Artists fed up with AI-image generators use Mickey Mouse to goad copyright lawsuits

Artists Protest AI Art by Generating Images of Mickey Mouse

archived 17 Dec 2022 20:18:28 UTC

archive.ph

Artists fed up with AI-image generators use Mickey Mouse to goad copyright lawsuits

Artists are pushing back on imagery generated by AI by using the technology to create content containing copyrighted Disney characters.

www.dailydot.com

tl;dr artists are trying to shoot themselves in both feet by giving megacorps stronger copyright power

Artists are pushing back on imagery generated by artificial intelligence (AI) by using the technology to create content containing copyrighted Disney characters.


Since the introduction of AI systems including DALL·E 2, Lensa AI, and Midjourney, artists have argued that such tools steal their work, given that they’ve been fed an endless supply of their pieces as inputs. Many such tools, for example, can be told to create imagery in the style of a particular artist.

The current legal consensus, much to the chagrin of many artists, concludes that AI-generated art is in the public domain and therefore not copyrighted. In the terms of service for systems such as DALL·E 2, created by the research laboratory OpenAI, users are told that no images are copyrighted despite being owned by OpenAI.

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.”
Bourdages tweet quickly racked up more than 37,000 likes and close to 6,000 shares.

In numerous follow-up tweets, Bourdages generated images of other popular characters from movies, video games, and comic books, including Darth Vader, Spider-Man, Batman, Mario, and Pikachu.

“More shirts courtesy of AI,” he added. “I’m sure, Nintendo, Marvel, and DC won’t mind, the AI didn’t steal anything to create these images, they are completely 100% original.”

Many users appeared to agree with Bourdages’ somewhat sarcastic interpretation, sharing T-shirts they created online that feature the AI images.
Bourdages later clarified that he had no intention of profiting off of the images, but noted that Midjourney had done so by charging him to use their service.
“Midjourney is a paid subscription btw, so technically the only one that profited off of this image is them,” he said. “I have no intentions of profiting off of or claiming any of these images. They belong to the AI, MJ, and the public, my contribution is that of a simple google search.”
Just two days after sharing the images, however, Bourdages stated on Twitter that he had suddenly lost his access to Midjourney.

“Update – I was refunded and lost access to Midjourney,” he said. “They are no longer profiting off of these images and I assume didn’t want copyrighted characters generated. I hope this thread created discussion around AI and where data is sourced.”
In further remarks, Bourdages reiterated his primary goal when creating the images.
“The obvious issue I am opposed to in my thread is the theft of human art,” he said. “People’s craftsmanship, time, effort, and ideas are being taken without their consent and used to create a product that can blend it all together and mimic it to varying degrees.”

The Daily Dot reached out to both Bourdages and Midjourney to inquire about the images but did not receive a reply by press time. Disney did not respond to questions either regarding whether it would attempt to claim copyright over AI-generated imagery.
The issue surrounding AI art has already led to widespread protest and pushback from the art community. Just this week, artists on the art-hosting platform ArtStation began uploading identical images en masse that featured the caption “NO TO AI GENERATED IMAGES.”
Given just how new the technology is, it remains unclear what guidelines, if any, will be created to balance the rights of artists against the ever-expanding capabilities of AI.

 

[Super Guido]

Its a start, and apparently it just uses the 2d models and some fancy AI stuff to generate 3d from that.

I misunderstood the person I was replying to; I thought it was the dude's website for his own mediocre 3D art. A lot of times the people whinging about things copying their art didn't have particularly unique art to begin with.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

If this clever plan works and Disney and others extend it to written works, buh-bye fanfiction.net and anarchiveofourown.com

 

[Epoch]

First, This guy doesn't know what fair use is. I doubt he understands his own legal rights and the fact that he's trying to force Disney to crackdown is hilarious.

He's a fr*nch c*nadian, from Montreal.

 

[Plantation Barbie]

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.

Sir, you make digital art. The same arguments you make against AI prompts can be made against the software that you use.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

This is going to backfire beautifully.

Even if Disney or another rights holder sues, they're not going to sue over the tool used to make the art. They're going to sue over you selling shit with their characters likeness on it. Any artist trying to defend themselves with "But I didn't actually draw it, the AI did, I just sold it!" is going to get slapped by the fact that selling it is the illegal part here.

Fantastically dumb fucks, these people are. So many artists I know personally are super fucking angry over AI art, and every single one of them is the kind of artist who takes a week and a half to put out some cartoony page with no real details, and takes six months to actually finish any commission. Whereas the artist I know who are excited about AI art are the ones who are actually putting in eight hours a day and putting out an impressive quantity and quality of work - They're already looking for ways to get the AI to help with their workflow, menial backgrounds and such in particular.

Its telling when the laziest among them are the most concerned about being replaced.

 

[Jack Awful]

Obsolete artist attempts to kneecap progress because they feel threatened.

 

[Watcher]

Do these people seriously think that any new copyright legislation is going to favor them? This is a no win scenario for anyone.

 

[QuatoLives]

The soycialists always have no problem "stomping out capitalism" until 'their' money is at risk.

 

[Cpl. Long Dong Silver]

I saw a meme where it had AI generated art (aesthetic stuff) over human art and it was that dog shit Memphis globohomo shit.

Long live ai art.

 

[The Lawgiver]

You'd think the reason people would be mad over Ai image generators is it just takes image banks from google images or whatever the fuck which contain actual art people made and fuses them into unholy ai generated abominations, but no it's because of money and the idea that people are replaceable or whatever the fuck dumb shit. A few times I've put prompts into ai generation things of characters and got basically unedited promo art of the character. The reason these Ais are so good at making mickey is because there's so many fucking images and fan art of mickey from the last 90 fucking years to draw from. It won't end well getting the megacorps involved in legal action against the ai generation machine and the guys that intentionally gimped it in the past like the dalle guys did a while back with inclusivity as their reasoning for it are a good example of why you don't want to lobotomize your image generation Ai because it went from drawing hyper-realistic supermen when asked to draw super man if he was a real person to vague brown blobby sex offender looking guys dressed in red and blue.

 

[TowinKarz]

I'm no lawyer - but - it seems to me that you can't make a case that AI imagery is guilty of violating copyright when you are the ones deliberately and unequivocally telling it to do so. All that does is proves the AI really is AI, it's not smart enough to know when it's being asked to break a law, and that proves nothing in your favor.

Forcing AI to make copyrighted characters for you and then arguing that it somehow proves AI image generation is inherently illegal is as stupid as arguing the Chevy Equinox is inherently a dangerous vehicle by encouraging people to steal them and then use them as the getaway car in bank robberies.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

Why are all artists such insufferable faggots? This is why you're getting replaced with robots. Nobody wants to deal with you and your eccentricities

Because society enabled their delusion that they have some special and unique insight into the world instead of telling them "fuck off, it's just a job".

 

[Escaped Abortion]

Sir, you make digital art. The same arguments you make against AI prompts can be made against the software that you use.

Only by idiots. Obviously writing a google search and having a program generate you a picture isn't comparable to actually using practiced skill to digitally paint something. The skills needed to digitally paint and traditionally paint are nearly the same. AI stuff would be closer to the artistic input of one of those anime avatar generators where you pick out pieces you like to make a character.

Digital art lacks monetary value beyond its original commissioning because of its infinite ability to be losslessly duplicated, that's the real difference between digital and physical paintings. That's why they try to make NFTs happen in various ways, but you logically can't prevent the end product from being copied, and you can't meaningfully declare one an original.

A physical painting is pretty much a one off, although people sometimes make a few copies. They won't ever be identical copies though, so each can have variance in their value because of it. The challenge of making the copies also makes them very limited. A print is not an exact copy as information is lost, such as brush strokes and texture. However, these cheap prints can be sold about the same as digital art prints, with a bit of markup to the artist, because they have the same scarcity at that point. Ai pictures, if you happen to get a particularly nice one can also be sold as prints probaby even cheaper because you have no reason to pay for an ai image generated for someone else when five minutes gives you your own to use. Could save you another $5-10 mark up.

I think the point of having the AI make fanart shows that it was trained on images that aren't public domain and its remembered more than just the stylistic elements, but the actual designs. Fanart was always a dicey place. I don't think this goes back into the bottle, but I don't think ai art is really a good direction for humanity, either. We cheapen everything, even communication. I see the day will soon come when our chat bots furiously shit post and argue on the internet for us while we indulge in an infinite amount of media to consoom, with only the messages we want affirmed in it.

 

[Rei is Shit.]

LEARN TO PROMPT

 

[TowinKarz]

Because society enabled their delusion that they have some special and unique insight into the world instead of telling them "fuck off, it's just a job".

The internet especially enabled it.

A DeviantArt account was in many ways, the OG Blue Checkmark - proof you were above society because you were a CREATOR of internet content back when it was still, arguably, a bit of an investment to be so.

 

[DeeDee Megadoodoo]

God, these people are stupid.

Anyone can draw Mickey Mouse as much as they like. You can't *sell merchandise* with Mickey Mouse on it, whether it was drawn by Leonardo DaVinci or fucking Skynet.

 

[Dumb Bitch Smoothie]

I swear to god this anti AI art movement is going to turn out to have been a psyop orchestrated by Disney to tighten IP law even more.

I don't think it's a psyop but the fanart crowd is gonna get a railroad spike through the urethra for this. All their little laminated charms and shit they put on etsy that have an identifiable character belonging to someone else will no longer be allowed if they keep fucking with the laws like this.

They will absolutely go after fan creations of all kinds of this and none of these retards realize they're walking into a trap.

 

[Kiwisee]

These retards are making a fuss out of nothing.

If they’re smart and skilled enough, they won’t be replaced by an AI because there are things only a human can accomplish that AI can’t.

 

[TheGoodNamesHaveBeenTaken]

They REALLY don't want Disney to do this. It's either going to fuck them over by giving Disney and corpos stronger protections (bye bye, commissions of fanart), or AI generation becomes officially protected for reasons of AI development.

I have never understood why commissions of trademarked properties were legal to sell.

I visited a "comics" store with a friend a few years back (In reality it was a Funko Pops, posters and "art" store with a few comics).
They had a bunch of "art" done by some local that was nothing but "Random Dr. Who character with Darth Vader", "Harry Potter fighting Darth Vader" and that sort of crap.

I do not understand how that is even supposed to be legal.
Same for about half of the T shirts that are made today.
I get that there is some protection for parody.
However when you are making somthing that looks like it could be official merch, how is that a parody?

I assume it is just too much work for the copyright and trade mark owners to go after every web page & brick and mortar store selling this stuff so they don't bother.

It isn't just small outfits doing this.
Check out wholly owned Amazon subsidiary Woot.

Cheap Custom T Shirts | Woot

Cheap Custom T Shirts | Woot

shirt.woot.com

The business plan of their shirt division is "Have small time artist draw us pics of other people's properties. We sell them and give the artist a cut."
Notice the owner of those properties doesn't get anything out of that deal.

Granted are some designs there that are original creations of the artist.
However things like "X in the style of Y" or "That could be official merch" seem to be the most popular.


I wonder how many of these "artists" using AI to rip of Disney and telling others to sell it on a shirt do the same thing with Photo Shop as their day job?
Except for that, they are the ones selling the merch.

 

[Haramburger]

Why am I not surprised that it's a cuck from Behavior doing this? Fuck em.

@BrunoMattei lol
These guys not only regularly ruin their art and make parts of the game look worse, but they're shit at their jobs to begin with and their little roots and doodads they create get sculpted into game-ruining invisible barriers and stumbling blocks.