The Use of AI in projects run by Wolf Photography
In my view, if crawlers are trawling websites for images and storing them or enabling other people to use my art without my authority, it's theft. There should have been an 'opt out' system before the use of AI software was allowed in this way.
The only thing that we can do for now is edit the robots.txt file on our websites as below:
User-agent: OpenAI
Disallow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: PaLM 2-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bard-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: LaMDA 2-User
Disallow: /
The last 3 came up as run by Google.
Here's my concern:
AI bots are raiding websites for images without permission. Those images are being used by AI to create art. Artists and photographers don't currently have an opt out and weren't consulted prior to the release of the software by the companies doing the raiding. Even if you now have the right instruction in your robots.txt file, the theft has already been committed but may protect your future creations.
People are then using AI platforms to generate images through text prompts. There is a clear breach of copyright, even if the UK does currently allow it. Even though the software developers warn people not to violate any laws with their software, elements of websites are covered by IP law too (eg your images)...and putting a notice about not being able to use the generated art for commercial purposes, I feel, doesn't absolve the software developer of Intellectual Property violations when they developed a tool to do just that. Some AI software platforms do allow the sale of art generated by their software.
My understanding is that the software learns how to create by scanning existing art.
There is also another consideration for this project - it's about encouraging the people with disabilities to be creative, not the software.
People creating digital art from their own drawings, paintings or photographs using photoshop etc are in a different category. They created the original work in the first place and applied filters etc - I don't have a problem with that at all.
In my view, there is no therapeutic process for a person with a disability in creating art using AI. This is another money making tool to cut out the lower level arts industry.
Is this what people want the future of humanity to be? All cultural content to be created by AI? Creating original content is time consuming, requires thought, planning, focus, emotional connection, sometimes risk, execution of the ideas, post editing. Without these steps, there would be no AI because there would be no content.
To me this feels like the next progression after the laws were changed with regards to Orphan Works a few years ago. Perhaps that was the focus of that change...to take a step closer to breaches of Copyright using AI software.
Here are 2 guides on Copyright in the UK:
https://www.gov.uk/copyright/print
UK Copyright Service (goes into more detail)
This article examines the legality surrounding AI creations at the moment:
ChatGPT: what the law says about who owns the copyright of AI-generated content
Please be aware that most, if not all Social Media platforms automatically assume rights to your images, it's in their terms and conditions. This is why I advise the following: Never post images larger than 800 pixels on the longer side, put your logo on there and a watermark that states the image is protected by Copyright. Anytime you create a photo, please add a line stating 'No AI use permitted' in the metadata...but also be aware that Facebook automatically strip out the metadata whenever you upload an image. If you follow the examples above, you will limit what people can do with your work.
In conclusion, if you want to exhibit with my projects, you will have to prove that the content is yours or adapted from your content as part of the application process. Purely AI content won't be allowed in the exhibitions I run.
To apply to exhibit, please find the pack here.
Regards,
Villayat 'Wolf' Sunkmanitu
Updated robots.txt file.
I'm relying on various website about the syntax of the file, so please do your own research. I've found a few more AI clients and have added them to the example file below. The document was created in Notepad. I'd avoid using Word etc as they can import additional elements. This should be done using a simple text editor.
User-agent: OpenAI
Disallow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: PaLM 2-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bard-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: LaMDA 2-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Chinchilla-user
Disallow: /
User-agent: Notion AI-user
Disallow: /
User-agent: Chai-user
Disallow: /
User-agent: NovelAI-user
Disallow: /
User-agent: Caktus AI-user
Disallow: /
User-agent: AI Dungeon-user
Disallow: /
User-agent: Snapchat My AI-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: DuckAssist-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: GrammarlyGO-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Jenni AI-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Microsoft 365 Copilot-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Tongyi Qianwen-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Janitor AI-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Character AI-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: Character AI Rooms-User
Disallow: /
