Roll20, Remove AI Art from the Marketplace

A.I Images are a compound of billions of scraped images from across the web that were used without consent to train the programs that generate these images, it is literally art theft on an unseen scale and to allow people to profit off of it while actual artists that are under your employ suffer because of it is absolutely absurd . Making people add a disclaimer that states their A.I images are what they are does not help when they're still allowed to profit off of the hard work and years of effort it took for artists to get where they are. This is not a natural evolution of art, this is not "the times are changing", this is profiting off of other people's hard work without their consent and it has absolutely no place in a professional environment, it is completely unethical. A.I Image Generation should never be looked at as anything beyond massive art theft, or a toy to play with for personal use.

To add to this: I will not be adding anything new to the Roll20 Marketplace until action is taken. If you won't support the artists who are working from your platform then I see no reason to continue supporting your marketplace that promotes art theft. I will also not be renewing my subscriptions for Pro or Plus either, and will simply take my games to other VTTs. I urge anybody who has been affected by the flood of lazily thrown together A.I Image packs to do the same. If words don't cut it, then action and speaking with your wallet always does.

You have my axe.

Currently Roll20 has this spot to put a Disclaimer that discloses it: and I believe this disclosure is required for publishers in the Roll20 Marketplace participation policy SCREENSHOT  So the Buyer can look for this phrase: Disclaimer: This product contains assets that were procedurally generated with the aid of creative software(s) powered by machine learning.

I can understand thinking that the ai generating tools as they exist now are here to stay.&nbsp; However, there is already at least one class action lawsuit against ai due to some ai basically stealing code (in the article I will link later, it deals with code hosted on github) with no regard to any applicable licenses that cover the code being used by the ai.&nbsp; This could very well have a spillover effect dealing with artwork being used without permission of the creator/owner. I pity anyone getting served ai regurgitated snippets of any of my character sheet code... <a href="https://adtmag.com/blogs/watersworks/2022/11/class-action-against-github-copilot.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://adtmag.com/blogs/watersworks/2022/11/class-action-against-github-copilot.aspx</a>

Gold said: Currently Roll20 has this spot to put a Disclaimer that discloses it: and I believe this disclosure is required for publishers in the Roll20 Marketplace participation policy SCREENSHOT&nbsp; So the Buyer can look for this phrase: Disclaimer: This product contains assets that were procedurally generated with the aid of creative software(s) powered by machine learning. I addressed this in the first post: Making people add a disclaimer that states their A.I images are what they are does not help when they're still allowed to profit off of the hard work and years of effort it took for artists to get where they are. Adding a disclaimer so people can filter it out does nothing to actually address the problem. If they weren't actively profiting from it, then the filter would be fine as to avoid having to see the content, but that isn't the case.

I agree with exclusion for one particular reason: this has not been granted copyright because it is not human-produced, so any inclusion on the marketplace is non-enforceable as far as anyone else *stealing* the *ai generated* art - oddly enough, the art-theft that AI art represents has been recognized by copyright law as non-copyrightable itself. AI art can't be "stolen" itself, regardless of it being the product of theft, because it is not produced by human art.&nbsp; And this is not the place to argue *against* an idea. That's clear in the forum rules.&nbsp;

Pat said: I agree with exclusion for one particular reason: this has not been granted copyright because it is not human-produced, so any inclusion on the marketplace is non-enforceable as far as anyone else *stealing* the *ai generated* art - oddly enough, the art-theft that AI art represents has been recognized by copyright law as non-copyrightable itself. AI art can't be "stolen" itself, regardless of it being the product of theft, because it is not produced by human art.&nbsp; And this is not the place to argue *against* an idea. That's clear in the forum rules.&nbsp; That was one thing I was going to touch on over the weekend but forgot to; as far as the recognition of copyright for AI generated images goes the only person who could feasibly hold that copyright is the group who made the machine you're getting the art from. Nobody should be under the impression that they hold the copyright to their AI images, and that leads directly into the issue of selling something you don't own. And then we're right back into theft.

Hello, Would anyone be able to provide more information to research this by chance?&nbsp; If the a.i. generated images are legit "stolen," then I would like to place a vote here.&nbsp; But in my searching, the best I've been able to find is that some a.i. generated applications allow users to sell the images and others don't.&nbsp; Is there some kind of way to make it so if it is a.i. generated they need to show where it's from and prove they have the right to sell the images?&nbsp; If the main issue is that the a.i. is building art faster than a human can, then I wouldn't spend a vote on this.&nbsp;&nbsp; Thank you.

Pat said: I agree with exclusion for one particular reason: this has not been granted copyright because it is not human-produced, so any inclusion on the marketplace is non-enforceable as far as anyone else *stealing* the *ai generated* art - oddly enough, the art-theft that AI art represents has been recognized by copyright law as non-copyrightable itself. AI art can't be "stolen" itself, regardless of it being the product of theft, because it is not produced by human art.&nbsp; And this is not the place to argue *against* an idea. That's clear in the forum rules.&nbsp; +1

awogg said: Hello, Would anyone be able to provide more information to research this by chance?&nbsp; If the a.i. generated images are legit "stolen," then I would like to place a vote here.&nbsp; But in my searching, the best I've been able to find is that some a.i. generated applications allow users to sell the images and others don't.&nbsp; Is there some kind of way to make it so if it is a.i. generated they need to show where it's from and prove they have the right to sell the images?&nbsp; If the main issue is that the a.i. is building art faster than a human can, then I wouldn't spend a vote on this.&nbsp;&nbsp; Thank you. The AI generators are trained on LAION which is a mass scraping of images done by a german non-profit. LAION holds these images and has a very loose "all copyright is owned by the owners" handwave in their FAQ. The problem is that pretty much nobody consented to having their copyrighted material added to this index, and certainly didn't consent to having it used to mass-train the image generators. <a href="https://laion.ai/faq/" rel="nofollow">https://laion.ai/faq/</a> The problem isn't that AI is making art faster, the problem is that it's using stolen material and making patchwork collages out of them. The AI is not actually drawing anything, it's using samples from LAION to piece together the best interpretation of a prompt it can with the material it works with, which is entirely comprised of copyrighted work. Hope this helps!

I also support the banning of AI art given it is not art, but a collage of images stolen from actual artists and often includes the signatures of artists whose work has been stolen.

I mean it depends on how much of a direct copy it is. Every human artist ever have been inspired and guided by looking at existing art (very often without permission or compensation). You learn by copying someones methods. So the question is: should AI be held to a higher standards than humans?

Jens F. said: So the question is: should AI be held to a higher standards than humans? If the AI can't be, the humans behind it certainly can be.&nbsp; Like I posted above, there is already a class action lawsuit against Microsoft/Github for taking open source code (open source does not mean that there isn't licensing involved) from github to train a coding assistant AI.&nbsp; If that lawsuit succeeds, it will very likely have an impact on the use of protected images, just like the use of protected code.

If that lawsuit succeeds, it will very likely have an impact on the use of protected images, just like the use of protected code How would anyone ever prove that an AI used someone's image. And even if you could, it would be like 1/billionth of the final image. Hardly wholesale theft. AI is just a new tool and, at this point, inevitable. Trying to fight it is like trying to battle the tide with a spoon.

Todd said: If that lawsuit succeeds, it will very likely have an impact on the use of protected images, just like the use of protected code How would anyone ever prove that an AI used someone's image. And even if you could, it would be like 1/billionth of the final image. Hardly wholesale theft. AI is just a new tool and, at this point, inevitable. Trying to fight it is like trying to battle the tide with a spoon. We're able to prove it because we can see the repo the ai is trained on so we know the exact contents. It not just a new tool, that take is not only ignorant of the situation but it is a needless post trying to devalue this suggestion and has no place here.

Jens F. said: I mean it depends on how much of a direct copy it is. Every human artist ever have been inspired and guided by looking at existing art (very often without permission or compensation). You learn by copying someones methods. So the question is: should AI be held to a higher standards than humans? And this is not comparable at all. You're trying to equate the human mind with a machine that collages images together. The difference between human inspiration and a machine ripping images apart to put them back together is comparing apples to clocks, they are entirely different. I see a lot of people trying to defend ai images this way and it falls short every time.

To say the stark radio silence on this issue is "disheartening" wouldn't do it justice. I am incredibly disappointed in Roll20 for failing to even acknowledge this problem, let alone give an idea of where they might stand.

+1 in favor of banning AI art from the Marketplace. It is theft, plain and simple.&nbsp;