#preventing art theft

[cozyshoots]

sayaka

[yukipri]

hi, i love your work and i know you have a lot of experience handling reposts, and i really need help.

i’m an artist who has their work reposted on facebook. i filed two dmca reports with links to the original posts on tumblr and twitter and to the post im reporting, but facebook denied both of them. both for the reason that they couldn’t be certain i was the rights owner.

in the first report i filed, i didn’t put the address in the correct format so i thought that was the problem. the second one, i don’t know what i did wrong.

do i have to use my real house address? the one i provided is the workplace of a family member. do i make “name of rights owner” my full name? i put my username minus the underscore both times i filed. i sign my works like this and it’s visible on the artwork (username minus underscore). do i put back the underscore to make it match my twitter name? my tumblr varies slightly. do i make it match tumblr instead? is there a specific thing i need to write in the “please provide any additional information…” box? do i need a facebook art account to report the post? or is it not working because it’s fanart? i know of artists who were able to get their fanart taken down on facebook so is where i live the issue? i’m really sorry for all the questions. i just don’t know what to do.

Hey there, I am so incredibly sorry this has happened to you. I'll do my best to help.

I'm not sure if my advice is the "best," and if there are legal professionals here who can provide better advice, definitely listen to them! But here's what I have done, with success having DMCA takedowns go through, including on Facebook:

1) I have always used my full legal name, sometimes with a parentheses handlename (tumblr user YukiPri, and/or Twitter user YukiPri_Art, depending on the platform) afterwards. When adding your handle, it should be formatted exactly the way it is to find your various socials, as that is likely part of the verification process. If you have slightly different handles on different platforms, I recommend doing what I did in the example and specifying "Tumblr user XXX" etc for each one. I do believe they still require your full legal name, and you should make very clear which parts of the name field is your legal name, and which parts are social media handles.

2) I have always used my full home address. I completely understand how deeply uncomfortable this is, and I share that discomfort and I am so sorry that you've been put in a situation where you have to experience. I understand the fear of doxxing. But I believe this is also necessary for legal reasons.

I'm not sure if a family member can consent to have their full name/address used in your place, perhaps as a "representative." But I feel like that makes things more complicated, so I've never used it and have always filled out my full info. If anyone with professional legal experience has different advice, I am all ears.

3) You do not need a facebook account, though sometimes it unfortunately is helpful, especially if the post is in a locked account. Either way, you need the link to the EXACT link with the infringing work.

4) Likewise, you need to provide the EXACT link to the work that was infringed, preferably that matches your watermark, since it appears you use one.

From the info you've given me, the only thing I can think of is that they were not able to match your legal name to the address you provided, and therefore cannot verify that you're a real person. I could be wrong. It's stressful, but at the same time I'm glad they have a process in place for making sure not anyone can file DMCA—imagine the chaos and evil people could do if anyone could claim anything was theirs!

It's a horrible and incredibly stressful process to file DMCA claims, and I am so frustrated that we artists have to feel this immense stress to reclaim our stolen work instead of people simply respecting that they have the privilege of viewing our work for free.

I really, REALLY hope this helps you, Anon. Please be assured that Facebook HAS removed my art for me before via DMCA (though sometimes it's taken a while), and I really hope the above works for you.

In addition, while I hate that you have to do more to protect yourself and your work, please consider the following in the future, if you haven't already:

-Add your full url/handle, not just signature to your watermark. I know it's ugly, i HATE having large watermarks, but my watermark has evolved into this for a reason:

My watermark, shockingly enough, isn't actually for people who have stolen my work, or the few people who might see my stolen work who might decide to follow it back to my socials. I mean, that'd be nice, but I know how rarely that happens.

My watermark is designed more so that it's easy for social media staff to verify that my work is my own when I file a DMCA. I want it to be as easy as possible for them to look at my art and for them to say yup, this is definitely by YukiPri_Art @ Twitter and YukiPri @ Tumblr!

Also use simple, legible fonts. I know it can be ugly, so I do try to color them all or choose different fonts to match the work in question. But again, the main point of this watermark to me is so that staff can read it quickly. I want their job to be as easy as possible.

-I also explicitly state "Do Not Repost" on my artwork itself. I have heard "Oh but I didn't know," too many times, dozens, no hundreds of times, even if it's on the post itself, even if it's in my bio. None of that means anything anyway once someone reposts it. But if I stamp "DO NOT REPOST" onto the art itself, there is no denying that the thief reposted with full awareness that they are stealing, and it is a sign to EVERYONE that they did that. More often than not, people have come to me to tell me about my stolen work so I can file a DMCA because of this line.

-Place your watermark somewhere hard to crop out. If it's near an edge, anywhere that you can square marquee and crop without chopping off essential parts of your art, people will crop. I absolutely despise that I have to do this to my art, but placing it near the center, close to the face/body so that cropping it out would mean chopping most of the image and therefore making it unattractive, usually will discourage the thief from editing it out. After all, art thieves are at heart lazy and do not want to do work for attention.

-In that same line, if your art has relatively flat colors, consider adding a bit of a gradient or pattern/texture, at least to the part with the watermark. Or, simply place your watermark in an area with multiple colors/complex lineart (yeah I know, I hate covering up those parts too). This is also so that a thief at least willing to open photoshop to attempt to erase your watermark will have a more difficult time. If it's too much of a pain, they usually won't bother.

I hope this info was helpful, and again i truly hope you get your case resolved, and that you never have to experience this again!!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

[humblemediagenius]

where did the apotheosis miku come from

Oh, are you talking about my icon? I drew it actually!

[jaflazo]

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[echoekhi]

I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight

What Are “What If” Videos?

These videos follow a common recipe: A narrator, given a fandom (usually anime ones like My Hero Academia and Naruto), explores an alternative timeline where something is different. Maybe the main character has extra powers, maybe a key plot point goes differently. They then go on and make up a whole new story, detailing the conflicts and romance between characters, much like an ordinary fanfic.

Except, they are fanfics. Actual fanfics, pulled off AO3, FFN and Wattpad, given a different title, with random thumbnail and background images added to them, narrated by computer text-to-speech synthesizers.

They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like “What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings”, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views.

In fact, the process is so straightforward and requires so little effort, it’s pretty clear some of these channels have automated pipelines to pump these out en-masse. They don’t bother with asking the fic authors for permission. Sometimes they don’t even bother with putting the fic’s link in the description or crediting the author. These content-farms then monetise these videos, so they get a cut from YouTube’s ads.

In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.

Project Copy-Knight

Since the adversaries almost certainly have automated systems set up for this, the only realistic countermeasure is with another automated system. Identifying fanfics manually by listening to the videos and searching them up with tags is just too slow and impractical.

And so, I came up with a simple automated pipeline to identify the original authors of “What If” videos.

It would go download these videos, run speech recognition on it, search the text through a database full of AO3 fics, and identify which work it came from. After manual confirmation, the original authors will be notified that their works have been subject to copyright theft, and instructions provided on how to DMCA-strike the channel out of existence.

I built a prototype over the weekend, and it works surprisingly well:

On a randomly-selected YouTube channel (in this case Infinite Paradox Fanfic), the toolchain was able to identify the origin of half of the content. The raw output, after manual verification, turned out to be extremely accurate. The time taken to identify the source of a video was about 5 minutes, most of those were spent running Whisper, and the actual full-text-search query and Levenshtein analysis was less than 5 seconds.

The other videos probably came from fanfiction websites other than AO3, like fanfiction.net or Wattpad. As I do not have access to archives of those websites, I cannot identify the other ones, but they are almost certainly not original.

Armed with this fantastic proof-of-concept, I’m officially declaring war against “What If” videos. The mission statement of Project Copy-Knight will be the elimination of “What If” videos based on the theft of AO3 content on YouTube.

I Need Your Help

I am acutely aware that I cannot accomplish this on my own. There are many moving parts in this system that simply cannot be completely automated – like the selection of YouTube channels to feed into the toolchain, the manual verification step to prevent false-positives being sent to authors, the reaching-out to authors who have comments disabled, etc, etc.

So, if you are interested in helping to defend fanworks, or just want to have a chat or ask about the technical details of the toolchain, please consider joining my Discord server. I could really use your help.

------

See full blog article and acknowledgements here: https://echoekhi.com/2023/11/25/project-copy-knight/

[ave661]

Post about art-theft, AI and tracing of my render:

Unfortunately, one of my renders I made a year ago, was traced, copied, edited by AI by "brothers in arms" store and now sold as a merch aimed towards CoD fandom. They are currently sending this out to various cosplayers asking them to promote it.

As someone who is affected by this, I have to speak up about it.

(post about it on twt & insta)

I found out about it by accident when I saw promoted post on my insta feed. When I started talking about it in my stories, this store sent me a private message saying they had been working on this design for weeks and had never heard of me so they definitely didn't steal anything, and offered me free stuff. When I disagreed with them and sent them files comparing our works, they stopped replying to me, so I continued talking about it again on my insta. Only when my followers started leaving comments under their post saying this is wrong, they decided to continue discussion on the next day.

2. They mentioned that they could have been inspired by some pictures they found on the internet and showed me their "first sketch" of design… which was made by AI.

3. During the conversation, they mentioned that their artist could have based his work on a picture he found on the Internet, but he defended himself by saying that they might not have known it was mine. But even if they didn't know about me, even if they found some fanart on the Internet - it doesn't mean you can copy something detail by detail and sell it as your own. What is most important here, their offer to solve the problem was to give me credits in their design. IF they worked hard on it, why would they want to give me credits? My offer was to remove it.

4. Why do I mention that it could have been done by AI? because many lines are unfinished and a lot of details don't make sense.

5. Below is a comparison of my render that I published on March 18, 2023 with their first sketch they showed me, which apparently they drew themselves:

I am saying this so that the CoD community, which is very large, will be aware of this, because there are many people who have already bought it and after my insta story, they felt bad and said they want return it because they don't want to support art theft.

It's not just about me anymore - it could have happened to anyone who creates fanart and share it on the Internet just for fun. One day someone may use it for their own profit without us being aware of it. It doesn't matter if it's a 3D render or a drawing. All artists in this (or any other) fandom do not deserve to experience such thing, and we need to speak out about it to prevent it from happening in the future.

Reposting fanart is, as this example shows, dangerous and hurtful, so please respect artists and don’t do this. Especially on pinterest.

Their only proposal and offer to give me credits for the work they traced is something I will never agree to.

[girlwarlock]

Someone at tumblr/automattic asked whether requests to opt out of "AI" data sharing would be honored retroactively (which seems important, seeing as tumblr has apparently compiled the user data they're going to send *before* giving any kind of opt-out option) and Automattic's head of "AI" Andrew Spittle responded:

We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.

And I do not trust midjourney or openai in the slightest--their business models, by their own admission, depend on scraping art they don't have permission to use--so I do not believe that they will honor any requests to remove data already received when requests are made to remove it. So yeah. take that as you will.

Edit

about 20 minutes after I posted this, @staff put out this:

They do not acknowledge that they are definitely actually in the process of selling your data to third parties, but they have a setting which (they claim) will prevent them from sharing information with third parties, including "AI" training businesses.

I've turned it on, but tumblr has burned so much trust that I really don't have faith that tumblr will actually change the package of information that will be provided to these third parties based on the setting: tumblr/automattic must know that "AI" art theft is tremendously unpopular with a huge portion of tumblr, and that having this setting (even with a "you must know about it to use it" opt out setting) will result in a bunch of users setting their unintuitive "don't share with third parties" setting to "on" which will diminish the value of the sale.

I don't think tumblr will honor this setting.

[foervraengd]

A very quick and rough guide on how i watermark my art. Additional points:

- Watermarks does not prevent art theft or reposters. The point of a watermark or a signature is to provide info on who made the artwork. Majority of reposters dont go extra lengths of removing watermarks, art thiefs on the other hand are more prone to do so.

- a watermark will stay on even if the image is screenshotted or reuploaded in ways that removes the files metadata. A watermark will outlive websites and links and qr codes. A watermark will last even if the image is printed on to paper. A watermark/signature is a very reliable form of information.

- A watermark also serve as evidence if you would ever have to prove you are the creator of a piece.

- Never, and i cannot stress this enough, NEVER upload the original high resolution of your art online. Not on discord. Not in DMs. Not on any fun silly website that can “animate your drawings” etc. The higher the resolution is, the easier it will be for ppl to remove your watermarks. High res images are also more attractive to ai scrapers.

- you should watermark doodles and sketches as well. Because it is common that silly doodles or loose sketches can get more attention online, so mark those as well.

- if you are a digital artist you should be able to know how to create a brush with your signature on it. You dont need an extra program or app to do this. If you can make your own custom brush shapes you can make your own signature. If not, look up a tutorial.

[copperbadge]

Leverage and White Collar fandoms, this seems relevant to your interests and possibly a hook for a fantastic fanfic of some kind.

Short version: Christie's Auction House was recently locked down by a cyberattack that essentially hobbled them for the entire month of May. The article discusses how high-end auction houses and sales sites don't pay much attention to cybersecurity, despite storing the personal information, including payment data, and fine art ownership status, of some of the wealthiest people in the world.

It's not necessarily easy to steal the identity of a super wealthy person because they have safeguards in place to prevent that kind of thing, but knowing where they live and their social security number is not inconsiderable. And if you're looking to steal a specific painting or make one extremely high-value theft, it's invaluable data. Especially if Christie's keeps any kinds of notes about where the art was shipped, since the Geneva Freeport and places like it are not immune to being robbed and because they're basically storage facilities, if you're smart about it the robbery may not even be noticed for years.

[evilwizard]

I do want to say, my views on AI “art” have changed somewhat. It was wrong of me to claim that it’s not wrong to use it in shitposts… there definitely is some degree of something problematic there.

Personally I feel like it’s one of those problems that’s best solved via lawmaking—specifically, AI generations shouldn’t be copywrite-able, and AI companies should be fined for art theft and “plagiarism”… even though it’s not directly plagiarism in the current legal sense. We definitely need ethical philosophers and lawmakers to spend some time defining exactly what is going on here.

But for civilians, using AI art is bad in the same nebulous sense that buying clothes from H&M or ordering stuff on Amazon is bad… it’s a very spread out, far away kind of badness, which makes it hard to quantify. And there’s no denying that in certain contexts, when applied in certain ways (with actual editing and artistic skill), AI can be a really interesting tool for artists and writers. Which again runs into the copywrite-ability thing. How much distance must be placed between the artist and the AI-generated inspiration in order to allow the artist to say “this work is fully mine?”

I can’t claim to know the answers to these issues. But I will say two things:

Ignoring AI shit isn’t going to make it go away. Our tumblr philosophy is wildly unpopular in the real world and most other places on the internet, and those who do start using AI are unfortunately gonna have a big leg up on those who don’t, especially as it gets better and better at avoiding human detection.

Treating AI as a fundamental, ontological evil is going to prevent us from having these deep conversations which are necessary for us—as a part of society—to figure out the ways to censure AI that are actually helpful to artists. We need strong unions making permanent deals now, we need laws in place that regulate AI use and the replacement of humans, and we need to get this technology out of the hands of huge megacorporations who want nothing more than to profit off our suffering.

I’ve seen the research. I knew AI was going to big years ago, and right now I know that it’s just going to get bigger. Nearly every job is in danger. We need to interact with this issue—sooner rather than later—or we risk losing all of our futures. And unfortunately, just as with many other things under capitalism, for the time being I think we have to allow some concessions. The issue is not 100% black or white. Certainly a dark, stormy grey of some sort.

But please don’t attack middle-aged cat-owners playing around with AI filters. Start a dialogue about the spectrum of morality present in every use of AI—from the good (recognizing cancer cells years in advance, finding awesome new metamaterials) to the bad (megacorporations replacing workers and stealing from artists) to the kinda ambiguous (shitposts, app filter that makes your dog look like a 16th century British royal for some reason).

And if you disagree with me, please don’t be hateful about it. I fully recognize that my current views might be wrong. I’m not a paragon of moral philosophy or anything. I’m just doing my best to live my life in a way that improves the world instead of detracting from it. That’s all any of us can do, in my opinion.

[comic-art-showcase]

hello fellow comic art fans.

i am the goblin who runs this here blog. otherwise known as @jondoe297

i am extremely bummed that when i do come out and adress the followers of this blog directly it will be with this news. well. here goes:

Comic Art Showcase will indefinitely stop sharing our favorite artists' works until further notice due to the deal tumblr's owner is making with A.I. companies to sell data,enabling the theft of the works of the platform's users to scrape to train their A.I.

and here is a good article about what's going on

while for the over 5 years(!!) now that i have run this page and shared the love of comic art i am so passionate about,through ups and downs,i have kept this page strictly for doing so. not presenting any topics or ideas or even showing my own personality or linking my personal blog(even though i have been flirting with the idea recently. well i guess now is as good a time as any) i feel that if nothing else i have to use this specific platform i have,as it is,to address this topic as it is intrinsic and intertwined with this page's theme or activity. and i will not have it be an open buffet for these greedy corporations to scrape for data to feed the A.I. with which they seek to replace the very artists that i love and admire! even though it may be too late as we don't really know how long they've been doing this. well the inevitable came. and if this page is not deleted it will at least not be posted on for the time being. while we figure out what to do next.

in the meantime we can and have to all do what we can to fight for artists' and creatives' rights. if nothing else by not being a part of the theft and exploitation of them an their work. please do not use any generative A.I. programs for images or text. they work by scraping from databases of artists' and creatives' works without any permission,credit or compensation.

for now we can at least 'opt out' of having our content be shared with the A.I. companies in the settings.

keep in mind this seems to be only available on the web version and not on the app for now!

go to your blog settings from the corner here

ID/image description: a screenshot of the tumblr blog with a red arrow pointed at the options button. end description.

then go to 'blog settings'

ID/image description: a screenshot of tumblr blog settings with a red arrow pointing at the 'blog settings' option. end description.

then go to visibility. and turn ON the 'prevent third-party sharing' option. make sure to turn it ON not off.

ID/image description: screenshot of tumblr's visibility settings with the 'prevent third-party sharing' option turned on. end description.

and you have to do this for each blog and sideblog individually so make sure to do that!

and artists make sure to use Nightshade and Glaze to protect your artwork and images!!!!

here's a link to Nightshade

here's a link to Glaze

the best combination is to use Nightshade first then Glaze on your images.

Glaze creates a protective layer on the image to prevent A.I. from copying it. while Nightshade poisons the A.I. sotfware.

stay safe friends an i will see you around❤

[xan-izme]

Dubble life 11 (ATSV x Reader x Batfam)

Summary: You can't do this alone

Part 10, Part 12

You felt stressed. The anomalies were popping up in Gotham and in New York at the same time. Of course, Aaron and Miles are there to handle things. But you no longer want their help. You don't want them to have that responsibility anymore. None of the burden.

And with Bruce. He hasn't talked to you. You haven't seen him in a few days. You felt like you have messed up everything. That he now hated you because of what you said.

But in truth. Bruce was just sulking behind closed doors. He's raised 4 boys so far, and he likes to think he's done a great job. Well, not a great job but an okay job. But with you, he feels like he's failing with every move he makes. He knows what you said is true.

He has the papers to prove you are his daughter. But he's missed 16 years of your life. Your uncles were more like fathers to you than he will ever be. And it hurts him. More than he would expect. And what hurts the most is that was the true you. Not the act you have been putting on for a few months. What he saw was a child struggling to morn her mother.

He would know.

But it must have been harder on you. Because you only had her. And now she's gone. And now you're stuck with him.

It was another night of kicking anomalies through portals. Preventing some minor crimes and avoiding Batman.

You sighed as you sat on top of the Wayne Mannor roof. The sun should be setting soon. You used to watch the sun set back in New York before beginning your day as spider woman.

You sighed as you pull out your phone.

Jason was looking for you. He needed to speak to you about, well everything. If he was to keep your little secret. Then he needed to know what the hell was going on. What's with the portal he saw you kick that one villain in, what was in the suitcase. Why are you being so secretive. It's suspicious, and he can't trust you fully. And he needs to trust you a little bit for this to work.

Jason enters your room, but you were nowhere to be seen. He assumed you were out with Damian.

If your gone. . .

Jason smirked to himself as he got the idea to snoop around. He walked around. He was Immediately at your bookshelf. He sighed in disappointment when he only sees education books. Books about physics and geology. Technology.

"No one is this into school." He pauses for a moment before correcting himself. "Tim. Tim is."

He grumbles as he tries to see anything else he can find. He circles around to a different side of your bed. He gasped as he finds a secret stash of books.

All fantasy fiction and history books Manga too. Harry Potter, Hunger games, Art of war, Game of thrones, The Odyssey, The lightning theft- the whole damn Percey Jason series. Heros, Gods and monsters of Greek Mythology- Wow! you're really into Greek mythology.

He hums in amusement and put things back. He Looked up to your desk and picks up a little picture of you and your cousin. He takes note of how you reacted when he mentioned Miles knowing about you being Spider woman. Probably the angriest he's seen you.

Your protective.

He sets the picture down and walks into your bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. A lot of hair products. He opens the mirror cabinet. Painkillers. Tylenol, ibuprofen. First aid which was, empty.

He pauses for a moment. Something doesn't look right. He closes the mirror cabinet. Then opens it again. He repeats the process before finally taking a look at both sides of the mirror. He knows this manner inside and out. practically memorized the blueprints. Both old and new.

He decides to try and pry the mirror cabinet open from the wall. And there, a secret stash within the wall. He grabs the small duffle bag. He opens it up to see your suit. and a Polaroid picture of a woman. Your mother he assumes.

He lets out a small sigh and puts it back and closed the mirror cabinet tightly. He decided it was time he goes back to looking for you. Yours still in the manor he knows that much. He saw your shoes and window open. He searched the manor but could not find you. He stepped outside to see if you were at the barn.

But when he looks up. He sees a glimpse of a head. Someone was on the roof.

Jason hurries back into the manor and makes his way onto the roof.

You stare at the video playing on your phone. Sniffling a little.

"Mom, stop. I mean it!" You laughed as you try to back away to a wall

"Nope. not happening!" Your mother pointed the water gun at you and started shooting

"AH! Mama!" You tried to run but tripped and fell on your face.

"Pfft-" Your mothers laugh could be heard along with yours

You continued to solemnly watch the old video. Not noticing Jason a little far behind from you. Listening and watching you. You looked so sad it was unconfortable.

But he felt, a little guilty. Just a little bit. Because if he thinks about it you have been through a lot. Jason took a few steps closer and cleared his throat to signal his presence.

You jolt at the noise and glance back and see Jason. You quickly look away and wipe your tears.

"What do you want."

Jason stood there awkwardly before taking a seat next to you. You stare at him with your tired eyes. Jason sighed as he looked back at you. "Look, kid. I know I'm a jerk. I'll be lying if I said I didn't mean to. But can you blame me? You're not telling me anything."

You stay silent before looking away. Contemplating weather, you should tell Jason the truth.

"You can't do this alone kid. Trust me, it won't work if you do this alone."

You let Jason's words sink in. Slowly realizing. He was right. You were scared, and truly didn't want to go through this alone. And this was Jason, so it should be okay, right?

"Do you believe in the multiverse?" You finally spoke up. Your words made Jason look at you a little confused.

"The multiverse, like different universes. Timelines and stuff."

You nod. "Yeah, something like that. . . it's real. The multiverse is real. And, in every universe, there is a Spider Woman or Spider man to protect and keep balance. This universe is mine to protect. Those bad guys you see me throwing through portals. Those are anomalies."

Jason listened in closely. Half of him believes you, the other half not really. But he's all ears.

"Anomalies from different universes, brought by portals that were ripped due to mankind tempering with forces that were beyond our understanding."

You talked about everything. About the society. About Alchemex. And the whole cannon situation. A fate every spider hero had to succumb to.

It felt nice to let everything out now, like some wight was lifted off.

Jason believed you. Well, he kind of does. He only believes you because, well it's you. And he doesn't see the use of you lying about something as crazy as multiverses.

But the fact that you were hiding all of that and you were planning to carry the burden alone when still in the process of mourning the loss of your mother. It concerned him a bit.

He could tell Bruce. This could be a family effort. You're a vigilante, so are they. The whole bat family can help. But you have already expressed that you can't let anyone else know about the multiverse thing you have going on.

For safety reasons you claim.

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A/n: sorry, this is a little short, but I do want to warn everyone that I will be a little late with the next few chapters because they will be longer and might be traumatizing. so, yeah. Thank you for reading

@huening-ly. @mariadvorak, @superherosdystopiafreak, @chelluv, @houseissofine, @esposadomd, @greyeyedmockingbird, @1-800-daisy, @c0c0-puffsxxx, @arthurswife, @h0rr0r-10ver-69, @josiepapen, @natashanice165, @amber-content, @mahbeanz, @azurewisteria, @seraph101, @skepvids, @lara20aral, @iwasveronica, @jackrabbitem

[poor-boy-orpheus]

I think folks have really lost the plot when it comes to AI.

Imo, the issue we are faced with is not how to prevent ai from being utilized or advancing, frankly I think that ball is already rolling. The issue also isn’t designating sacred work that can’t be touched by AI (I’m sorry to say, art is not inherently better than manual labor). The issue we are really faced with is now that we are embarking on a world wherein AI is rising and gaining genuine ability to match or exceed humans, how will we ensure we are taking care of our people?

A lot of folks seem to be really concerned with protecting the idea of intellectual property, but at the same time don’t we believe in an egalitarian sharing of knowledge? Should we really be prizing exclusivity of access to media or materials? I don’t really think so, but the challenge we face is how to ensure that a society that will increasingly have less and less need for human labor (particularly in data analysis or data entry jobs that AI tends to be the best in) will still see its citizens financially secure.

I have no problem with AI making art, regardless of whether I think that art is “good” or whether someone a machine makes can even be defined as “artistic” to begin with. Frankly, I don’t care. I do care that many artists will be out of a job and we don’t have a mechanism for ensuring they’re taken care of.

And that is where the discourse is so often falling short in my eyes. Many leftists who claim to want to leave the idea of personal ownership behind become the most forceful advocates for protecting intellectual property. A development that should be spurring on the greatest advance in humankind’s ability to universally take care of everyone is instead demonized on the left for somehow being theft and largely ignored on the right as a pipe dream.

AI is growing more powerful exponentially. Our lifetimes will see a shift on the level of the invention of electricity or the internet (if not much much greater) and we need to be prepared for that. The outcry cannot be “You used AI tools and therefore your work is invalid” but rather it must be “How are we restructuring ourselves to better absorb this new change?”

Universal basic income has to become a default. Removing healthcare from being tied to a job is a necessity. Eventually moving past currency might even be a possibility.

You can’t stop the world from turning, you can’t stop this progress from happening. But we still have time to focus our efforts on taking this change and handling it well. History will watch what we say, what we do, and how we addressed this.

[jaflazo]

Self-defense keychains are practical, compact tools designed to enhance women's safety. They typically include features such as pepper spray, personal alarms, stun guns, Kubotans, and tactical flashlights.

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Usage Tips

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Self-defense keychains provide women with practical tools to enhance their personal safety, offering peace of mind and preparedness in various situations.

[genericpuff]

completely off topic but regarding something that i saw pop up in my FB feed and i need to rant about

please do not fall for this shit

nintendo is NOT anti-AI.

it's really easy for them to say they're not going to use generative AI to create their games, because this statement has nothing to do with the very real issues with AI art such as the blatant theft of artists' work, environmental impact, replacement of humans in the industry, and just flat out unethical shit that AI has been designed around

it has EVERYTHING to do with their intellectual property rights, which Nintendo is NOTORIOUS for protecting with an iron fist even at their own expense. and i'm not talking the usual sensible argument shit like "ofc Nintendo wants to protect their IP's, they're a business!" i'm talking about the fact that this is the same company that just recently did a major takedown of the vast majority of Nintendo-licensed games on Vimm's Lair which aren't even being sold legitimately anywhere anymore-

i have so many fucking bones to pick with the flaccid bootlicking anti-piracy arguments out there but basically it comes down to this:

Nintendo is not a small indie company. They are literally one of the biggest, richest, most powerful gaming companies on the planet, rivalling Disney in just how many major franchises they own and profit off of. Many of their games are cultural classics, not just through the sentimentality and nostalgia of our childhoods, but also for all the innovations they made through games like Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and many others that we, within the world of gaming, owe a lot to and should be able to access and play. It's not a matter of "wanting these games for free", it's a matter of wanting to be able to access these games, period, and Nintendo is deadset on making it as difficult as possible, even when it doesn't necessarily profit from them (need I remind you that many of the games that were taken down from Vimm's Lair are NOT available through their shitty, poorly-ported emulation subscription service - plus that subscription service can be altered and/or removed at any time, regardless of what you paid for, just like the Wii Virtual Console was, meaning you do not own any of the games you're paying to play on there.)

This isn't about being "cheap" or "not wanting to pay for games". This is about media preservation and the virtue of actually owning the things we pay for. If these games were resold at official outlets for reduced prices or made more accessible through e-shops that don't close down in between console generations or drip feed the odd legacy title every few months or release crappy ports on their outdated af tech for only a few months at a time for three times the price of their original value, people would gladly pay. It's the fact that people are having to put up with all of the hoops that Nintendo has put in place to prevent them from even handing them money to play their favorite titles that even drives them to piracy to begin with, and Nintendo will gladly shut those sites down to protect their IP even when it's an IP they're no longer profiting from and aren't making active efforts to sell.

Like, I would gladly hand over a reasonable amount of money (i.e. not the cost of a brand new triple A title in 2024 which is like $80-$100 here in Canada) for Diddy Kong Racing on the Switch, but ofc it's not on the fucking online play store and even if it was, I'd have to deal with paying an overpriced subscription fee for a port of the game that would undoubtedly run WORSE than it does on my PC, and that subscription service can be taken down at any time. But Nintendo wants me to not pirate the game that's not available on their shitty subscription service because... just don't do it, pretty please??

Nintendo is not anti-AI. They would gladly use AI in place of manual labor to scour the internet and dish out DMCA's to every emulation site, archived ROM hub, fan game, and artist alley creator if they could... oh wait, they already are.

Do not fall for the virtues of anti-AI when it comes to companies like Nintendo. They are not anti-AI. They're anti-ownership. They're anti-preservation.

[elekilokal]

guys i’ll be honest.. I’ve made it through a lot on here, but if tumblr decides to sell to midjourney or any other generative AI I have to delete everything… 😔 it seems like they’ve already scraped most of the posts on here dating all the way back to 2014, but even if it’s too late to prevent theft of my art, I just can’t keep using a website that would do something like this— I don’t want to contribute clicks and views to a company that so readily throws its artists and creators (the reason anyone uses the site!) under the bus. If it does happen, I will probably make an archival drive of all my posted pieces and upload a nightshaded version to google drive or pixiv or something. If there are any works you really love, I would recommend saving them on your own.

I’ve had my art reuploaded without permission, stolen and sold on random websites, but this generative AI grift is the worst of them all. It’s soulless greed that does nothing but take advantage of those who already struggle to make a living in a notoriously thin job market. It’s a pointless theft machine. As if the world was ever starved for artists.