New AI Policy

The Frowning Pony

Administrator
13 blinks per minute
@Background Pony #03D3
@saby
For some clarification, this is for the case of artists that have a very clearly defined and unique style. Not “Fluttershy with heart eyes” or “white outlines instead of black”, but the sort of thing that people really on top of the artist style game would look at an image and go, “oh, that’s X’s latest image, only they’ve ever drawn stuff like this!” with absolute certainty.
Not to sound like some sort of snob, but there are people that can easily tell artist styles apart and name any artist from a small thumbnail, and a whole lot that can’t. And unfortunately, plenty that get moist at the idea of aping someone’s unique style to fuck with them, earn commissions by pretending to be them, or just start shit.
Ciaran
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Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
@saby
In my opinion, some people on this site have copied an artist’s style in the past, either to replicate works that were behind a paywall or to create alternative view images that were Rule #1 edits. Recently, with the rise of AI-generated iamges, we have seen people using these tools for the same purposes. However, some prompters do not realize that copying an artist’s style may result in their image being taken down. And, sometimes, AI tools are so eager to please that they create images in a particular artist’s style even if it was not requested.
Whether a work is created by a human artist or a prompter using AI, we review each case on an individual basis. Because a style is not copyrightable, I personally look at whether a suspect work is derivative rather than whether it copied a particular artist’s style.
It is absolutely ridiculous to demand from AI that it not generate a particular style of art as no-one holds a copyright to that art-style.
It is true that copyright law does not protect a particular artistic style. However, if a style has become closely associated with a specific artist, it may be considered the artist’s personal ‘trademark’ or ‘brand’. While copyright law does not extend to artistic styles, we may still take steps to protect an artist’s style in cases where ai generated images are concerned. These protections may be stronger than what is required by law, but is an example of how we wish to focus on, and support, the work of human artists.
@-Craft-
I’m still working on the “generator:*” tags. If you have suggestions for how we could improve them, please send me a private message, and I will discuss your ideas with the team.
@The Frowning Pony
Yeah. This issue has been happening on the site for a while, but AI-generated art has made it more common.
Background Pony #03D3
@The Frowning Pony
Okay, so from what I understand it refers only to very niche styles that could only come from a single artist and indirectly represent them and their identity. I could see how generating or drawing something in their style might fuck with them.
In that case, why not make this proposed rule universal? Why only for AI content?
Do not use AI to emulate an artist’s personal style without clear approval from the artist. This does not apply to highly commercial or culturally significant styles (e.g. from renown dead painters, or popular TV shows). Unintentional “style copying” due to model biases may be deleted after review.
Where we determine that an ai generated image is emulating an artist’s personal style without clear approval from the artist we will treat that as Rule #1. If you find your prompts are resulting in style emulation, most tools allow you to add negative prompts.
Who will determine that? And will it be handled similar to a DNP request?
Background Pony #03D3
alcor; arareroll; mostazathy; pusspuss; redruin01; facelessjr; bluespaceling; some_ponu; misstwipietwins; pabbley; blackkaries; duop-qoub
I’ve made a list of some artists I like. Could a moderator classify whether their art style is very clearly defined and unique or not? I find this would be a helpful demonstration on how this rule functions.
Do not use AI to emulate an artist’s personal style without clear approval from the artist. This does not apply to highly commercial or culturally significant styles (e.g. from renown dead painters, or popular TV shows). Unintentional “style copying” due to model biases may be deleted after review.
Edit: Wrong quote
Ciaran
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Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
Who will determine that? And will it be handled similar to a DNP request?
If an ai generated image is reported for this, staff will determine if it is emulating (or copying) an artist’s personal style on a case-by-case basis.
This is about Rule #1, and DNPs are not involved in this. An artist doesn’t need to have a Do Not Post (DNP) request for us to take action on Rule #1 violations, and style emulation isn’t an option in DNPs.
If an ai generated image is deleted for Rule #1, some ai generators allow the prompter to regenerate the image while excluding the artist’s style, so they can try reuploading the corrected image. In addition, if prompters find they are getting results that are ‘too like’ popular fan artists, providing examples of what not to generate can help prevent unintentional style emulation.
Simple Sample
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Betrayal! - Betrayed their team for a badge. Shame forever!
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Verified Pegasus - Show us your gorgeous wings!
Preenhub - We all know what you were up to this evening~
Artist -

Spitfire Enthusiast
In my opinion, I think most machine learning generated content should be restricted even more. I often see AI art with tags specifying it’s a specific character. But when the art only somewhat depicts the character (missing features, weird colours, wrong hairstyle etc), it should not be tagged as that character. Well, this is more of a rant about tagging.
To the actual topic;
Only flawless (no artifacts, weird colours, weird ambiguous shapes in the background, wrong hairstyle) or edited AI art should be allowed on Derpibooru. There should be some effort put into art, and when the AI is capable of generating 90% of a beautiful image, then the prompter should be bothered to correct the generator before they upload it.
This comes from someone who uses GPT 4 for work every day :p
Ciaran
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Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
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Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
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Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
…I often see AI art with tags specifying it’s a specific character. But when the art only somewhat…
It really helps us if you would please report those images for Rule #3. We are trying to catch all of those, but we don’t see every image uploaded here.
Only flawless…
That is a good suggestion, but we aren’t checking every image, and ‘flawless’ is subjective enough that it might be hard to resolve disagreements. Instead, we’re hoping the ‘2 ai generated uploads per day per person’ will help discourage the worse of those kinds of aberrations.
PUBLIQclopAccountant
Magnificent Metadata Maniac - #1 Assistant
Solar Guardian - Refused to surrender in the face of the Lunar rebellion and showed utmost loyalty to the Solar Empire (April Fools 2023).
Non-Fungible Trixie -
Magical Inkwell - Wrote MLP fanfiction consisting of at least around 1.5k words, and has a verified link to the platform of their choice

IRL 🎠 stallion
Out of curiosity, is the rule about quality-based deletions intended to discourage people from treating the daily limit as a daily quota that must be filled each and every day?
@Ciaran
How often do human artists get into beefing matches bad enough for Derpi staff to intervene over the stylistic similarity and/or commission price undercutting?
Ciaran
ラ・ゼッタ - For supporting the site
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Guardian - Earned a place among the ranks of the most loyal New Lunar Republic soldiers (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
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A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
…is the rule about quality-based deletions intended…
We did try to think this through while crafting the proposal. But I don’t think any of us tried to think it through THAT far :)
How often do human artists get into…
It’s not that often, maybe at most two or three times a year.
My goal is always to find a solution that is to everyone’s satisfaction. In the end, I would like everyone involved to remain an active part of the community, and for everyone to keep making and sharing art.
Periodically, magic happens and the respect and admiration that caused one artist to copy another’s style leads to the two artists actually becoming friends. Sometimes the more experienced artist even does some collaborations with the artist who was copying them. GreatSuccess.meme.
That doesn’t always happen. But it does happen often enough that it gives me hope, and pride, in this community of artists.
There’s some really amazing artists here. It’s been a huge honor to get to talk with some of them.
Sorry if this has wandered from the purpose of the thread.
Background Pony #03D3
Thanks to all the moderators that responded to my questions about the rule regarding emulating an artists personal style. But I want to stir up this pot yet again as I believe it is a very important topic to discuss and get out of the way.
Do not use AI to emulate an artist’s personal style without clear approval from the artist. This does not apply to highly commercial or culturally significant styles (e.g. from renown dead painters, or popular TV shows). Unintentional “style copying” due to model biases may be deleted after review.
I have been given 3 responses from @saby, @The Frowning Pony and @Ciaran, who further helped me and others understand the process by which this rule will be enforced in this post @Ciaran
as far as I know this part of the rules is supposed to be more of a caveat, that if staff catches you doing some specific types of shenanigans, “oops, AI must have done it on accident, what a coinky-dink” is not going to work as a defence.
Stating this rule will be primarily used against trolling behavior.
For some clarification, this is for the case of artists that have a very clearly defined and unique style.
Further limiting the use of this rule only to artists with very clearly defined and unique style. If that is indeed the case, this definition needs to rest on an objective basis. Creating a style sheet with some examples of artists who are considered unique and those that are not would help immensely to make this rule more about fairness and less about special treatment.
It is true that copyright law does not protect a particular artistic style. However, if a style has become closely associated with a specific artist, it may be considered the artist’s personal ‘trademark’ or ‘brand’. While copyright law does not extend to artistic styles, we may still take steps to protect an artist’s style in cases where ai generated images are concerned. These protections may be stronger than what is required by law, but is an example of how we wish to focus on, and support, the work of human artists.
While I do not agree with that position, I do respect your decision to make it more focused on human artists. What I think goes unsaid in this post are the OCs and their influence in the making of this decision. I have come to believe it has more to do with OCs and the specific things some artists like to draw rather than their actual art-style.
I want to make this point very clear. If there will be a rule forbidding the emulation of specific art-styles, it needs to be clear cut. I do not want Derpi to treat AI creators like YouTube is treating their creators. Restricting and deleting videos at random, giving strikes for 5 year old content and shadow banning their channels. All on the basis of a very subjective policy that is constantly subject to change. That is an awful practice to run a major platform.
To close this comment. I know many on here do not consider AI generated art as art, and I understand that many feel threatened by AI. But at the end of the day, it is not about (you) per ce, it is about the mares and how you contribute to that. Many of us live to create cute poners and the development of AI will contribute immensely to that. If you are a good artist with fresh ideas, there will always be a place for you, and in my book, only a real artist can make use of the full potential AI has to offer. By voting for more restrictions, you are voting to hinder that.
Akakun
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My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
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DERP
Noice. I had to hide the tag shortly after from the beggining because it was keeping me away from seeing good nsfw art. I primarily support AI content (15.ai, please come back!), but some moderation was needed.
IllusionDX
Lunar Supporter - Helped forge New Lunar Republic's freedom in the face of the Solar Empire's oppressive tyrannical regime (April Fools 2023).
Non-Fungible Trixie -
My Little Pony - 1992 Edition
Friendship, Art, and Magic (2018) - Celebrated Derpibooru's six year anniversary with friends.
Artist -

The World Machine
I have to agree with some others “machine learning” was more descriptive than “ai generated”, it’s not really AI yet, but well since it’s shorter doesn’t matter.
I’m glad that you allowed it to stay instead of catering to the AI haters that go on about it crying about it being “art theft” or “plagiarism” and banning it outright, as if they weren’t operating under fair use too by drawing fanart of a trademarked franchise. It’s a program that learns patterns from reference images, it doesn’t copy them directly, unless you tell it to by using img2img.
It’s just a fun thing to use, it allows you to create good looking images quickly, specially if you have little art skill. Even better if as an artist you actually try to give it a good use as a tool to augment your capabilities.
Still with all the clarification, sadly some people might misuse the tags and they may basically go on a witch hunt and accuse someone just for having an AI background or something small like that added in, then incorrectly tagging it as “ai generated” so it doesn’t show on Default filter. Even worse for someone that has an art style “that looks like” AI even when they don’t use it. So even something like “ai assisted” should be tagged when the artifacts are really obvious or when the artist admits to using it, not based on assumptions, otherwise it might lead to it being targeted indiscriminately. I’m not defending when someone tries to pass an entirely AI generated image as their own however, that is pretty sad.
Also I’m not quite sure about the low quality part too, there are many crappy images like ms paint drawings, low quality images or poorly made edits, some made for fun, that aren’t deleted but you made it specifically prohibited for AI, and 2 images only per day, why I mean I guess it’s to prevent prompt spam? But still seems odd. Besides even poor generations can be pretty funny, and if people don’t want to see them just filter by score or content, there are tags for that already like machine learning abomination, etc. Just like people can filter fetish or grimdark stuff they don’t like.
Overall in this thread I can see just a lot of art elitism and toxicity, stubborn refusal to accept a new technology. Like complaining about the printing press instead of writing a manuscript, doing a collage, using Photoshop, CGI, or even saying digital art is not real art.
I agree that artists that put in the effort are valuable and that they should be encouraged and their art be held in higher regard, but they get really defensive about some programs, it would not hurt to try them and use them in their favor.
Ciaran
ラ・ゼッタ - For supporting the site
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Lunar Guardian - Earned a place among the ranks of the most loyal New Lunar Republic soldiers (April Fools 2023).
Crystal Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
@IllusionDX
Thank you for your feedback.
sadly some people might misuse the tags and they may basically go on a witch hunt and accuse someone just for having an AI background or something small like that added in, then incorrectly tagging it as “ai generated”
We will be watching for this. And it will help us a lot if you will also report it for Rule #2 if you see it happening.
I guess it’s to prevent prompt spam?
Yes. It’s been getting worse over time.
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