AI and Artists -- An Ongoing Compilation of Articles

• Corridor Crew's AI Video Is A Moral Betrayal Of Everything Animation Stands For, by Jade King. TheGamer.com. 03/21/23.
• The US Copyright Office says you can’t copyright Midjourney AI-generated images, by Richard Lawler. The Verge 02/23/23. / A copyright registration granted to the Zarya of the Dawn comic book has been partially canceled, because it included “non-human authorship” that hadn’t been taken into account.
• Midjourney Founder Admits to Using a ‘Hundred Million’ Images Without Consent, by Matt Growcoot. PetaPixel. 12/21/22.

  When asked: “Did you seek consent from living artists or work still under copyright?”

  Holz replies: “No. There isn’t really a way to get a hundred million images and know where they’re coming from.

  “It would be cool if images had metadata embedded in them about the copyright owner or something. But that’s not a thing; there’s not a registry.

  “There’s no way to find a picture on the internet, and then automatically trace it to an owner and then have any way of doing anything to authenticate it.”

• Artists fed up with AI-image generators use Mickey Mouse to goad copyright lawsuits. DailyDot.com. 12/16/22.

  In response to concerns over the future of their craft, artists have begun using AI systems to generate images of characters including Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Given Disney’s history of fierce protection over its content, the artists are hoping the company takes action and thus proves that AI art isn’t as original as it claims.

  Over the weekend, Eric Bourdages, the Lead Character Artist on the popular video game Dead by Daylight, urged his followers to create and sell merchandise using the Disney-inspired images he created using Midjourney.

  "Someone steal these amazing designs to sell them on Mugs and T-Shirts, I really don’t care, this is AI art that’s been generated,” Bourdages wrote. “Legally there should be no recourse from Disney as according to the AI models TOS these images transcends copyright and the images are public domain.”

• Artists can now opt out of the next version of Stable Diffusion, by Melissa Heikkilä. Technology Review 12/16/22. The move follows a heated public debate between artists and tech companies over how text-to-image AI models are trained.
• Artists stage mass protest against AI-generated artwork on ArtStation, by Benj Edwards. ArsTechnica.com 12/15/22.
  • ArtStation draws more backlash by saying it doesn’t want to "stifle AI research and commercialization", by Evgeny Obedkov. GameWorld Observer 12/15/22.
• How it feels to be sexually objectified by an AI, by Melissa Heikkilä. Technology Review 12/13/22.
• Adobe to sell AI-generated images on its stock photo platform, by iconKatyanna Quach. The Register 12/06/22.
• Invasive Diffusion: How one unwilling illustrator found herself turned into an AI model, by Andy Baio. Waxy.org. 11/01/22. Using 32 of her illustrations, MysteryInc152 fine-tuned Stable Diffusion to recreate Hollie Mengert’s style. He then released the checkpoint under an open license for anyone to use.

  “I kind of feel like when they created the tool, they were thinking of me as more of a brand or something, rather than a person who worked on their art and tried to hone things, and that certain things that I illustrate are a reflection of my life and experiences that I’ve had. Because I don’t think if a person was thinking about it that way that they would have done it. I think it’s much easier to just convince yourself that you’re training it to be like an art style, but there’s like a person behind that art style.”

• The scary truth about AI copyright is nobody knows what will happen next, by James Vincent. The Virge 11/15/22.
• DeviantArt provides a way for artists to opt out of AI art generators, by Kyle Wiggers. TechCrunch.com. 11/11/22.
• Google to Roll Out App for AI-Generated Artwork, Complicating Copyright Worries, by Tessa Solomon. ArtNews 11/03/22.
• AI-generated art sparks furious backlash from Japan’s anime community, by Andrew Deck. Rest of World 10/27/22. "Kim Jung Gi left us less than [a week ago] and AI bros are already ‘replicating’ his style and demanding credit."
• Shutterstock partners with OpenAI to sell AI-generated stock images using DALL-E, by Katyanna Quach. The Register 10/26/22.
• A.I.-Generated Art Is Already Transforming Creative Work, by Kevin Roose. New York Times 10/21/22.
• AI Data Laundering: How Academic and Nonprofit Researchers Shield Tech Companies from Accountability, by Andy Baio. Waxy.org 09/30/22.
• This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it, by Melissa Heikkilä. Technology Review 09/16/22. Greg Rutkowski is a more popular prompt than Picasso.
• NYC artist granted first known registered copyright for AI art, by Adam Schrader. United Press International. 09/24/22.
  • U.S. Copyright Office Backtracks on Registration of Partially AI-Generated Work, by Franklin Graves. IPWatchDog.com 11/01/22. "This action from the USCO may serve as an early warning that anyone filing works that contain any portions generated by artificial intelligence must disclose such portions and be prepared to support their registration and prove a degree of human authorship."
  • AI-Created Comic Has Been Deemed Ineligible for Copyright Protection, by Brian Cronin. CBR.com. 12/21/22. Reversing an earlier decision, the United States Copyright Office rules that a comic book made using A.I. art is ineligible for copyright protection.
• Midjourney Founder David Holz On The Impact Of AI On Art, Imagination And The Creative Economy, Interview with Rob Salkowitz. Forbes 09/16/22.
• Getty Images Bans AI-Generated Images Due To Copyright Worries, by Harrison Jacobs. 09/03/22.
• An A.I.-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize. Artists Aren’t Happy, by Kevin Roose. New York Times 09/02/22. “I won, and I didn’t break any rules,” the artwork’s creator says.
• Exploring 12 Million of the 2.3 Billion Images Used to Train Stable Diffusion’s Image Generator, by Andy Baio. Waxy.org 08/30/22.
• The First AI-Generated Portrait Ever Sold at Auction Shatters Expectations, Fetching $432,500—43 Times Its Estimate, by Eileen Kinsella. ArtNet News. 10/25/18.