The use of artificial intelligence—and the legal questions surrounding it—is pushing major technology companies into new territory. One tech player facing the heat is Adobe, a leading creative‑software company whose tools power digital design, media production, and content creation worldwide. Over the past 12 months, Adobe has been hit with multiple class‑action lawsuits alleging that its AI models were trained on copyrighted books, images, and even voice recordings without permission.
These cases raise fundamental questions about how AI systems should be trained, what constitutes lawful data use, and how creators can protect their work in an era where digital content is easily scraped, copied, and repurposed.
For businesses that rely on Adobe tools—and for creators whose work may have been swept into training datasets—the stakes are high. For Ludwig APC and our work advising clients navigating both copyright and AI‑related risk, these lawsuits are part of a broader reckoning over how AI companies source and use training data.
What’s Happened and Why It’s Newsworthy
Several major developments have brought Adobe into the spotlight:
1. Allegations of training on nearly 200,000 pirated books. Two class‑action lawsuits filed in December 2025 and February 2026 allege Adobe trained its SlimLM document‑assistance AI on a dataset containing almost 200,000 pirated books, sourced from the Books3 dataset. Plaintiffs argue Adobe used these works without consent, licensing, or compensation.
2. Claims of misusing copyrighted works. Reuters reported that author Elizabeth Lyon filed a proposed class action asserting Adobe used pirated copies of her books—and others—to train its AI models. This case is part of a growing wave of lawsuits targeting AI companies for alleged copyright infringement during training.
3. Voice‑training lawsuit under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). In May 2026, seven journalists and narrators filed a class action alleging Adobe trained its Firefly generative AI on their voiceprints without consent, violating BIPA. This case is one of several coordinated filings against major AI vendors in addition to Adobe.
How This Could Impact You
Whether you’re a creator, a business using Adobe tools (or tools from other tech companies), or an organization developing your own AI systems, these lawsuits highlight several important considerations:
1. Understand how your content may be used.
If you upload documents, images, or audio to cloud‑based tools, review the terms of service carefully. Many platforms reserve broad rights to use uploaded content to improve their models.
2. Assess your exposure if you rely on Adobe’s AI features.
Businesses using Adobe’s document‑assistance or generative‑AI tools should evaluate whether outputs could contain material derived from copyrighted works. This is especially important for commercial publishing, marketing, and client‑facing deliverables.
3. Creators should monitor whether their work appears in known training datasets.
Datasets like Books3 are widely used across the AI industry, and you may be able to check whether your work appears in them using public lookup tools. If your content was included without permission, you may have legal rights or claims to pursue.
4. AI developers must ensure lawful training practices.
If your organization builds or fine‑tunes AI models, these lawsuits underscore the importance of using licensed, consent‑based, or public‑domain training data—and documenting your data pipeline thoroughly.
5. Expect more litigation and regulatory scrutiny.
The Adobe cases are part of a broader trend. As AI adoption accelerates, courts and regulators will increasingly examine how training data is sourced, stored, and used.
How Ludwig Sees It
At Ludwig, we view the Adobe training lawsuits as a watershed moment for AI governance and IP protection. These cases highlight a growing tension between innovation and compliance: companies want powerful AI models, but the legal frameworks governing training data are still evolving. And Adobe is by no means alone—major tech companies including Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and others are facing similar legal scrutiny over how their AI systems source and use training data.
Our perspective is straightforward:
- Creators deserve transparency and control. Authors, photographers, artists, and voice professionals should not have their work ingested into AI systems without consent or compensation.
- Businesses deserve clarity. Companies using Adobe’s AI tools need to understand whether outputs pose copyright or biometric‑privacy risks.
- AI developers need guardrails. Training data practices must be defensible, documented, and compliant with copyright, privacy, and biometric laws.
How We Can Help
Ludwig combines deep IP and litigation experience with AI‑law expertise to help clients navigate growing IP and AI‑related challenges, compliance demands, and enforcement pressures by:
- Reviewing whether your content may have been used in AI training
- Assessing your exposure when using Adobe or other AI‑powered tools
- Advising on compliant AI‑training practices
- Supporting creators seeking to enforce their rights
- Helping businesses build IP‑safe workflows and content pipelines
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Why is Adobe facing class‑action lawsuits over its AI models? Because plaintiffs allege Adobe trained its AI systems using copyrighted books, images, and voice recordings without permission.
2. What makes the Books3 dataset central to these lawsuits? It allegedly contains nearly 200,000 pirated books that plaintiffs say were used to train Adobe’s SlimLM model.
3. How does the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) factor into the claims? A separate lawsuit alleges Adobe used voiceprints to train Firefly without the consent required under BIPA.
4. Could creators’ work have been used in AI training without their knowledge? Yes—creators can check public lookup tools to see whether their content appears in known training datasets.
5. Why do these lawsuits matter for businesses using Adobe’s AI tools? They highlight potential copyright and biometric‑privacy risks in AI‑generated outputs used for commercial work.
Let’s Work Together: Global Experience, Personal Focus
If you believe your work was used to train an AI model without permission, or if your business relies on Adobe’s AI tools and you want to understand your risk, contact Ludwig IP Law today at (619) 929-0873 or consultation@ludwigiplaw.com to arrange a free, no-strings-attached consultation.
