Wiki and Forum Policy - General Discussion

Tremmor, we are not professing independent expertise in the copyright status of images, no matter how they are created. That's the point. Neither you nor I is a copyright lawyer. Also, plagiarism is distinct from copyright. You can't make a copy of the Mona Lisa and claim it as your original work.

Nobody should be creating original art to illustrate trope articles anyway. I refuse to believe this is more than a hypothetical edge case. Surely there must be more illustrative images out there, like ones that are actually from works that demonstrate the tropes in question.

• Artwork that is part of an original work is credited to that work regardless of how it was created.
• Nobody should be using original art to illustrate tropes.
• It's not our job to determine the copyright status of art. We need to follow the rules when we use it, full stop.
• If someone doesn't like how we use art, they can file a DMCA claim.

> Nobody should be using original art to illustrate tropes.

It's a little late for that when we do have trope pages with pictures created by tropers..

Which have always been encouraged and rewarded.

Huh. Somehow I was ignorant of that fact with respect to tropes. Still, it applies to work articles.

Well, yeah. But we were never really discussing those, since it isn't a thing that happens.

I think nobody would question that images for work pages should be the work's cover art or something equally official, another established procedure everyone has followed so far. The work that has started the conversation, The Naked Jedi, had an AI cover, so there was no precedent, and we've eventually agreed that if it's something the author chose for representation then it's fine.

Without giving my opinion on this sticky subject, are there already any trope pages that use AI-generated pics?

If any do eventually crop up, maybe there should be a list of them somewhere.

Edited by Lymantria on May 2nd 2024 at 2:20:40 PM

It was previously banned by IP, so, no.

Anyway, I guess what my question boils down to is:

If a troper decides to use AI to make a trope page image, and the AI steals art in such a way that it's obvious plagiarism (such that a human would be accused of theft or tracing) and this image is added to the Wiki, would the troper in question be guilty of breaking any rules?

It's actually different; unless the troper made the art & did so for a trope page, the art would usually be from a different artist and used for a work context (fanfic) or a YMMV-adjacent page. Besides, fan art is technically copyrighted to the artist, while AI art cannot legally be yet. The art itself would almost never be considered plagiarism, but AI art is a different case.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 2nd 2024 at 2:48:09 PM

That sounds like a scenario that should have already happened with fan art already once. How was it dealt that time?

that's generally not possible to happen with standard ai image generators, unless it's copying a specific image that's extremely well known

(like, the ai can reproduce the Mona Lisa, because that's got hundreds of copies in its database. but it doesn't store copies of the art that's used to create the nueral net. It really can't trace or copy specific parts of copyrighted images. I suppose it could by coincidence end up with something that strongly resembles an existing piece, but that would be very unlikely, let alone getting close enough to infringe on copyright. Unless someone is copying intentionally, like with image-to-image, it shouldn't be an issue)

but fighteer is right that this is very unlikely to be an issue anyway. On the ImageSource.Troper Made page, most of the examples are of graphs and charts, there's only like half a dozen tropes on the entire site that have an actual illustration created specifically for that trope page— i don't see that changing. We have always prioritized images from specific works.

Edited by Tremmor19 on May 3rd 2024 at 3:18:08 PM

For full transparency:

I'm asking not out of concern, but out of a desire to have everyone understand what's actually being discussed. Confusion over things like where the images would be used muddled the original point people were trying to get at. If the answer is just that there's no problem here and that AI images would not be considered as plagiarism, cool — problem solved. I'm not actually afraid of such a problem ever happening and it's most likely a non-issue, a problem so niche there's no chance of it coming to pass.

But fact of the matter is, AI images are a hot button topic now in part because it's widely known (or believed) that AI's often steal. So any time we use an AI generated trope image, we are stepping into a possible scenario where art got copied and the copier is putting it on the wiki. It's not quite the same as plagiarized text, but it's such a common concern that it shouldn't be a surprise people want to nail down exactly how this will affect current policy — if it even will.

So, yeah. Don't take this as me actually claiming any of this will happen. My only goal here is to properly articulate the question half of us have been trying to ask, without tangents such as focusing on work pages. And obviously the only people who can actually answer are Kory or the mods, given that this is a question of policy and not a discussion on how likely this is.

...And then later mod posts acknowledge the possibility for some AI art to be plagiarized. Just as not every image is fair use. Treating it like normal on the site doesn't inherently mean that there's no possibility of concern, just that we can't treat it differently for being AI. Again though, I'm not asking for debate, just a clear policy.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 3rd 2024 at 4:52:22 AM

I think an earlier admin post made it clear AI artwork doesn't count as plagiarism or copyright infringement until proven otherwise, or US courts say so, or someone files a DMCA. It's a controversial topic, but I don't expect this thread to be the place to decide on it unless there's a very strong argument.

Edited by Amonimus on May 3rd 2024 at 11:46:13 AM

The point is that the manner in which the image was created is irrelevant. Only its content matters, and of course whether the troper in question has the legal right to submit it.

"Because it is AI-generated" is not, in and of itself, a reason to decline a suggested image.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2024 at 8:54:32 AM

There have been cases of images being pulled due to copyright claims sent via the contact form. Copyright claims for AI-generated images won't be handled any differently from past copyright claims.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 3rd 2024 at 8:45:34 AM

Nobody suggested such. The question has always specifically been scenarios where the image somehow breaks copyright, which is possible due to how image generation works.

Which Gaston seems to finally settle as "a thing that can happen with a pre-existing solution"

Literally all I'm trying to do is get a feel for how we'd address one specific policy scenario. Which seems like it may just be "yoink the image".

Edited by WarJay77 on May 3rd 2024 at 12:49:17 PM

If it is affirmatively demonstrated that an image violates copyright, it may be removed, but we should not assume that AI-generated images do that just because of their provenance.

It is not our responsibility to independently make that determination, either.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2024 at 12:51:47 PM

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but what specifically would that mean? like, in a concrete way, what kind of output would an image generator produce that would violate copyright? (well, besides copyrighted characters, but that's obviously not a concern we have). I thought this was the concern about "copy pasting" from the training data, but it's possible we may be talking about different things.

Edited by Tremmor19 on May 3rd 2024 at 1:17:12 PM

1. There is a belief among many that generative AI inherently plagiarizes any content that it uses in its training data set(s) for which permission was not affirmatively granted. To the best of my knowledge, this is not legally tested and TV Tropes is not in the business of inventing legal theories.
   • Whether AI art "harms" artists is a matter of public contention and is irrelevant to our policies anyway.
2. It is held by many that generative content is not copyrightable. This is irrelevant to TV Tropes, as our policy requires attribution of all content that we republish here regardless of its copyright status.
3. Absent a published legal ruling to the contrary, art incorporated by a work's creator into its content or marketing should be attributed to that work and/or creator regardless of how the art was produced.
4. Art created by third parties (fan art or fanart) to illustrate work articles is discouraged in deference to "official" art.
5. Art created by third parties to illustrate trope articles is allowed, and for our purposes should be attributed to its creator (and/or submitter, if these are the same person). However, preference should be given to art from published works.
6. Any reproduction of art on TV Tropes is subject to Fair Use regardless of its copyright status or provenance.
7. TV Tropes should not be used to host or publish original creative content, save for the writing in our articles themselves.
   • The Trope Pantheons are an exception, one that I'd very much like to get rid of.

Edited by Fighteer on May 3rd 2024 at 3:26:19 PM

If it matters I don't have a personal fear of plagiarized AI art, nor would I be able to say how much would need to be copied for it to count. Genuinely, I just wanted to explain the issue people were attempting to bring up so that we could get a proper answer. Now that it's been addressed, I'm satisfied and have no other questions.

I'm planning to close a thread up but how could I do that?

Report your post in the topic so the mods can do that for you

so, I reported my post to the mods, how long does it take to wait?

Maybe minutes, maybe days. Just be patient, they'll get around to it.

Not sure if this has been asked before, but why is the "Poor Image Quality" reason removed from the IP threads?

IIRC, its because we have the Image Quality Upgrade thread for fixes to otherwise good pics and image quality alone isn't enough to pull an image unless it makes it hard to see the trope clearly or exceedingly bad. In that case, the thread can easily be folded under "Needs Help" or "Does Not Illustrate" (if the quality is so bad the trope can't be seen clearly).

Edited by MacronNotes on May 8th 2024 at 4:03:34 AM