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Participant
August 31, 2026
Question

Why does Adobe promote plagiarism?

Acrobat create a document based on someone else’s document.  Why do you allow this?

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    5 replies

    Dave Creamer of IDEAS
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 31, 2026

    Ideally, the summary should include something like “Summarized from [Document Names] on [date]”. (The AI report has that information, but not the summary itself which can be copied.) If it is deleted, that is on the user as Amal stated. 

    Also, many things cannot be copyrighted, including government reports (in USA), raw data and facts*, and procedures. Creating a summary would not be an issue with those documents. 

    *The expression of those facts can be protected, but not the facts themselves.

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    David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)
    Participant
    September 2, 2026

    Yes, many things cannot be copyrighted, but Adobe makes it all too easy to simply click and rip-off someone’s work!

    Did you read my post which went into the details of the problem?

    If someone opens your pdf in Acrobat, one click can create a summary; the problem is that, at the end of the summary, the AI offers to create an original document based on YOUR document!  It can also “brainstorm” ideas to improve the document, making it easier to read for the layman, presenting examples, etc.

    It’s probably not a bad tool if used by the original author, but it can be used by anybody to rip-off anything.

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    Participant
    August 31, 2026

    Sigh. The method of creating a “post” here is so horrible!  Allow me to clarify the above…

    A lot of people are too lazy to read/think for themselves nowadays, so they use AI to “summarise”.  The impact of this aside, I’m disgusted that Adobe Acrobat offers the reader the option to “Create a unique XXX” based on the content it just summarised.

    This essentially allows anyone  to rip-off the work of another - screw trade secrets, IPs, the ingenuity and effort of the original author!  Whoever happens to snag a copy of the document can now put their own spin on it, presenting it as “original”.

    Quite handy for business competitors - especially given how the research and creation of the original document can take months of hard work… and the competitor gets to rip-it off in seconds!

     

    My absolute disgust cannot be put into words - despite making an account here to do just that!

    I really feel like Adobe should be fined for this type of behaviour.

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    Amal Jaiswal
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    August 31, 2026

    [Edited Response]

    Hi @determined_photoe7fa,

    Thank you for reaching out, and we're sorry for the frustration this has caused. We understand how important this is, and we'd like to make sure we point you in the right direction.

    Could you tell us a bit more about the feature you're referring to? "Create a unique XXX" isn't a label we recognize directly. If you're referring to a specific AI Assistant option in Acrobat (for example, a rewrite, summary, or content generation option), please let us know where in the app you're seeing it. That way, we can give you an answer that matches what you're looking at.

    In the meantime, here are some resources that may help:

    If you have concerns about how the feature works or how it could be improved, we'd really value your input. You can share your feedback directly with the product team here: https://adobe.ly/4gtWHyK

    We hope this helps, and we look forward to hearing back from you.

    ~Amal

     

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    Participant
    September 2, 2026

    I hope you’re joking.

    You present an option to blatantly steal someone else’s work… but then put the blame for such plagiarism solely on the person who clicks the button to rip-off the said work?!

    Also, “Create a unique XXX” is - you’re right - not an option.  So let’s conjure up a fictitious example:

    • You spend months creating a business proposal that’s highly original and breaks the 4th wall.  You’re proud of it and you know you can sell your company better now because of it.
    • You show it to a trusted ex-colleague, hoping he’ll join you in your endeavour.
    • This dude opens it on a shared office desktop, wants to skim, so clicks, “summarise”.  He reads it and gets a call, so goes out.
    • His boss sees the desktop left on… Hmm, what was Bob up to…?  The boss then reads the summary, loves the idea, clicks the Create new business proposal based on YOUR business proposal, cut and pastes the text and sends it to a secretary.
    • The secretary puts the text into a PowerPoint presentation.
    • The next morning, the boss strolls into a share-holder meeting with YOUR proposal, reworked by Acrobat’s AI, sells the idea and, knowing they have to rush it out before you show Your original proposal around, they beat you to the punch.
    • Effortlessly.

    You might argue some things can’t be copyrighted - not the ingenuity of your proposal to take a stale business model into a bold new direction - but C’MON!

    Another example would simply be that you send your proposal out to an investor, he already has stakes in a competitor, reworks the document with a few clicks and presents it to them.  The proposal came from an outside source and the competitor is innocent… but the investor makes BANK!

    I’m sure you can see how having THIS OPTION IS PLAIN SCUMMY.

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