Customers on social media have found a controversial use case for Google’s new Gemini AI mannequin: eradicating watermarks from photographs, together with from photographs revealed by Getty Photos and different well-known inventory media outfits.
Final week, Google expanded entry to its Gemini 2.0 Flash mannequin’s picture era characteristic, which lets the mannequin natively generate and edit picture content material. It’s a powerful capability, by all accounts. However it additionally seems to have few guardrails. Gemini 2.0 Flash will uncomplainingly create photographs depicting celebrities and copyrighted characters, and — as alluded to earlier — take away watermarks from present pictures.
New talent unlocked: Gemini 2 Flash mannequin is actually superior at eradicating watermarks in photographs! pic.twitter.com/6QIk0FlfCv
— Deedy (@deedydas) March 15, 2025
As a number of X and Reddit customers famous, Gemini 2.0 Flash received’t simply take away watermarks, however may even try and fill in any gaps created by a watermark’s deletion. Different AI-powered instruments do that, too, however Gemini 2.0 Flash appears to be exceptionally expert at it — and free to make use of.
Gemini 2.0 Flash, obtainable in Google’s AI studio, is superb at enhancing photographs with easy textual content prompts.
It can also take away watermarks from photographs (and places its personal delicate watermark in as a substitute 🤣) pic.twitter.com/ZnHTQJsT1Z
— Tanay Jaipuria (@tanayj) March 16, 2025
To be clear, Gemini 2.0 Flash’s picture era characteristic is labeled as “experimental” and “not for manufacturing use” for the time being, and is barely obtainable in Google’s developer-facing instruments like AI Studio. The mannequin additionally isn’t an ideal watermark remover. Gemini 2.0 Flash seems to battle with sure semi-transparent watermarks and watermarks that canvas giant parts of photographs.
Nonetheless, some copyright holders will certainly take problem with Gemini 2.0 Flash’s lack of utilization restrictions. Some fashions, together with Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, explicitly refuse to take away watermarks; Claude calls eradicating a watermark from a picture “unethical and probably unlawful.”
Eradicating a watermark with out the unique proprietor’s consent is taken into account unlawful beneath U.S. copyright regulation (in accordance with law firms like this one) outside of rare exceptions.
Google didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark despatched exterior of regular enterprise hours.
Up to date 3/17 at 1:48 p.m. Pacific: A Google spokesperson offered the next assertion:
“Utilizing Google’s generative AI instruments to interact in copyright infringement is a violation of our phrases of service. As with all experimental releases, we’re monitoring carefully and listening for developer suggestions.”
About The Author
