People are using Google’s new AI model to remove watermarks from images – TechCrunch
31 January 2025, Bavaria, Munich: The Google logo and lettering can be seen on the facade of the company's Munich headquarters on January 31, 2025 in Munich (Bavaria). The company's development center is located in Arnulfpark. More than 2,500 employees work for the US company at various locations in Germany. The parent company of Google LLC is Alphabet Inc. Photo: Matthias Balk/dpa (Photo by Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google’s new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images, including from images published by Getty Images and other well-known stock media outfits.Last week, Google expanded access to its Gemini 2.0 Flash model’s image generation feature, which lets the model natively generate and edit image content. It’s a powerful capability, by all accounts. But it also appears to have few guardrails. Gemini 2.0 Flash will uncomplainingly create images depicting celebrities and copyrighted characters, and — as alluded to earlier — remove watermarks from existing photos.New skill unlocked: Gemini 2 Flash model is really awesome at removing watermarks in images! pic.twitter.com/6QIk0FlfCv— Deedy (@deedydas) March 15, 2025 As several X and Reddit users noted, Gemini 2.0 Flash won’t just remove watermarks, but will also attempt to fill in any gaps created by a watermark’s deletion. Other AI-powered tools do this, too, but Gemini 2.0 Flash seems to be exceptionally skilled at it — and free to use.Gemini 2.0 Flash, available in Google’s AI studio, is amazing at editing images with simple text prompts. It also can remove watermarks from images (and puts its own subtle watermark in instead 🤣) pic.twitter.com/ZnHTQJsT1Z— Tanay Jaipuria (@tanayj) March 16, 2025 To be clear, Gemini 2.0 Flash’s image generation feature is labeled as “experimental” and “not for production use” at the moment, and is only available in Google’s developer-facing tools like AI Studio. The model also isn’t a perfect watermark remover. Gemini 2.0 Flash appears to struggle with certain semi-transparent watermarks and watermarks that canvas large portions of images.Still, some copyright holders will surely take issue with Gemini 2.0 Flash’s lack of usage restrictions. Some models, including Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, explicitly refuse to remove watermarks; Claude calls removing a watermark from an image “unethical and potentially illegal.”Removing a watermark without the original owner’s consent is considered illegal under U.S. copyright law (according to law firms like this one) outside of rare exceptions.Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside of normal business hours.Updated 3/17 at 1:48 p.m. Pacific: A Google spokesperson provided the following statement:“Using Google’s generative AI tools to engage in copyright infringement is a violation of our terms of service. As with all experimental releases, we’re monitoring closely and listening for developer feedback.”Topics
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