Hello my beautiful followers!
I know it's been a hot minute since I have posted anything remotely intriguing, but we have a big update on our hands about the case against AI. To make a long story compact, a little bird shared this on DeviantArt with the caption “DeviantArt is in trouble!”. The article is linked down below and feel free to read before jumping back into this journal:
Oh great! You’re done reading?
Awesome!
By the way did you read the PDFs that the website provided? I advise you do just to see what grounds the case covers. They do cover common copyright infringement bills such as DMCA (which I have slapped at AI accounts more than I can count). The PDFs are free to download and read on your own when you find the time, and you are more than welcome to contact the legal team for questions about the case. Just keep in mind they cannot share a lot since the case is becoming kinetic now.
Moving on though: Assuming at this point you have read the entire article and understand what’s going on, you may be asking “What’s the next step?”, “What does this mean?”, “Is AI done for?”
To answer the first two questions:
Well, just a heads up as of the 13th the case was SUBMITTED or FILED, but as of the 23rd (the date I am posting this) there is rumor that the case is being taken by either district courts of Northern California or the Appellate Court. Just to give a heads up: if you hear that the case is ruled “moot” or “tossed” in the district court of Northern California that means the appellate court of the United States takes the case - it does not mean we lost the case, it simply means that it needs to advance to a higher court given the standings of the case. Once it hits the appellate court that’s when the consequences for AI and its developers becomes ever so steeper due to the fact the judge basically handles the verdict rather than a jury.
And another heads up, if the appellate rules the case "moot" as well, then the case will keep climbing the judicial ladder until it hits the Supreme Court. However, the main gist is that once the appellate takes the case - regardless if ruled in favor of the plaintiff or moot - AI is basically fucked (pardon my French).
To answer the final question:
So… What will this mean for AI?
Well, the case states that we should come to a compromise of using it fairly, but I am of the opinion that it should not be abolished completely. In the stated case provided by the legal team (see the PDFs), this means that AI not only faces a possible hefty fine of 5 billion USD in copyright fines (bare minimum), but also will be subject to strict regulations (again, not a fan of it but… I guess it’s a start).
In layman's terms: This means that a content creator cannot sell AI generated images for profit, nor use AI to forge documents, identity, advertise and etc. In short, America is on the track of following Japan and Israel's example of banning AI from the entertainment and fine arts industry as a whole, as well as working towards holding the program heavily accountable for forging legal documents and copywriting source material.
So for those of you flirting with AI to make art or even promoting it lightly I advise you stop right now because your images may be reviewed for copyrighted material and you could be dragged down with AI developers such as Stable Diffusion and even DeviantArt. This applies the everyone including the newbie and the evangelist - the last thing I want for you guys is to get dragged down with the AI developers when this case get’s slammed harder than the siege of Troy.
I know you some of you guys are jumping in your seats right now, but I urge you to hold your applause and save your victory laps - this is just the start. We need to finish the race. We need to keep the momentum going!
Keep blocking AI accounts who are selling.
Keep reporting (you can report images for intellectual property violations!)
Keep muting tags and making sure your deviations are not used for AI third parties.
Email the headquarters of the platforms you feature your artworks!
And when contacting your host site to report said images, be sure to site this:
This is a direct and vicarious copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501 & 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201 – 1205 (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, “DMCA”)
Small side note, I understand that the website and the two PDFs that the site provides has a lot of legal lexicon, so if you guys have any questions about them please feel free to comment down below and I’ll be sure to direct them to my husband who is fluent in legal vocabulary! He can explain in layman’s terms.
Other than that, this is a milestone… but again we can’t afford a victory lap. Now we have to go double time. Again, the legal team is open for contact so if you have any questions or wish to help with the case, let them know.
Keep those heads high, remember to smile and do look out for each other!
-Haleviyah
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