Current Events > Lol someone is deadass getting mad about AI art in my D&D group.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Apparently it's stealing? We're just using it for tokens and shit on roll20. No money is changing hands or anything. What does CE think?

they r dum

No! You gotta pirate Hildebrandt bros. art like a true gamer!!

They're right

Honestly if that was like session 1 and they were like ACTUALLY mad about it to the point where we are all now sitting here debating this stupid shit instead of just playing D&D I would not invite them to session 2.

It's technically stealing because a lot of these AI generation tools are scraping from art sites without checking the rights or permissions of the actual owners and using it to produce derivative works. I think there's already a lawsuit out there from a stock photo site because they're finding their watermark showing up in generated imagery. It was a bigger deal when nfts were a thing and people were wholesale stealing art from deviantART and then selling it as their own nft.

So if this was an AI art generation site that could guarantee it wasn't using copyrighted trademarked or otherwise owned art in its training set then it would be completely valid to use it to generate tokens and whatnot. With the current tools that are available though, while generating art for tokens isn't theft, the technology you're using is built directly on top of pretty blatant theft, so do with that knowledge what you will.

I didn't realize it was a problem with people tbh. Very eye opening. As a DM i've just been using art I find on google willy nilly.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/9/4/AABp1HAADs6a.jpg

Well let me clarify that I don't personally think it's a problem. Fair use is a real thing and in 99% of cases using something for a personal project that won't be monetized puts you morally and ethically (and legally) in the clear. I also don't think this is a topic most people really care about. I just wanted to perhaps clarify why your friend might believe it is stealing.

what does the group usually do?
do they all make their own/commision art for their characters?

cause every time i've made a character i just go on Google
best i can do is slightly edit someone elses work

while we're on the subject, do you think an artist would be flattered or angered if i told them i took their art and used it for a DnD character?

nevermind, i found the specific artists twitter, they made a post about that. would be a bad idea

Artwork I stole for a recent Cleric:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/6/AAEhCpAAEPSS.jpg

ROBANN_88 posted...

while we're on the subject, do you think an artist would be flattered or angered if i told them i took their art and used it for a DnD character?

I would think flattered assuming it wasn't deeply sarcastic (like "hey, that art was so ugly I photoshopped it green and it's my ogre avatar now")

s0nicfan posted...

(like "hey, that art was so ugly I photoshopped it green and it's my ogre avatar now")

But... it's just a photo of Richard Nixon.

s0nicfan posted...

I would think flattered assuming it wasn't deeply sarcastic (like "hey, that art was so ugly I photoshopped it green and it's my ogre avatar now")

nah, they made a very nice red tiefling. but since another player was also playing a red tiefling, i changed it to blue. the edit was pretty good if i can say so myself.

but it'd doesn't matter cause the artists twitter had a post saying "my characters--ANY that I post on here that are not adoptables-- are NOT for personal use."
so not gonna do that

TopGoats posted...

Apparently it's stealing?

It is, in most cases.

It's hard to imagine having a problem with this in a not recorded home game. I could maaaaaybe understand if you were streaming your game but otherwise...