Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google’s new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images, including images published from Getty Images and other well-known stock media apparel publishers.
Last week, Google expanded access to it Gemini 2.0 flash Model’s image generation function, which enables the model to generate and edit image content. It’s one Powerful abilitywell known. But this also seems to have few guardrails. Gemini 2.0 Flash will create images incompletely Portrait of celebrities and Copyright protected charactersas mentioned earlier – remove the watermark from existing photos.
New skill unlock: Gemini 2 Flash model is really great to delete the watermark in the image! pic.twitter.com/6qik0flfcv
— Didi (@Deedydas) March 15, 2025
As several X and reddit Users pointed out that Gemini 2.0 Flash not only needs to remove the watermark, but also attempts to fill any gaps generated by the deletion of Watermark. Other AI-powered tools can do the same, but Gemini 2.0 Flash seems to be very skilled and can be used for free.
Gemini 2.0 Flash (available in Google’s AI Studio), is surprising when it comes to editing images with simple text prompts.
It can also remove the watermark from the image (and replace its own subtle watermark with 🤣) pic.twitter.com/znhtqjst1z
– Tanay Jaipuria (@tanayj) March 16, 2025
To be clear, the image generation feature of Gemini 2.0 Flash is currently marked as “experimental” and “not for production use” and is only available in Google’s developer-oriented tools. AI Studio. This model is not a perfect watermark removal either. Gemini 2.0 Flash seems to struggle with some translucent watermarks and watermarks that draw a lot of images.
Still, some copyright holders will definitely encounter the lack of usage restrictions on Gemini 2.0 Flash. Including anthropomorphic models Claude 3.7 sonnet and Openai GPT-4O Clearly refusing to remove the watermark; Claude claims to remove the watermark from the image “immoral and potentially illegal”.
Under U.S. Copyright Law, deleting watermarks without the consent of the original owner is considered illegal (as of Such a law firm) Beyond the rare exception.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside normal business hours.
