of time”, and copies stay in routine backups for a period the contract does not put a number on. The clause names no retention window at all.
Quiet accounts
A free account you stop signing into can be emptied. Adobe says it will attempt notice first, to the email on file. Paid accounts in good standing are excluded.
Where the real exposure sits
This contract does not take your rights. It takes the guarantee that the work stays reachable. Back it up somewhere you control.
If your seat came from work or school
Adobe General Terms of Use — Section 1.3 (Business Users). ↗
If you are a Business User, you agree that, due to your receipt of Entitlements from such Business, (1) Adobe may provide such Business with the ability to access, use, remove, retain, and control your Business Profile and all Content therein whether uploaded or imported before or after the date the Terms were last updated; (2) your use of the Services and Software is governed by such Business’s agreement with Adobe; and (3) Adobe may provide your personal information to such Business.
Before and after
The control reaches files that predate the current terms. Personal work stored in a profile your employer provisioned is inside the same fence as the work you were paid for.
A different contract governs you
As a Business User, your use is governed by your organisation’s agreement with Adobe — a document you have probably never seen and cannot read here.
The email address decides it
Adobe’s own guidance is blunt: if you don’t want a Business to control an account, don’t use a Business email address on it. A personal account rolled into a company relationship can be taken over with notice.
The licence running the other way, and what it is worth
Subject to your compliance with the Terms and applicable law, we hereby grant you a non-exclusive, limited, revocable right (as set forth herein) for you to install, access and use the Services and Software that we make available to you, and that you license from us.
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We may modify, update, or discontinue the Services and Software (including any portions or features), which modifications, updates or discontinuations may, for clarity, be detrimental or result in a diminishment of value to you, at any time, without liability to you or anyone else.
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Our total liability in any matter arising out of or related to the Terms is limited to the greater of (A) US $100; or (B) the aggregate amount that you paid for access to the Services and Software during the three-month period preceding the event giving rise to the liability.
Read the subject
The subject is Adobe: “we hereby grant you” is Adobe giving, not Adobe taking. This sentence sits near the ones about your content and looks almost identical to them; it describes your right to use the software, and nothing about your work.
The word revocable, theirs not yours
The word “revocable” appears exactly once in this document, and it is here, describing what Adobe can take back from you. Nothing in the agreement says the licence you give Adobe is revocable, and nothing says it isn’t.
Licensed, not sold
The right expires at the end of your term, and the version you renew into may not be the version you bought. Section 16.1 lets Adobe change or discontinue features “without liability to you or anyone else.”
What a total loss is worth
If the files go and it is Adobe’s fault, the ceiling is US $100 or three months of what you paid, whichever is greater. That is the number to hold next to every year of work you keep on their servers.
How a dispute ends, and the thirty days you have to change that
You may only resolve disputes with us on an individual basis, and you may not bring a claim as a plaintiff or a class member in a class, consolidated, or representative action.
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Notwithstanding the foregoing, either party may elect to have any Claim that is subject to the jurisdiction of small claims court decided in small claims court in Santa Clara County, California, USA, or the county of your residence.
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Within the first thirty (30) days of your use of the Services and Software or the date of the last update to section 14 (Dispute Resolution, Class Action Waiver, Arbitration Agreement) of the Terms, whichever is later, you have the right to opt out of the arbitration and class action waiver provisions of section 14 (Dispute Resolution, Class Action Waiver, Arbitration Agreement) by sending us written notice of your decision at the address set forth in section 18.2 (Notice to Adobe) or via email at ContractNotifications@adobe.com. If you opt out of these provisions, Adobe will also not be bound by them.
One at a time, by default
14.2 rules out class, consolidated and representative actions. On its own that is the version of this clause most contracts stop at.
The opt-out is real and short
Thirty days from your first use, or from the last update to section 14, whichever is later — written notice by post or to ContractNotifications@adobe.com. Miss it and the window is gone; take it and Adobe is not bound by those provisions either.
Small claims survives
Either side can pull a qualifying claim into small claims court, in Santa Clara County or in the county where you live. Arbitration is the default, not the only door.
One year to bring it
Section 14.1 bars claims related to the Terms, Services or Software that are not brought within one year of the event. That limit is shorter than most statutory ones and it is easy to miss.
Due Dilly reads the paperwork and reports what it says. This is not legal advice.