How To Protect Your Art Against AI

Many artists' livelihoods take place online and in social media, but how can they protect themselves from their work being used to train AI programs? It is a growing concern as “AI scraping” is essentially theft, and no creator wants their work stolen or worse stolen then mass marketed without credit or consent. We put together a handy guide to help you protect your art from AI scraping and some general internet theft too.

Can I protect my art from AI?
What is AI scraping?
Are there steps I can take to protect my work?
    Glaze and Nightshade
    Watermarks
    Real Pictures
    Trusted Platforms
What is Linktober doing to protect participants?

 

Can I protect my art from AI?

Yes, and no. At this moment in time (2024) there is no 100% sure fire way to completely protect your art from AI (artificial intelligence). The reasons being that if your work is out there in the public eye whether that is on social media, on the internet (your website or others), or even on display in a public place there could be someone who takes a picture of it or records it and submits it to AI datasets (unlikely and deliberately inconsiderate). This is a very real but still unlikely scenario. It is far more likely that your work has been scraped by bots that crawl social media and the internet (even if you removed it). AI scraping is serious and immoral.

Learn to protect your art from AI on social media & the internet

 

What is AI scraping?

AI scraping is when images, poems, music, art, etc are taken (usually without consent) from “public spaces” such as the internet or social media, and then are submitted into the datasets used to train AI. There are now clauses built into the terms and conditions of use on many websites and social media platforms that state they can scrape for AI training purposes. This is scary and a big red flag.


No, this does not mean you should go and delete ALL of your work off of social media…because, sadly it has likely already been scraped and if not then the social media platforms have archives of all data past. Removal can only protect against future possible scraping. Removing your posts on social media is strictly at your own discretion.

Source from Glaze report https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.04222.pdf

 

Are there steps I can take to protect my work?

There most certainly are many ways you can protect your art from AI scraping and training, but again it is not fool–proof or for certain. Below are just a few things you can do to try and keep your work safe from being used without your consent and credit. As we learn of more options we will keep adding to the list, and if information changes we will update things here as well.

Source from Glaze report https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.04222.pdf

 

Glaze and Nightshade

Glaze and Nightshade are programs that have been developed that add a layer to your images. This layer jumbles AI bots as they crawl looking for images. Some artists out there like this method and others feel it changes the colors and overall look of the images they run through it. The jury is still out on this one, but the fact that ANYONE at all is even trying to help protect us artists in this manner means the world to us.

Source from Glaze report https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.04222.pdf

 

Watermarks & Signatures

This is probably one of the easiest and simplest methods but still doesn’t eliminate the possibility of your work being scraped for training. Watermarks are the transparent logos/emblems/designs that overlay images and usually prevent theft or re-use around the internet, but they do take away from the quality and visuals of the overall image as they can change the color and even block things at times. Signatures on the other hand can be fully opaque and be small and hidden. This, again, will not fully protect your art from being used but can really help even if you use both a watermark and a signature. It does not have to be your actual signature but as long as it is something YOU put there and only YOU really know that it is there (as most will ignore it) then if push came to shove in a court of law it may hold up.

 

Real Pictures

Okay so this should be straightforward, however not the easiest for some to try to do. When you want to share your work on social media and the internet it can be a good practice to take an actual picture of it. What this means is that if it is a physical work you can take a picture of it with your camera or phone but not just of the art/creation make sure to get some of the surroundings and background in the photo too in an effort to prove it really exists. This may not be easy for those who write, those who do digital art, or others, but it still can be done by taking pictures of it on your device with your camera or phone.

If you need examples of what this looks like or how to make it look good you can visit Captain Joel’s social media as he often posts images of his Linktober art that are actual photos. This is also a great way to practice photo compositions with your work. If your art is a physical drawing or painting it is great to get pictures of it with some of the tools used to make it, or some Zelda items around it, or even some Linktober stuff in the pictures too! These “real” pictures of your work can sometimes even help out on social media against the algorithms and make your posts do better as they look different from all the other posts.

Source joeldsiegel on Instagram

 

Trusted Platforms

Another biggie among the concerned creatives out there across the web and around the world are which places are “safe” to share work to without it getting scraped or even stored by the social media companies. This is a complicated answer as a lot of them are hiding clauses within their terms and conditions of use, so you do need to read them. From what we can tell from our own research that CARA is the safest as they seem anti-AI and to be for “artists”, and then there is Tumblr is having a revival and MIGHT be a good one (you have to opt out manually), and lastly Bluesky seems to also be safe for the moment. All of this can change in the blink of an eye though so remain vigilant when it comes to social media. Our Linktober Discord server is also a safe enough space because we will never let the images there be shared to AI to the best of our abilities unless Discord changes their own rules.

Platforms we know are NOT safe at all are Facebook, Instagram, and Threads as they are all owned by META and have recently made it difficult to opt out of having your work scraped for their own AI training. X formerly Twitter is also not a safe space…for anything. Being owned by the wanna-be supervillain Elon; he wants to do everything in his power to steal your ideas and capitalize on them. DeviantArt is not a safe space as they had even launched their own AI, which scraped ALL the art already on DeviantArt, made it so users had to opt-out as you were automatically opted in for it, then they walked it all back and made all users opted out. It was and is likely still too late for them though. If you want to protect your art then maybe avoid using those platforms.

In your own travels through social media and the internet if you get wind of places being safe or places not being safe then please share them with us.

 

What is Linktober doing to protect participants?

What are we doing to protect your art? The real answer is that we are not sure. At the moment we are doing our best to help educate our fans and participants everywhere about this issue, but that may not be enough. Will we delete all our past posts on social media that reshared people’s art? We will only do that at the creators’ request as deleting things from social media is unnecessary at this point because likely all posts there have already been scraped, used, and archived. That doesn’t mean we still won’t do it, but if you want your work removed from our social media then that is okay, just message us and let us know.

We will be limiting our resharing A LOT more than we have in the past. This isn’t just a protective effort from our team, but the algorithms have now made it virtually impossible for us to sort through our hashtags on some platforms. We will likely reshare to stories on Instagram since they are temporary, but ultimately if you as a creator or artist have shared your work on social media then we will take that as a sign that it is okay to keep sharing your work and leading new followers to you. We will take it as a sign that you feel it is safe enough to share your work.

As AI gets even more prominent, more protection will appear and we will be able to continue to alter course and help our fans and participants out even more than we can now. Until then just remain steadfast and use our steps to help.

Recap of Linktober's Steps to Safely Share Your Work

The closest to 100% protected against AI would be to not share your work at all including in-person, but that defeats the purpose. Therefore if you follow some or even all of our suggestions then you may be as close to completely protected as possible. Start by taking “real pictures” of your work, add a watermark and or a signature in there, then run it through Glaze or Nightshade, and lastly know where you are sharing your work to is a safe space protected from the scraping for AI training. The Triforce is strong with you and together we can work to protect your art and educate each other to keep our creations safe from the evil clutches of AI.