Names of artists whose work was stolen to train Midjourney + developers talking about laundering to avoid copyright

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Wed Jan 3, 2024, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/midjourney-ai-artists-database-1234691955/

During the New Year’s weekend, artists linked to a Google Sheet on the social media platforms X (formerly known as Twitter) and Bluesky, alleging that it showed how Midjourney developed a database of time periods, styles, genres, movements, mediums, techniques, and thousands of artists to train its AI text-to-image generator. Jon Lam, a senior storyboard artist at Riot Games, also posted several screenshots of Midjourney software developers discussing the creation of a database of artists to train its AI image generator to emulate.

The 24-page list of artists’ names used by Midjourney as the training foundation for its AI image generator (Exhibit J) includes modern and contemporary blue-chip names,as well as commercially successfully illustrators for companies like Hasbro and Nintendo. Notable artists include Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Gerhard Richter, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, Damien Hirst, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Paul Signac, Norman Rockwell, Paul Cézanne, Banksy, Walt Disney, and Vincent van Gogh.

Midjourney’s dataset also includes artists who contributed art to the popular trading card game Magic the Gathering, including Hyan Tran, a six-year-old child and one-time art contributor who participated in a fundraiser for the Seattle Children’s Hospital in 2021.

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Access to the Google file was soon restricted, but a version has been uploaded to the Internet Archive.

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Internet Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20231231203837/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MEglfejpqgVcaf-I-cgZ5ngV_MlaOTeGXAoBPJO69FM/htmlview#


Twitter post with screenshots of the discussion of this rip-off of artists by Midjourney developers to create the Midjourney database:

Link to tweet

The most damning screenshot:

[highplainsdem]

1. Tweet with video of the artists' names plus Twitter reactions to it:

Link to tweet

There were a number of outraged replies from people seeing whose art was ripped off, with the people at Midjourney who did this called thieves who should be prosecuted.