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License update: AI derivation prohibited on all my art, lore, stories, comics

38 pointsposted 7 hours ago

28 Comments

zemlyansky

6 hours ago

> I'll soon write a tiny "AI derivation prohibited" side by side to my Creative Commons licenses, and everywhere I can. I'll start this update from today, and backport it to previous artworks and comics, but it might take time.

these licenses are irrevocable and you can't just "backport" additional restrictions

https://creativecommons.org/faq/#what-happens-if-the-author-...

gpm

6 hours ago

You can't revoke the old ones, you can choose to only communicate new ones with the restrictions though, and make it other peoples problem to figure out if there's another more permissive license available for that particular work...

For CC By-Sa works the new one might also not be strictly less permissive, because applying the restriction should allow people deriving derivatives to do the same via the share alike clause when they previously couldn't (though I didn't actually check the wording this person is using so this is just assuming the restriction is applied like I think it ought to be).

F3nd0

6 hours ago

You can’t backport additional restrictions to a CC licence, but you can publish the same work under a new licence. Naturally that won’t stop anyone from using the work under terms of the old licence if they know about it, but it might discourage people (and in fantastical theory, bots) who don’t.

Another point is that any updates to existing works will only be available under the new licence. This might seem irrelevant to drawings and paintings, but the author has on occasion made changes to his older works for one reason or another, so at least the resulting newer versions would be protected by the additional terms (assuming they’re legally in the clear, of course).

bbor

5 hours ago

I wasted many minutes on this, but I'm pretty sure that yes, he can. Creative commons is just a boilerplate to get you started in an actual litigation, not itself binding (especially not their FAQ page). If he only displays his comics with these captions, anyone who ignores them will now very likely be liable under french law.

AFAICT the only thing that could possibly change this is if he explicitly passed his "moral rights" to another person, but obviously that doesn't apply here. CC-BY 4.0 contains this clause, but I don't think you can just be made to "agree to waive" these rights, as "to the extent possible" hints at:

  Moral rights, such as the right of integrity, are not licensed under this Public License, nor are publicity, privacy, and/or other similar personality rights; however, to the extent possible, the Licensor waives and/or agrees not to assert any such rights held by the Licensor to the limited extent necessary to allow You to exercise the Licensed Rights, but not otherwise.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.en

vfosnar

6 hours ago

uh, also writing it next to cc sounds like a dumb idea, as it makes it a bit of a legal hell? like as long as its not an explicit exception to the cc license like llvm does with their license this seems pretty ambiguous what license really applies here

tumetab1

6 hours ago

I might think this is not effective, but I fully agree with an author to state its intent.

joquarky

5 hours ago

No.

Copyright was created to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The means to that are arbitrary and we have chosen a bad system that creates dictators who can create complex rules that diminish our cultural commons.

user

4 hours ago

[deleted]

fleshmonad

7 hours ago

Okay

lowbloodsugar

7 hours ago

> I'll tolerate the usage of software that received AI contributions. I myself paint and create daily on a Linux operating system, a project that accepted AI code contributions.

“Artists gotta eat but not programmers”. Commoditize your complements at the societal level.

mechazawa

7 hours ago

That has been the sentement for a while, programming is not considered "creative work" so has no value in their eyes

F3nd0

6 hours ago

I feel that’s a gross mischaracterisation of the author’s beliefs. David Revoy has always been a very vocal supporter of free software, showing great respect for the work that goes into it and appreciation for the community around it.

He clearly states that for him, abandoning Linux is ‘not possible right now’. Which makes sense, because GNU/Linux has been the free user-friendly alternative. What else do people expect him to do? Jump ship to BSD or GNU/Hurd and expect his entire workflow to work perfectly on day one? Start painting using pencil and paper, completely changing the nature of his work from day to day?

Moreover, if Linux, Ubuntu, or Debian (I’m not quite up to date on that) have accepted AI contributions, it’s because their maintainers have decided to accept them. It’s not like David has been vibecoding his tools to replace human-made software; he just can’t be expected to flawlessly work around everyone else who decides to do that. Contrasting him exercising control over his own work to stifle AI and choosing to (at least temporarily) tolerate others not doing the same with theirs (that he in turn makes use of) as some kind of hypocrisy is in extremely bad taste.

lowbloodsugar

6 hours ago

The distinction is between who chooses to use the AI as a tool, and whose intellectual property was stolen to make the AI tool in the first place. “Linux maintainers choose to use AI” is a different issue entirely from “I do not want my IP to be used to train models”.

By his own standards then, I can say “Well I’m ok to use ComfyUI because its developers have explicitly said it’s fine to use with common AI models”. Like his Linux argument, it completely ignores what IP those models were trained on.

He takes the position: “My art is released Creative Commons except for AI”. I expect many open source programmers feel the same way, but he’s quite happy not to even discuss that and instead take the position that the maintainers said it’s fine.

F3nd0

6 hours ago

Sorry, this might be on me, but I don’t follow. I understood your first comment to point out that the author is not okay with AI consuming or processing his copyrighted works in any way, while also making use of software using code generated by AI (which was itself trained on copyrighted work, very possibly against the law and certainly against many of the contributors’ wishes) for his work. I thought you were painting that as plainly hypocritical, and I argued it wasn’t. Did I misunderstand you?

By his standards, as I understand them, AI should respect and preserve the copyright of the data it’s trained on. Since that is not the current practice, he doesn’t want AI training on his works or generating derivative art, and prefers to avoid AI-generated works in general (including software). I don’t see any discrepancy or hypocrisy in that, nor do I see how your ComfyUI example relates. A clarification would be much appreciated!

> he’s quite happy not to even discuss that and instead take the position that the maintainers said it’s fine.

Where does he take that position?

socializer

7 hours ago

That's the general attitude everyone has about AI. "Oh no, it's ruining the thing I love" / "haha, it's simplifying the thing I hate".

Not a great philosophy when you realize that the set of things we all love is probably empty. Well, maybe it contains kittens.

technothrasher

7 hours ago

I know you meant it just as an off-hand joke, but sadly there are most definitely people who hate kittens.

Retric

7 hours ago

A voluntary donations of your effort are not the same a theft.

A great number of doctors, lawyers, artists, programmers. etc donate their time doing professional level work to worthy causes. Whatever anyone does with AI is not in the same category.

lowbloodsugar

7 hours ago

The AI doing the programming was trained using theft. If theft of intellectual property is wrong, as he says it is of his output, then it’s wrong for training programming too.

Retric

7 hours ago

Their stance withAI code is it is theft.

“I don't like their policy, but I accept it as it is because it is not possible right now for me to paint on something else.”

lowbloodsugar

6 hours ago

No it’s explicitly “I am ok with theft if it impacts me economically.”

F3nd0

6 hours ago

There’s a massive difference between ‘I am okay with theft if it impacts me economically’ and ‘I am not okay with theft but will tolerate it for some time, in some measure, because not doing so would be extremely challenging and impractical’.

To give a comparable example, I hate proprietary software, but I still run some of it on my computer, because avoiding all proprietary software everywhere is extremely impractical in current day and age. You can take a meaningful stance against something without being Stallman levels of principled.

user

6 hours ago

[deleted]

joquarky

5 hours ago

The death of copyright won't come from a sudden amputation of existing law, but by millions of tiny cuts made by the multitude of directives, conditions, and riders made by intellectual property megalomaniacs.

archagon

6 hours ago

It’s good to have these addendums. They have no teeth at the moment, but if and when some jurisdiction, somewhere gets pissed off enough to start prosecuting AI companies, showing that a) your license explicitly prohibits AI use, and b) AI is “intelligent” enough to understand this text, but ignores it anyway, will make it much easier to participate in lawsuits.

voidfunc

7 hours ago

Good luck with that...

bbor

5 hours ago

Ok I'm here for the same arguing as y'all are (namely: seems both unenforceable and completely against the FLOSS ethos, and adding a clause by hand is more like a sign than a rule in practice) but that's all less interesting than the 'moral rights' he bases this all on philosophically -- or, in less dramatic terms, non-economic intellectual property rights. These would be completely separate from any "license" changes, but it's still interesting.

For one thing, the United States has it but it only applies to the kinds of things a 6y/o says when asked "what is art?" which is pretty funny (paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs), and would exclude David's work. I wonder if he's been webcomicing long enough to remember the days when drawing tablets were a violation of the sacred...

For another, "I assert my rights" sounds like some SovCit tomfoolery like we have in the ~Commonwealth, but is indeed a thing! Pretty funny as well, I think.

More relevantly, these 'moral' rights (ugh) seem to... well, I'll just link France's insanely nice statute site: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT0000... (Article L121-6 of the Intellectual Property Code). The relevant clause is the first:

  > L'auteur jouit du droit au respect de son nom, de sa qualité et de son oeuvre.
  > ~=> The author has the right to respectful, accurate attribution (both name and role), and the right to respectful treatment of their work (both physically and in spirit).

I wasted a bunch of time on this but in the end it's simple, and explained pretty definitively by a recent case about fine art depicting Tintin: A) characters and vague story elements are indeed covered, and B) the Tintin usage was illegal because it had women in it, which the author explicitly disavowed (which: ???). If David explicitly tells people that AI art makes him mad, that seems to be enough to get the state to punish anyone who uses it.

There are carve-outs for parody and use among a "family circle", but they're superceeded in turn by a clause on the author's "legitimate interests". Unless that has some special french meaning (e.g. only economic?), this is all down to "does a French judge think AI is legitimately hated." Given the vibes I'm getting from the precedents, that seems very, very likely.

(They tried to pass a law once to make that official, but it failed in the EU -- will surely try again soon, with the Pope's support)

TL;DR: David's almost definitely correctly understanding the law here. That's... that's wild. Honestly sucks to know that even my #1 emmigration dream is so thoroughly infested with intellectual property laws :(

user

7 hours ago

[deleted]

micromacrofoot

6 hours ago

Unfortunately this is as effective as going outside and declaring it to the sky.