I don’t think I’ve ever seen art theft like this. Two days ago, a Genshin Impact fanartist drew up a new creation Pull out. Before they could even finish the fanart and post it to Twitter, one of their viewers fed the work-in-progress into an AI generator and “crafted” it first. After the artist posted their finished artwork, the art thief challenged the original artist. “You posted about 5-6 hours after me, and for this type of drawing you can do it quickly,” says the scammer brazenly tweeted. “You took [a] a notice [from] an AI image, but at least admit it.”
AT is a Korean-language anime artist who streams process videos on Twitch. On October 11th, they colored Raiden Shogun Genshin Impact in front of a live audience. Then a Twitter user named Musaishh took the in-process image, created a similar image of Raiden Shogun using Novel AI, and then uploaded it six hours before the artist’s stream ended. Maybe they would have gotten away with it if they hadn’t tried to attack AT for posting their own art. Musaishh has since deleted hers Account. Probably because many fans and Artist was angry about her blatant art theft. If you fool around, expect to find out.
Ever since the software behind AI-generated art went mainstream, flesh-and-blood artists have struggled to maintain control over their work. Now they have to worry about proving that they are the creators in the first place. In response to the incident, an artist reminded his audience of this keep backup streams their process. Several Artist tweeted that they didn’t want to re-stream their work in progress. “Now any of us can be accused by art thieves of ‘stealing’ because their AI art ‘completed’ the work first.” wrote an artist.
If you’ve been reading this site for the past few months, you probably know that AI-generated art is an ethical landmine. The software takes data from copyrighted artwork without the knowledge or permission of the original creator and attempts to create a new image from it. I’m a bit of an outlier among art lovers as I think the technology itself has fascinating potential for creating ethical art with the permission of the creators. But as long as artists have no legal protection against unscrupulous theft and mutilation of their art, that day is still a long way off.
But hey, I want to end this blog on a positive note. Here is the original painting of Raiden Shogun for your viewing pleasure:
