Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model has been found capable of removing watermarks from copyrighted material and depicting copyrighted characters in its generated images.

Tools like Watermark Remover.io can already scrub marks from companies like Shutterstock, and a research team at Google built a watermark removal algorithm in 2017 to highlight the need for more secure protections. Conversely, some AI tools — like OpenAI’s GPT-4o — will refuse requests to remove them.

Users on social media recently discovered a controversial feature in Google’s Gemini AI model: the ability to remove watermarks from images, including those from major stock image providers like Getty Images.