Pro tip: I used to think scraping art for AI training was just smart data use until I saw my own work in a model.

I was testing a new image generator last week and typed in a very specific prompt about a red fox in a raincoat, which was the exact subject of a digital painting I posted online two years ago. The output was a clear, mangled copy of my composition and style, and it hit me that my unpaid work was now a direct competitor to my own commissions. How do you even begin to argue for fair use when the system is built on taking from everyone?

4 comments

4 Comments

miller.diana1d ago

Yeah, that would be a real wake-up call. I figured it was all fair game until something like that happens to you.

ward.anna17h ago

Hot take: It's theft, plain and simple. Saw the same thing happen to a painter I follow. Her whole style got lifted into a model. The legal stuff is a mess because it's all so new, but calling it fair use feels like a bad joke. They built a whole industry by taking work without asking, and now artists are supposed to compete with a machine that ate their own portfolio.

hannahcraig1d ago

The worst part is the style theft. I had a friend find a model that perfectly copied her watercolor texture, down to the paper grain. It wasn't just the fox in a raincoat, it was the exact way she makes a wash. That's the part you can't copyright but is your whole career.

the_claire1d ago

Did your friend ever figure out how the model got trained on her work? Like was it scraped from her public portfolio or did it come from a client project that got leaked?