Wagner James Au / New World Notes

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Lensa Scraping Artists’ Work Without Their Consent Into Its “AI” Images — Even the Artists’ Signatures!

Lensa AI IP rights

The Lensa app has gone viral in recent weeks, with much excitement over its new AI-driven “magic avatars” feature.

Small problem: It's not exactly magic nor purely artificial intelligence. Instead, to create these avatars, the app is apparently scraping up artists' images without their consent. The image appropriation is so blatant in many cases, the Lensa-generated images even include the original artist's signature. (See example above.)

I learned this via professional illustrator Lauryn Ipusm, who's been posting examples of this on her Twitter in recent days.

 "I think they didn’t think artists would stand up for themselves because we don’t [have] industry labels the way the music industry does," Lauren tells me. She says that, because Stable Diffusion, the AI company which provides Lensa's neural network, is very careful about how the platform samples and trains from recorded music.

"The fact that they do so with their music model shows they are well aware of copyright (I mean it’s a basic concept, anyone who isn’t a little kid is aware of copyright), and that it’s not something that was too complicated to implement."

Lauryn's findings were noted yesterday by NBC News, but so far, Lensa's corporate owner has only offered an incomplete reply:

[Lensa creator] Prisma issued a lengthy Twitter thread on Tuesday morning, in which it addressed concerns of AI art replacing art by actual artists. The thread did not address accusations that many artists didn’t consent to the use of their work for AI training. [Emp. mine – WJA]

"Basically what I want to see is a model where they are using art that’s either in the public domain, and art that has been voluntarily provided," Lauryn tells me. "It’s not that AI art programs shouldn’t exist, but they need to not steal the work they are using to train their programs. An opt in program where royalties are granted when used is an ethical way of doing it.

"Consent, compensation, and credit. These are the things that are currently lacking… licensing the artwork and paying for usage would be the correct way to go about it. That way people are compensated for their work, and they actually have a say as to whether or not it’s even used in the first place."

You can see examples of Lensa blatantly scraping artists' signed images compiled by Lauryn embedded above and below. Surprisingly, Stability AI is not only hoovering up art works of independent artists like her, but art owned by major, sue-happy companies like Disney. So I'd expect all this to come to a head soon.

More about this topic on NBC News. To me this is yet another example of a phenomena that's become so common, it's almost an adage at this point:

Whenever a company says it's using "artificial intelligence", look for unfairly treated humans behind the scenes.

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4 responses to “Lensa Scraping Artists’ Work Without Their Consent Into Its “AI” Images — Even the Artists’ Signatures!”

  1. bloxorz Avatar
    bloxorz

    Really? Because it is so popular in Tik Tok and almost people play it

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  2. Tad Noodle Avatar
    Tad Noodle

    Artists are upset about AI because the people or companies who make them feed artists work into it without their permission. There are galleries full of AI art with stolen art, styles generated from beloved artists who have passed and artists who are still alive trying to make a living off of their work. As an artist who loves SL, I can see the novelty in it, but it also breaks my heart to see SLers embrace AI art when the “art” is stolen from people I admire. It’s funny though, that Lensa is straight up taking the signatures of the artists. Shameless lol. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if the artists were paid for their work, which like 90% of non-artists think is asking too much. AI artists have even begun to harass artists for asking them not to use their art for AI, while other programs rip off styles and techniques under the guise of something else. Ai art was fascinating at first. But for a cost. As a meme generator and a springboard for ideas, sure that’s pretty cool. But stealing art for progress is hurting our livelihoods in an environment where we are fighting for our lives for our business, visibility on social media websites that hate us, and appreciation for our craft. I’m sure people will disagree with me (no surprise there) but the entitlement is unreal. AI art is stealing from artists, so it’s no surprise Lensa is shamelessly generating the signatures too.

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  3. Zoe Jimenez Avatar
    Zoe Jimenez

    I use Midjourney, which samples artists “without consent,” but I would never use it for work to be published if I ever saw it actually cut and paste work from a sampled work. In fact, it is designed to be creative in a way that you CANNOT get it to perfectly replicate an artist’s style or work. It learns from the art it sees in the same way I learned to draw by reading tons of comics. I cant speak for other systems, but Midjourney is a system with safeguards built in so it can’t steal or copy, and they are continually curating its source marerial and systems to prevent copying and stealing. Even attempting to get pictures of celebrities often morphs them a bit to prevent deep-fakes. The problem is not so much the sampling, which is used to teach it rather than to give it content to copy, but the way in which each company allows it to be used, and also whether an artist using the system ethically. I think that a lot of artists who are upset are not only unfamiliar with how these systems actually WORK, but misdirected at the sampling rather than the user and the programmer. It can be programmed and used ethically, and an artist publishing work should be held accountable if they publish a copy directly no matter whether it is ai or hand-drawn. In the meantime, there is no problem with someone tracing a comic book drawing for personal use, or playing with ai apps for some fun. Personal use and publishing carry very different moral standards. As an artist, I actually tried to get midjourney to reproduce one of my drawings by feeding it my art as a reference and it would NOT do it. If someone publishes a comic book using actual pieces of your work, they are liable whether it is ai or not. Projects like midjourney are just the first steps of a much larger destination of art apps that will use assets and apply a created style, much like CGI games and cartoons use assets and have a computer animate them. An artist angry at AI will want to say, “but– but!!” Well, my point is, point your finger at a person who actually copies your art, not at the concept of sampling to teach art. We all do it, and we are responsible for what we create and publish. Go after the company that allows people to actually recreate your work. Get in there on the ai system and make a proof of concept for your case by making the ai reproduce a piece of your work. I would not be able to, with Midjourney. Because, Ethics. As for being compansated for your work? If I hire you or use your actual work, sure, but if I study Jack Kirby and then want to draw a comic by hand in his style without actually copying, there’s not really a legal case there. Jack Kirby might grumble if here were here, or he might hire me. You might even find that learning to use software like midjourney might help teach people concepts of art, help you brainstorm or bounce ideas off of. Get in there and learn what it is first before getting angry – most people have no idea what this really is.

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  4. shak Avatar
    shak

    ” it is designed to be creative in a way that you CANNOT get it to perfectly replicate an artist’s style or work. It learns from the art it sees in the same way I learned to draw by reading tons of comics.” that just simply not true, it is copying the image not copying from the image there is different and it seems you don’t really understand how ai works…

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