AI Art & Attribution

Hey, WOLFers! We've got a couple announcements today concerning artwork.

AI Art

After much deliberation, the CM team has settled on an official stance for AI art use on the site. Due to the high likelihood of these programs using art without the consent of artists, as well as controversy surrounding AI art and copyright infringement, we will no longer be permitting AI art at WOLF and it will be treated similar to art theft going forward. Our policy on art theft is as follows:

Art theft is STRICTLY prohibited on Wolf. Unless you commissioned the piece or have permission to use it, do not display artwork on your wolf’s profile or avatar. This includes work from third party sites (such as Wolvden). Doing so will result in an automatic strike.

There is one exception. Because it is ethically trained on open source and Adobe licensed images only, we will permit AI art generated by Adobe Firefly. For this artwork to pass muster, the Adobe Firefly watermark must be intact and visible.

Art Credit

To go along with the above and to create a standard across the site, we are adjusting our policy on art credit. Our current policy is as follows:

Any artwork on your profile (if not created by you) must have clear attribution.

Our enforcement of this rule has been inconsistent and it is becoming too difficult for us to determine whether uncredited art was created by the player or another artist. Going forward, we require clear attribution for all artwork, no matter who created it. You may use the Art Credit field in your profile, or give credit directly below the artwork, or have a list of credits in your Player Notes, but all artwork must be credited somewhere in the location it is used and the credit must be visible, i.e. not hidden behind a hover code. Intact and readable signatures / watermarks on images will suffice as credit.

Additionally, we are asking that players do their best to credit photography used for avatars or references. We understand that many roleplayers have years worth of wolf photos saved on their computers and may be unable to track down the original photographer to give credit, but where possible, we ask that players give the same consideration to photos as you do artwork and make an effort to use Creative Commons compliant photographs with appropriate credit.

While these changes are in effect starting today and will be checked during approval for new accounts, existing active accounts have until September 22, 2023 to add art credits and remove AI art not created via Adobe Firefly. After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike and removal of the artwork. Inactive accounts will not be checked until they reactivate, so please make sure to check over your profiles and add missing credits before submitting for reactivation!

Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns about these updates.

After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike

It is a bit concerning to me to think that someone can get a strike for not crediting their own art work, tbh. I can understand most of the changes but this seems overly harsh to me.

I get almost all of my photography from Unsplash, and crediting the exact artist there is not necessary to use their free photos. What is your stance on this? A lot of my art credits just say “Unsplash.” Do you want me to go back and find the EXACT photographer?

And what about pack banner art? Will you be checking those for art credits?

The threat of a strike over this seems extremely harsh IMO, considering you never enforced this before. Why not just inactivate their account and tell them they can’t activate again until they take down the AI art/properly credit? The fear of getting a strike over this would literally just make me quit Wolf tbh.

After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike

It is a bit concerning to me to think that someone can get a strike for not crediting their own art work, tbh. I can understand most of the changes but this seems overly harsh to me.

Hey, don't worry! There's a grace period so everyone can adjust to the updated requirements. We've had an increasing amount of art theft, so we want to make sure we're protecting artists.

To be clear, the Guidebook has always required art credit; what is new is now personal art must also have credit. We felt this stance needed to be made more clear than it was previously in the Guidebook. All art not made by your own person has always required credit. Our policy and enforcement on art theft has not changed - this has always been an automatic strike. In the event of a strike (for this or anything else), a player is always welcome to reach out to discuss if they feel the process was unfair.

If I unknowingly receive art that was created using an AI and I credit the artist that made the image, believing they made it themselves, will I still receive a strike even though I wasn't aware of the image's source?

Also curious on the restrictions of this. If someone uses an AI to create a base image, then edits, manipulates, and builds upon the image to create their own art, is this still disallowed?

After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike

It is a bit concerning to me to think that someone can get a strike for not crediting their own art work, tbh. I can understand most of the changes but this seems overly harsh to me.

Hey, don't worry! There's a grace period so everyone can adjust to the updated requirements. We've had an increasing amount of art theft, so we want to make sure we're protecting artists.

To be clear, the Guidebook has always required art credit; what is new is now personal art must also have credit. We felt this stance needed to be made more clear than it was previously in the Guidebook. All art not made by your own person has always required credit.  Our policy and enforcement on art theft has not changed - this has always been an automatic strike.  In the event of a strike (for this or anything else), a player is always welcome to reach out to discuss if they feel the process was unfair.

The part that concerns me is the possibility of a strike for art theft where no actual art theft has occurred. In cases where someone has paid for or made the art but failed to add credit, it's not theft. A warning system would be more fitting, in my opinion, even if it's just a single warning

Also, I have some art I bought years ago from artists who didn't require credit & I no longer have their names saved. Is that going to be considered art theft?

To follow up my previous concerns, what about gifs? Or tweets? Or other things like memes? How would you go about crediting a meme image? Is that necessary? Are these things even allowed anymore?

After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike

It is a bit concerning to me to think that someone can get a strike for not crediting their own art work, tbh. I can understand most of the changes but this seems overly harsh to me.

Hey, don't worry! There's a grace period so everyone can adjust to the updated requirements. We've had an increasing amount of art theft, so we want to make sure we're protecting artists.

To be clear, the Guidebook has always required art credit; what is new is now personal art must also have credit. We felt this stance needed to be made more clear than it was previously in the Guidebook. All art not made by your own person has always required credit.  Our policy and enforcement on art theft has not changed - this has always been an automatic strike.  In the event of a strike (for this or anything else), a player is always welcome to reach out to discuss if they feel the process was unfair.

The part that concerns me is the possibility of a strike for art theft where no actual art theft has occurred. In cases where someone has paid for or made the art but failed to add credit, it's not theft. A warning system would be more fitting, in my opinion, even if it's just a single warning

Also, I have some art I bought years ago from artists who didn't require credit & I no longer have their names saved. Is that going to be considered art theft?

Our policy on art theft has been the same for years. Nothing has changed on this end. What has changed is we are now requiring members who made their own art to credit themselves on their profile. This is a very small ask, and it is in direct relation to the increase in art theft we’ve handled on WOLF and multiple artist concerns about theft in general. In an effort to be more consistent with our art credit policy, we’re now requiring all art to be credited at all times regardless if you’re the artist of it or not. This is so there is zero confusion about our crediting requirements.

If you don’t know the artist, don’t use the art. You can always ask members in the Discord to help you track down the artist so you can appropriately credit. Again, crediting other people for their art has always been required so this scenario would have been handled the same before today as it is being handled after today.

For the record — a strike is our warning. You get three of them before you are banned from WOLF.

To follow up my previous concerns, what about gifs? Or tweets? Or other things like memes? How would you go about crediting a meme image? Is that necessary? Are these things even allowed anymore?

There is no current Guidebook policy established for non-digital/traditional-art images like gifs from shows, tweets, or memes.

If you’d like one, you are welcome to start a new thread discussing possible policy changes on this topic.

For the record — a strike is our warning. You get three of them before you are banned from WOLF.

For clarity - if a strike is a warning, does that mean that any violation of any of the policies in the Guidebook/Required Reading is an automatic strike?

For the record — a strike is our warning. You get three of them before you are banned from WOLF.

For clarity - if a strike is a warning, does that mean that any violation of any of the policies in the Guidebook/Required Reading is an automatic strike?

Respectfully, I am with Elphaba here. If a strike is a warning, why is the nudge system in place? A strike is a punishment, not a warning. The language you are using just feels very threatening, and I do not want a stick dangled over my head like that.

Also, for what it's worth, I'm not being contrary for the sake of it or because I don't believe in crediting artists. As an artist myself I've always been careful about following the rules of any artist I commission. I'm giving my opinion here because I enjoy this community and I see this change in stance negatively affecting it - and it is a change in stance, as you acknowledged in the first post, because this rule was previously unenforced. I'm aware that ultimately the CM team will do what you guys feel is best, but I did want to speak my thoughts on this.

If I unknowingly receive art that was created using an AI and I credit the artist that made the image, believing they made it themselves, will I still receive a strike even though I wasn't aware of the image's source?

we will handle this on a case-by-case basis, since it seems an unlikely scenario.

If someone uses an AI to create a base image, then edits, manipulates, and builds upon the image to create their own art, is this still disallowed?

this is not allowed, as it is building on somebody else's artwork. if you would like to build on adobe firefly artwork, you may do so as long as the watermark remains intact.

For clarity - if a strike is a warning, does that mean that any violation of any of the policies in the Guidebook/Required Reading is an automatic strike?

art theft has always been an automatic strike. other repeated rule-breaking may be cause for a strike.

If a strike is a warning, why is the nudge system in place? A strike is a punishment, not a warning.

the nudge system is for player-to-player interaction to express preferences. getting one (or even two) strikes has no effect on a player. only when you have accumulated three strikes does anything happen, and we are very clear on that when players receive strikes.

it is a change in stance, as you acknowledged in the first post, because this rule was previously unenforced.

we have always given strikes for (known) art theft. it is the unknown part that we are being more thorough with now.

If I unknowingly receive art that was created using an AI and I credit the artist that made the image, believing they made it themselves, will I still receive a strike even though I wasn't aware of the image's source?

we will handle this on a case-by-case basis, since it seems an unlikely scenario.

If someone uses an AI to create a base image, then edits, manipulates, and builds upon the image to create their own art, is this still disallowed?

this is not allowed, as it is building on somebody else's artwork. if you would like to build on adobe firefly artwork, you may do so as long as the watermark remains intact.

Gotcha! Thank you for the clarifications!

I'm all for this tbh.

If it means I/we gotta strictly use Dawnthieves for edits for a while (with credit to the original photographer) that makes it simple.

Thanks for the update and taking a stance against AI! :)

we have always given strikes for (known) art theft. it is the unknown part that we are being more thorough with now.

This is the part that I take issue with, just to clarify. Receiving a strike for something that could be an absentminded mistake is not simple, casual, or fun. It is stressful. I think that's all I have to say on this. Thank you both for the discussion.

we have always given strikes for (known) art theft. it is the unknown part that we are being more thorough with now.

This is the part that I take issue with, just to clarify. Receiving a strike for something that could be an absentminded mistake is not simple, casual, or fun. It is stressful. I think that's all I have to say on this. Thank you both for the discussion.

I know I am on my phone which is not my best writing device, and tone can be hard to read over text, but I wanted to address this comment and another concern earlier voiced by Harvest because I don't want either of you (or anyone reading) to be worried about this revision. When the CM team says we didn't consistently enforce the pre-existing rule, we meant that we have been aware of (and at times, alerted to) people who forgot attribution on a profile. Despite the language saying this was a strike-able offense, we did not auto-strike because we recognized there are fringe cases where someone can be human and simply forget attribution.

That is why to date, no one has ever received a strike for the honest mistake of missing a credit on art that isn't made by them. But it has created a dichotomy when someone who has stolen art sees that there are (other) profiles with no art credit given. It has also become increasingly difficult to know, intuitively, who is the original artist of a piece as our memberbase has gotten larger and new (to us) artists join the site.

We've addressed this by firming up that all art requires credit (regardless if it's your own), and given everyone a grace period in addition to only addressing accounts active as of today's date going forward.

This is precisely why we have taken steps to enhance the clarity of this rule and why we specify this is for active accounts, so members don't need to worry about a forgotten attribution in an ancient/long dead profile landing them a strike.

Our intention is to minimize the use of strikes whenever possible, but it is important to note that art theft remains one of the few offenses that results in an instant strike per our Guidebook policy. Preserving the integrity of artists within our community is a priority for us, as we are a community composed of artists. Providing attribution to your art on your profile is a simple way to denote you are the rightful owner of that art, as the CMs can then research the artist to confirm rightful ownership. Without credit, it becomes increasingly challenging for CMs to verify ownership of artwork. In such instances, we may be required to take action based on the information available to us and assume that the artwork is stolen. However, it is worth noting that to date Community Managers have never issued a strike for artwork that was not genuinely stolen. In the unlikely event that a strike is issued for artwork that belongs to the rightful owner, the strike will not be enforced if proper evidence is provided to validate ownership. I hope this helps dissipate any concerns you or anyone reading has about this revision, and I do appreciate you guys feeling comfortable enough to voice your concerns.

In the unlikely eventuality that a strike is issued for artwork that belongs to the rightful owner, the strike will not be enforced if proper evidence is provided to validate ownership.

This was my concern, thank you for addressing it. I can honestly say that even though a strike isn't by itself bannable, receiving one would absolutely ruin my enjoyment of the site - and that is arguably a me problem, but I don't think it's an uncommon sentiment either, which is why I said something. I can understand the CMs needing to take a stance on this and otherwise have no problems with this clarification of the rules.

we have always given strikes for (known) art theft. it is the unknown part that we are being more thorough with now.

This is the part that I take issue with, just to clarify. Receiving a strike for something that could be an absentminded mistake is not simple, casual, or fun. It is stressful. I think that's all I have to say on this. Thank you both for the discussion.

I know I am on my phone which is not my best writing device, and tone can be hard to read over text, but I wanted to address this comment and another concern earlier voiced by Harvest because I don't want either of you (or anyone reading) to be worried about this revision. When the CM team says we didn't consistently enforce the pre-existing rule, we meant that we have been aware of (and at times, alerted to) people who forgot attribution on a profile. Despite the language saying this was a strike-able offense, we did not auto-strike because we recognized there are fringe cases where someone can be human and simply forget attribution.

That is why to date, no one has ever received a strike for the honest mistake of missing a credit on art that isn't made by them. But it has created a dichotomy when someone who has stolen art sees that there are (other) profiles with no art credit given. It has also become increasingly difficult to know, intuitively, who is the original artist of a piece as our memberbase has gotten larger and new (to us) artists join the site.

We've addressed this by firming up that all art requires credit (regardless if it's your own), and given everyone a grace period in addition to only addressing accounts active as of today's date going forward.

This is precisely why we have taken steps to enhance the clarity of this rule and why we specify this is for active accounts, so members don't need to worry about a forgotten attribution in an ancient/long dead profile landing them a strike.

Our intention is to minimize the use of strikes whenever possible, but it is important to note that art theft remains one of the few offenses that results in an instant strike per our Guidebook policy. Preserving the integrity of artists within our community is a priority for us, as we are a community composed of artists. Providing attribution to your art on your profile is a simple way to denote you are the rightful owner of that art, as the CMs can then research the artist to confirm rightful ownership. Without credit, it becomes increasingly challenging for CMs to verify ownership of artwork. In such instances, we may be compelled to take action based on the information available to us and assume that the artwork is stolen. However it is worth noting that to date, Community Managers have never issued a strike for artwork that was not genuinely stolen. In the unlikely eventuality that a strike is issued for artwork that belongs to the rightful owner, the strike will not be enforced if proper evidence is provided to validate ownership. I hope this helps dissipate any concerns you or anyone reading has about this revision, and I do appreciate you guys feeling comfortable enough to voice your concerns.

I don’t know how to say this without sounding petty but this is literally the only example I can think of. This is like when Netflix used to let everyone password share, and then suddenly stopped letting us all do that, and then when people got mad about it they said, “Password sharing was always against our TOS.” Like, yeah, but you always ignored it up until now, and therefore, so did everyone else.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be punished for legitimate art theft, but an automatic strike seems like complete whiplash considering you never enforced the grey area before. This is why I still think a warning before a strike would be better. Even in real life, people who steal copyrighted material (knowingly or not) are given a DMCA take-down notice beforehand. They’re not automatically sued.

So. I’m not saying I disagree that art theft should be addressed. I’m saying it feels like you guys went from 0 to 100 immediately and therefore I am now too scared to put any art anywhere on my profiles in case, somewhere down the line, I change my avatar or something and forget to credit the artist.

I don’t know how to say this without sounding petty but this is literally the only example I can think of. This is like when Netflix used to let everyone password share, and then suddenly stopped letting us all do that, and then when people got mad about it they said, “Password sharing was always against our TOS.” Like, yeah, but you always ignored it up until now, and therefore, so did everyone else.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be punished for legitimate art theft, but an automatic strike seems like complete whiplash considering you never enforced the grey area before. This is why I still think a warning before a strike would be better. Even in real life, people who steal copyrighted material (knowingly or not) are given a DMCA take-down notice beforehand. They’re not automatically sued.

So. I’m not saying I disagree that art theft should be addressed. I’m saying it feels like you guys went from 0 to 100 immediately and therefore I am now too scared to put any art anywhere on my profiles in case, somewhere down the line, I change my avatar or something and forget to credit the artist.

Our language is that art theft is an automatic strike. You have conflated that with "forgetting attribution = automatic strike". Similar to our other policies, we assess rule violations on a case-by-case basis except for cases involving art theft.  If you do not credit appropriately, CMs may have to assume it is art theft. Some members have been generously reminded via PM about our policies, but ultimately it is your responsibility to be aware of and adhere to our rules.  No amount of additional effort, work, or private messages from a Community Manager will change this expectation, and it is not a membership entitlement to receive reminders to follow the rules.

My concerns have been addressed but I do want to point out that the language used in the original post is directly contrary to your latest clarification, Lauren, and that is the source of the concerns.

From the original post:

"After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike and removal of the artwork."

I do appreciate that this is ultimately not the stance you'll be taking, but it was originally stated this way.

My concerns have been addressed but I do want to point out that the language used in the original post is directly contrary to your latest clarification, Lauren, and that is the source of the concerns.

From the original post:

"After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike and removal of the artwork."

I do appreciate that this is ultimately not the stance you'll be taking, but it was originally stated this way.

The reason it is phrased this way is because the latter is genuine art theft (removing signature from a piece that had a signature on it and/or using stolen art), and the former will garner you a strike in certain situations.

Because we cannot possibly account for every single situation in every single way,  we have broad policies that address general themes.

My concerns have been addressed but I do want to point out that the language used in the original post is directly contrary to your latest clarification, Lauren, and that is the source of the concerns.

From the original post:

"After this date, if we see uncredited artwork or AI art without the Firefly watermark on an active account, you will be subject to an art theft strike and removal of the artwork."

I do appreciate that this is ultimately not the stance you'll be taking, but it was originally stated this way.

The reason it is phrased this way is because the latter is genuine art theft (removing signature from a piece that had a signature on it), and the former will garner you a strike in certain situations.

Because we cannot possibly account for every single situation in every single way,  we have broad policies that address general themes.

I don't disagree with this. Like I said, my only concern was that it did very much seem like the intention was to treat this rule like an automated system rather than taking each scenario into account. I also don't disagree with the idea that members shouldn't need to be reminded to follow the rules. My suggestion for a warning came more from a place of not wanting a thoughtless mistake in the future to mean automatically ending up 1/3 of the way toward being permanently banned. I'm an incredibly forgetful person, and maybe that makes me dumb lmfao but I come here to have fun and not worry so much about getting details right all the time.

What if you have old accounts that are either inactive (or you've forgotten you've even made) that do not have art credit (probably because it's something I've made for myself) in them? I think I have a few accounts where I either don't remember I even made them to begin with, or I don't have the password/don't have them linked...I'm trying to go through as many of them as I can remember but I'm sure I'll miss a few. 

Like anyone else, I'm very willing to try and get things properly sorted, I just really don't want to risk getting a strike for something I've honestly just forgotten about.

What if you have old accounts that are either inactive (or you've forgotten you've even made) that do not have art credit (probably because it's something I've made for myself) in them? I think I have a few accounts where I either don't remember I even made them to begin with, or I don't have the password/don't have them linked...I'm trying to go through as many of them as I can remember but I'm sure I'll miss a few. 

Like anyone else, I'm very willing to try and get things properly sorted, I just really don't want to risk getting a strike for something I've honestly just forgotten about.

It only applies to active accounts! <3