New blog post "License update: AI derivation prohibited on all my art, lore, stories, and comics."
→ https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1178/license-update-ai-derivation-prohibited-on-all-my-art-lore-stories-and-comics
Oct 9, 2026, 11:39 AM@csolisr Techbros don't care about copyright so it wouldn't change anything?
Oct 8, 2026, 5:34 PM@davidrevoy oh my god, this is HIDEOUS. it totally destroyed your style to replace it with this characteristic miyazaki-ish slop style.
Oct 8, 2026, 5:36 PM@davidrevoy omg omg omg I cant stop comparing and finding violations omg not the same drawing this is horrific aaaaaa must clean eyes
Oct 8, 2026, 5:38 PM@f4grx @davidrevoy why do people even *do* that??
“hey artist i like your work anyway i used a machine to make it better maybe you’ll like it” seems like a very deranged thing to do and yet
Oct 8, 2026, 5:44 PM@h5e @davidrevoy I agree, it's deranged.
Oct 8, 2026, 9:25 PM@h5e @f4grx @davidrevoy its like rocking up to a woodworking class with a CnC machine
@h5e @f4grx @davidrevoy that “better” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Whatever happened to respecting art and ideas? I can understand wanting to see a ‘finished’ version of the sketch in the example, but that’s not up to me or a machine to do so. Just leave it to the imagination - of which AI bros have none (imho)
Oct 9, 2026, 8:25 AM@richrockster @f4grx @davidrevoy better is not my opinion, obviously
Oct 8, 2026, 8:11 PM@f4grx @davidrevoy 1. Cat is now on meth
2. Tiles are wrong
3. Broken plate replaced by lamp? sourdough boule?
4. Curve to lower right is gone
5. Tears missing, crying is now disturbingly moe-ified
6. Hair is now "princess-y" in a way that makes me have a bad feeling about the training data
7. Hat brim reshaped in a way that loses character
8. Hat has grown a Pilgrim buckle
Oct 9, 2026, 4:23 AM3. Bread, its a stochastic bread.
@bstacey @f4grx @davidrevoy left arm is now severely undergrown compared to right arm
@bstacey
n. left hand's point finger grown "AI bonus branching finger"
Oct 9, 2026, 5:38 AM@f4grx @davidrevoy 9. Hem of shirt has changed in a way that loses character
10. Pendant has changed, thin chain necklace has become a ribbon
11. Third knee?
Please have a proper lawyer with copyright/licensing experience look at your idea of how to license your comics in the future.
I am pretty sure you cannot legally use a "CC-something" with an additional "no AI" clause, because then the folks behind the CC licensing might send you a cease and desist letter, since they don't approve of a CC-but-no-AI-use license just yet.
You will probably have to come up with an entire license text of your own, and call it something like the David-Revoy-no-AI-License.
Oct 8, 2026, 5:47 PM@farbenstau @davidrevoy you can add exceptions to licenses. It renders them incompatible but thats the exact goal.
@f4grx
Also it's about time CC at least acknowledges the issue. I plan on heading a similar exception to CC By-SA for my upcoming music album.
@farbenstau @davidrevoy
@farbenstau Having a proper lawyer is not in my budget, and so, not in my options unfortunately.
I check: 600€ per appointments, first one to meet and frame the issue, then two more for work in progress, and even more then to redact the paper or something. I don't have ~3000€ to invest on this, and one afternoon per week to take the car to the closest city and wait into the desk of a lawyer.
Right now, just drawing the line publicly and stamping it on my art might be enough to dissuade usage.
@davidrevoy WTF? Over here, the initial meetup is usually around 150-250€ …
Also, are there no online services where you can consult with an attorney, is that not legal in your country?
@farbenstau No, it's like that. Some non-profit org might give free legal advice, and hot lines, but it's often for a certain type of activism, not for any type of questions.
@davidrevoy @farbenstau
Creative Commons is currently making a social contract system for handling AI agents called "signals". You can view it live here https://github.com/creativecommons/cc-signals
At the moment it doesn't appear you'll be able to disallow usage, only specify openness preference
@davidrevoy That's awful. They made it look like she's singing, all the grief washed away.
Oct 8, 2026, 5:40 PM@davidrevoy HELLING FUK THE ARM!!
@davidrevoy I wholeheartedly agree with your mission and wish you the very best of luck enforcing that license.
Oct 8, 2026, 5:46 PM@davidrevoy Glad you are doing something, a little uncertain what the license is exactly. But also, I kind of suspect, all of this stuff is a violation of even CC BY if these licenses were actually enforced and the other FOSS orgs who might have influenced things hadn't dropped the ball; there's simply no way to preserve the "attribution soup" of these works...
Oct 8, 2026, 5:48 PM@cwebber @davidrevoy Isn't this what CC BY-ND is for? 🤔
Oct 8, 2026, 6:03 PM@dajb @cwebber @davidrevoy I'd think it would be easier to start with CC BY-ND and then add an exception to allow for derivatives if they were not AI.
However, I am not a lawyer. Also: possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the AI companies have already trained on the data.
Laws, contracts and licenses are only useful if all parties actually agree to the terms. The written text of the licenses is really only to avoid confusion about the agreement. But the AI companies don't show good faith.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:03 PM@poleguy @cwebber @davidrevoy Well, also, although you can relicense, anything you've originally released just under CC BY is fair game.
@dajb @poleguy @cwebber @davidrevoy CC-BY does not allow AI training use because such use does not preserve attribution. It's great to be explicit about that, but there is no "the old license allowed it" loophole here.
Oct 9, 2026, 7:05 AM@dalias @poleguy @cwebber @davidrevoy no
If only it were that simple:
"CC licenses apply only when copyright permission is required. If exceptions or limitations apply, then the CC license terms don’t apply."
https://creativecommons.org/using-cc-licensed-works-for-ai-training-2/
Oct 9, 2026, 12:19 PM@dajb @dalias @poleguy @davidrevoy I worked at CC, am familiar with what the licenses say. And attribution is still a requirement: if it's going to be a requirement to respect proprietary licenses going into datasets, it will also be a requirement to preserve attribution. The thing I am pushing on here is that whatever copyright outcome we get in terms of LLM ingestion and generation of content needs to be *equitable*, and on that front, attribution remains a requirement. You can't just hoover up the commons ignoring the few requirements it does have because it's the commons.
Oct 9, 2026, 12:37 PM@cwebber @dalias @poleguy @davidrevoy
IANAL and I haven't had the privilege of working at CC (merely being a Fellow) but I have seen a lot of hand-wringing on mailing lists and in blog posts.
Ultimately, however we might wish it otherwise, the consensus seems to be that if governments consider training data not to subject to copyright considerations, then neither do derivative licenses apply.
Again, I'm a mere observer. I may be wrong.
Oct 9, 2026, 4:39 PM@dajb @cwebber @dalias @davidrevoy
I agree, that's what's happening!
Generally speaking: We are the people. The government is us.
The government is not "they." It's 'we.' If we don't accept this madness, we should not blame it on the government, or 'them' and roll over in a ditch, but we should take back control from the tech lobbyists and make the government match the will of the people.
How to do it... not so simple.
@dajb @cwebber @davidrevoy Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the problem is wanting a CC-BY-ND-ForAI combined with a CC-BY-ForNotAI so the models aren't allowed to change or use the image while the humans are?
Oct 8, 2026, 7:51 PM@Robotistry @cwebber @davidrevoy It's wishful thinking, sadly.
Oct 8, 2026, 5:48 PM@davidrevoy Are you doing this *in addition to* CC BY / CC BY-SA btw?
Note that it might be possible: CC BY's legal code says:
> Moral rights, such as the right of integrity, are not licensed under this Public License, nor are publicity, privacy, and/or other similar personality rights; however, to the extent possible, the Licensor waives and/or agrees not to assert any such rights held by the Licensor to the limited extent necessary to allow You to exercise the Licensed Rights, but not otherwise.
Oct 8, 2026, 5:49 PM@davidrevoy Hm, re-reading, maybe not possible to do in addition to this term. It's been so long since I thought about moral rights clauses.
@cwebber Hey, thank you, and yes. I plan to annotate this in addition of CC By or CC By-Sa.
Yes, CC 4.0, as you noted, has built-in waiver for the moral right. But not all, it's sort of grayish.
When I visited CC, they told me I could easily action it if, eg, alt-right reused my work on the flag of their campaign or if one of my main OC was reused for the design of a sexual inflatable doll.
It's a case by case thing that must be studied in courts, but it often prevail other rules.
Meanwhile at Creative Commons:
https://github.com/creativecommons/cc-signals/discussions
These used to be issues. Also the protest fell on deaf ears.
I'm sorry but CC won't be on your side here 😿
Oct 8, 2026, 6:17 PM@RyunoKi @davidrevoy CC the institution, maybe not. But the legalcode still requires attribution.
@cwebber @davidrevoy True.
But unless it produces art verbatim (whatever that means?) it's going to be tough to win in court, I guess.
I mean, you have large newspapers in US taking OpenAI to court. Just to have DOJ side with the latter.
Expressing the wish to not be vacuumed up is better than nothing.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:29 PM@RyunoKi
I was about to mention CC Signals, what they were discussing a year or two ago (can't remember exactly) and how they defended the whole "CC license is an open license, this has to include AI, too" idea. Yes we stated that AI techbros shit on licenses and take what they can grab anyway, no matter what a robots.txt says. And that we want a license model that protects our work and helps us enforce this protection in the court of law.
We were ignored. CC is dead.
@cwebber @davidrevoy
Oct 8, 2026, 5:46 PM@davidrevoy laws are too slow updating to the use of A.I. I'm sorry you have to go trough this.
@davidrevoy I had someone post aigen derivatives of some old 3d artists I was sharing back in the twitter days. I can only imagine the feeling of seeing that of my own works. :neocat_angry:
Finished? In their eyes maybe...
But what if you were planning to go all Goth with it...
Or pastel...
----
Let the originators do the finishing.
#Geez
😱
@davidrevoy There is zero emotion in the AI rendering... the kids looks asleep and the cat looks dead...
@davidrevoy Might want to have https://slashpages.net/#ai redirect to your blog post 😺
@davidrevoy This is news-worthy.
@davidrevoy
I read yesterday that some scientists/researchers want to sue #OpenAI for using #data from their collective work to feed their #AI machine to crack a long-known conundrum.
@davidrevoy I feel your pain. The original sketch is so wonderful. I love how you drew the cat. I feel really uncomfortable with the way AI generates pictures. I like human-y things.
@davidrevoy Your situation seems terrifying. I can't imagine the feeling of receiving such things like as it was 'normal'.
Seeing artists suffering from this makes me boil in anger. Hope your adjustements will have at least minimum effects. Sending support your way for dealing wih all this bs.
@voxographe Thank you!
@davidrevoy
As someone who's trying to build a new music platform centered around CC licenses and local communities, I thank you for writing the article. I 100% concur.
My research shows that unfortunately, it's difficult for any license at all to restrict AI training on content, because that's a copyright issue, not a licensing one. I'm hoping that this will change. I want to protect local and independent musicians from AI theft, but I want them to share w/CC and be supported, too. It's hard.
Oct 8, 2026, 6:36 PM@davidrevoy Are you saying that replacing a broken plate with a loaf of bread(?) isn't enough to make the AI slop original?