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[–]fisj[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (7 children)

Please follow the subreddit guidelines and be respectful. Do not belittle or mock people. Please flag posts if they break the guidelines. I am actively removing posts or banning people who repeatedly do so.

[–]judge2020 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Have you confirmed this user is a Steamworks partner and their game is real? Some evidence of this message from Steam would be nice, because for all we know a lot of the text in this post could've been generated by ChatGPT itself.

[–]fisj 1 point2 points  (5 children)

I have not. Its up to the OP to decide, but given the crazy amount of angry posts and bashing I'm not at all shocked they've chosen not to reveal the game, given that it could likely lead to doxing.

I can add a little extra flavor tho. This was the OP's second post. A while prior, I cross posted their original to aigamedev from ... I forget where. As best as I've been able to tell, their posts and circumstances seem authentic, but take that with a grain of salt.

[–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yeah, the doxing is part of the worry for me, the Anti AI Art crowd isn't something i wanna unleash on my game just yet lol. I'll post some screenshots of the messages though with all identifying portions blacked out.

[–]Rebel-Egg-Games 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Don't lie, there are many games that use AI-generation out there & any doxing remains to be seen. I created one game too (see my posts for more info). Noone will harass you irl for using AI-generated art, cmon - grow some balls.

Can you even imagine this situation? What, someone will approach you and "OH, ITS YOU, YOU USED ART GENERATOR FOR YOUR GAME? NOW WE FIGHT."

Show us what art got rejected, so we can all see that Valve in fact is banning AI-generation and not just your art samples that violate some IP.

For now I'm still suspicious if your story is real or not. Such a screenshot with text can be easily fabricated by using browser inspector and changing the message, especially considering the fact that my game got released on Steam 2 months ago and its full of AI-generated art, yet I didn't receive any threats from Steam.

[–]lplegacy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wowie, imagine if we all got heated over this topic and this dude was lying the whole time

[–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Alright, i updated the post with some screenshots

[–]indiangirl0070 0 points1 point  (0 children)

but the question is how can they detect the ai generated content?

[–]elusiveanswers 13 points14 points  (240 children)

this cant possibly be sustainable for Steam

[–]potterharry97[S] 7 points8 points  (36 children)

Yeah, I'm glad I'm getting a refund, but I'll monitor Steams stance on this as I feel like it's a really bad move on their part and it's likely they may eventually allow it as AI generated art has yet to be considered copyright infringement in the US or Europe if I recall correctly. If they start to be okay with it, I'll look into resubmitting my game

[–]Valerian_ 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Well, in the meantime yo can try to make your game target Japanese audience

[–]bread_berries -2 points-1 points  (10 children)

I gotta be honest, you getting told "It needs to be removed" and going "instead of removing I'll just paint and tweak over part of it" doesn't bode well they'll be nice to you on a possible round 3.

They drew a line in the sand, you stepped over it, why would they wanna do business with you again?

[–]EwoDarkWolf 4 points5 points  (9 children)

Money

[–]ScradleyWTF 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I think the community here doesnt understand the game dev scene. Steam does not need indie devs who wont be making them any money because most of these AI Devs are mainly trying to skip steps using AI not caring who it hurts and this is how you will learn lessons.

[–]AuthorOB -1 points0 points  (11 children)

I don't think this is a bad move at all. This is the only move that makes sense. They are playing it safe until some verdict is reached on the copyright status of AI generated art. If they didn't, and just allowed all of these games, it could create a tremendous liability issue and a lot of work to suddenly have to go back through and take whatever appropriate action against them.

My personal opinion on AI art is that it isn't inherently "theft," (this changes when you do something like those AI-assisted animations that were trained to imitate one specific artist for example), but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt artists. It can be not theft/plagiarism and still be damaging for a lot of people. So I don't think anyone should hold it against you just for using it, but I do understand why Valve is being careful with this.

[–]painki11erx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't know why you're getting downvoted. AI has created one hell of a division within the art community. If Valve were to straight up allow it, they run the potential of hitting some major legal issues down the road. Though not likely, but the possibility is there nonetheless.
There's still a lot of people that are against AI though. So I think valve played this right. Though I believe most people who aren't happy with that decision are waiting for an outcome like onlyfans. But hopefully that doesn't happen.

[–]Batou2034 0 points1 point  (0 children)

upvoting because you're being downvoted because people don't like the answer even though it's the correct answer

[–]wallthehero 0 points1 point  (5 children)

"It hurts artists"

In the same way the printing press hurt calligraphers. Such is progress. Ludditism has been understood as a regressive and harmful ideology; Like, this debate has been solved for centuries. Why have we forgotten this now?

[–]Ainaemaet 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I understand why they wish to be careful as well - but I'm curious how you think that AI art could hurt anyone if what a person is making is unique and they aren't trying to pass it off as someone else's work?

I believe that AI produced art should be handled the same way as any other kind of art - don't plagiarize or use it in unethical ways, and you are doing no wrong; and I'm a firm proponent of the argument that training an AI model on other peoples artwork should be seen similarly to how the human brain of every artist retains and utilizes other peoples art in creating novel pieces - even if the 'technical bits' behind how it gets done is not the same.

Plagiarizing is wrong, creating something in the style of someone else and trying to pass it off as that other person's art or convince others that you are them is wrong, and purposefully disseminating images to a given group of people with the intent to cause trouble or harm them is wrong - and it should be the same with AI.

In other words, it's not the tool but how people are using it - if the OP's AI produced artwork wasn't breaking any of the above guidelines, I believe it should have been allowed (though again, I understand why they are, at this point in time, being cautious)./

[–]Hdjbbdjfjjsl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The thing is I don’t think think this needs, or in the legal scene is probably not even cared for as it was already previously ruled in the US that anything not made by a human cannot be copyrighted/owned plain and simple.

[–]Devilsmark 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I think the real problem is not about copywrite, but about ownership and disputes. If you make a game with AI art, can you stop me from taking your art and using it in my game?

It's in valves interest to not have to deal with fallouts of that kind.

[–]wallthehero 0 points1 point  (1 child)

This isn't as complicated as people seem to think. If you draw a circle using a circle tool (a very simple type of "AI") instead of hand-drawing it and scanning it in, and that is the starting point for a sprite, can people just take it because the methodology wasn't an actual pencil?

"But AI generated art nowadays is trained on..."

The same thing human artists trained on when sketching their favorite comic book characters as a child to develop their skills: Copyrighted art. If we didn't allow this, anime wouldn't be a thing with enough visual consistency to name and recognize.

The REAL issue with AI generated art is that it might generate a LIKENESS OF SOMETHING THAT IS TOO CLOSE TO THE ORIGINAL (even accidentally, as in the original is not in the training model -- pure coincidence) that the developer doesn't know about. Though that can happen with human generated art as well...

Beyond that we have selfish, modern day Luddites trying to stifle human progress because they can't see past their own interests.

[–]Batou2034 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AI art trained on unlicensed material or material not explicitly in the public domain and licensed with remixing terms, like creative commons, absolutely is considered copyright infringement in the US and EU already. For you the only option is to regenerate your assets using AI that has been trained on licensed material that you can prove was licensed, or to get a human to redo the work.

[–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's not necessarily true, artists could sue them, it hasn't been tried for precendent in court but any judge looking at one example in which the AI just plagaiarizes entire chunks of an individual piece of content which it does do, and the rest of it, depending on court proceedings, may already be considered owned by the people who created it.

You can make the game you just cant profit from it.

There would also be a backlash if they allowed games to be made using the work of unconsenting creators so its not just fear of the coming lawsuits. I know if Valve did do that it could make me question using their games and make me question moving to Epic Games

And there's no benefit, for Valve, to risk both legal and public reprucussions.

[–]GaggiX[🍰] 2 points3 points  (8 children)

Yeah if this policy is going to be actually enforced then it would be a problem for atomic heart, high on life, hawken reborn (not that many people cares about this one ahah), observation duty and I guess many others that I don't know.

[–]leprosexy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

THEY'RE BRINGING BACK HAWKEN?! God that was a cool mech game...

[–]1243231 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Jesus, I checked the Atomic Heart article, they could tell it was AI generated due to things like eyes being missing. This makes the game so much less cool, I want a polished experience not generated partially broken game art

[–]GaggiX[🍰] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

The end of Atomic Heart was clearly rushed, the AI images are really the last "problem".

[–]1243231 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Its one of the problems, and definitely indicitative of the rest if it was rushed. I didn't play it though

[–]GaggiX[🍰] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I didn't see anyone playing it realizing that there were AI generated images.

Instead the bad writing, well...

[–]1243231 0 points1 point  (1 child)

The whole reason we know its AI is because people and journalists could tell has the same glitchiness as AI art, portraits with one eye, etc.

Its background art though, and they were banking people without any experience with AI art wouldn't look too closely.

There can be multiple issues, I'm just criticizing this as one of them.

[–]GaggiX[🍰] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Only if they actually pay attention to the details, I don't really need to because I have a very trained eye and probably some other people have too but it's not as common as you think it is. In fact when I noticed I checked online if there was a discussion about it, and there was only one, a small thread somewhere on Reddit. So no if you don't tell people to spot the AI images they would not pay enough attention to realize there are some.

[–]BlAlRlClOlDlE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Elusiveanswers says rip to steam

[–]byParallax 0 points1 point  (74 children)

How so? Unless big AAA studios start doing it, I'm sure Valve will be just fine.

[–]Schipunov 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LMAOOOOOOOO YA THINK

[–]Fat_Hamtaro -1 points0 points  (98 children)

This is, without a doubt, the funniest take.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[removed]

    [–]DaNoobyOne 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    it's been sustainable ever since steam's launch. it'll do just fine without games that use ai-generated assets.

    [–]snozburger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    All games will have AI generated assets.

    [–]falcon4287 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    The laws about AI are still up in the air, so they are being cautious. It would really suck if they got hit with a class action or had to take down thousands of games from their library, issuing refunds for all of them.

    They're doing the legally smart thing by rejecting AI generated content. As it currently stands, all AI generated content is essentially public domain, meaning that the game developer does not have exclusive rights to it and therefore can't sign a standard contract with Valve for distribution. Valve needs to write new contracts, and they clearly want to wait to see how the laws change before doing that.

    It seems like they're willing to risk it with developers who use open source AI and train it exclusively off of data that they control the copyright of.

    [–]MILLANDSON 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    No, as it currently stands, in most cases, the developer of the AI owns the copyrightable content generated by their AI, unless you have a private copy licensed for commercial use and ensure it doesn't use data that is owned by other people (like their art, etc) in the data set your AI is using.

    [–]Bewilderling 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    The US Copyright Office has issued their first guidance on AI-generated content. I’m oversimplifying, but the basic guidance is that it cannot be copyrighted.

    Source: https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf

    [–]Numai_theOnlyOne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Oh yes it will. There aren't as many asset flips as everyone thought when unity and unreal went free, but back then with greenlight it was plagued with every game being low quality. I get the impression steam is now doing the same.

    AI is great as a tool but you indeed own nothing and are completely liable to any copyright claim, putting a tremendous risk on AI usage in final products. Not only this it favors cheap and fast content output and not quality. Like asset flips.

    [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    For what reason? AI generated art isn't a must-have in the gaming industry and they'd be open to lawsuits over copyright since it is pretty cut and dry copyrighted content.

    [–]pseudorandom 10 points11 points  (74 children)

    In most the world (including the US where valve is), violations of copyright are penalized in an absurdly harsh manner. A few thousand sales by valve could result in liability that exceeds the value of the entire company. I disagree with valve's position, but I can understand how they wouldn't want to bet the company on smaller games.

    Eventually the issue of whether AI training data violates copyright will be resolved, but until it is I expect many companies to follow Valve's direction.

    [–]TheManni1000 1 point2 points  (6 children)

    the law does not work like this and the usa ai generated art has no copyright uneless it is edietd afterwards

    [–]Brasz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    [citation needed]

    [–]danby 0 points1 point  (4 children)

    There is absolutely no case law covering this right now so you are talking out of your behind here. It is possible that AI generated art could be taken as a transformative work and regarded as fair use but until some courts start ruling on that basis companies like Valve as going to take a sensibly cautious approach to avoid being sued.

    [–]TheManni1000 0 points1 point  (3 children)

    its not trasformtive its complitly new. they say that it has no copyright becasue its mad by a machine look it up

    [–]dementedsnake 0 points1 point  (35 children)

    They're basically saying that they're afraid of legal battles, so they're not allowing any of the content until that's settled.

    Sucks, especially since I was making a game with small AI generated textures and stuff.

    [–][deleted]  (14 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]Ann_Tique 2 points3 points  (2 children)

      Valve owns the marketplace, they can decide what and whatnot gets put on it. It won't open them up to a lawsuit. This was decided in Apple vs. Epic games, and that had more ground to stand on.

      A developer can still publish their game, they just have to make sure the assets they make are owned by them (I.E. can claim copyright on them) which you can't currently do for AI generated art. So they either pick up the tablet and make them themselves or they pay someone to make it for them, it's a requirement for the marketplace they wish to post on.

      If they steal assets, that's on them, Valve can operate under faith they were lied too, and in cases where that has been true, Valve has removed them and sometimes even banned the dev from publishing on Steam, but it's common knowledge that AI generated content was likely trained on various, unconsenting, unpaid artists, so Valve knowing that and allowing publishing, would be liable if an artist can ultimately prove they had copyright over the image that was used to train the data, (which will eventually happen), Valve will be liable as much as the developer.

      Valve is simply choosing to avoid it all together.

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

      [deleted]

        [–][deleted]  (2 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]ziptofaf 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          Strictly speaking - it should be legal if you also explicitly trained on public domain illustrations. As in - literally entire art history until roughly 1930. I would say it would produce some results.

          Caveat is that you would not get any digital styles doing so and finetuning from photos and pencil paintings to digital is likely to yield some REALLY weird results.

          [–]batweenerpopemobile -1 points0 points  (0 children)

          open them up to lawsuit for being anti-competitive

          doubt

          what if a dev trained their own AI model based on their own art or based on a dataset that they can prove that they have the rights to use?

          then they wouldn't fall afoul of this as written, since the concern AI potentially getting flagged for infringement.

          What is the difference between an artist using content fill in Photoshop vs an indie dev using Stable Diffusion

          content fill was created in house by adobe who licenses it out to the developers?

          and if somebody claims copyright infringement against a game then deal with it on a case by case basis

          if valve knowingly distributes copyrighted material, do you really think any company wouldn't go after their money?

          It's just as easy to outright steal assets that aren't AI generated and put them in a game and publish it in steam as it is to use AI tools, it might actually be even easier, right?

          "criminals exist, therefore criminality is justified"

          wat

          [–]ziptofaf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Maybe some sort of class action lawsuit of small indie devs being unfairly blocked from releasing games on steam because they use AI tools

          You can't force a company to enter into a contract with you lol. It's a b2b agreement that you are signing with Valve and as such you don't get to decide whether they will feature your game or not. Not that long ago process was WAY more difficult and required serious prep (Steam Greenlight) to get through - and this same process (well, roughly) actually still applies to GoG and Epic Gaming. You can even sell your own games on your own platform if you feel so inclined. Your lawsuit will get nowhere, all you will get from it is landing on a blacklist forever.

          Valve right now takes a safe option and waits for court rulings on a LOT of AI related cases. If it's deemed transformative they will likely change their stance. But if it's deemed derivative then it's you who will be replacing all the assets in your game anyway.

          Valve should just let people publish, and if somebody claims copyright infringement against a game then deal with it on a case by case basis

          Valve literally takes money from each sale of your game. They can't knowingly let piracy/copyright infringement in. It's one thing if it slips through, it's another if you openly say that you are using something legally dubious.

          What is the difference between an artist using content fill in Photoshop vs an indie dev using Stable Diffusion

          Actually, US Copyright Office explained it in detail so we have official ruling that tells you what's the difference. Here you go:

          https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AI-COPYRIGHT-decision.pdf

          Excerpt from page 9 specifically:

          The fact that Midjourney’s specific output cannot be predicted by users makes Midjourney different for copyright purposes than other tools used by artists. See Kashtanova Letter at 11 (arguing that the process of using Midjourney is similar to using other “computer- based tools” such as Adobe Photoshop). Like the photographer in Burrow-Giles, when artists use editing or other assistive tools, they select what visual material to modify, choose which tools to use and what changes to make, and take specific steps to control the final image such that it amounts to the artist’s “own original mental conception, to which [they] gave visible form.”15 Burrow-Giles, 111 U.S. at 60 (explaining that the photographer’s creative choices made the photograph “the product of [his] intellectual invention”). Users of Midjourney do not have comparable control over the initial image generated, or any final image. It is therefore understandable that users like Ms. Kashtanova may take “over a year from conception to creation” of images matching what the user had in mind because they may need to generate “hundreds of intermediate images.” Kashtanova Letter at 3, 9.

          [–]AidenTEMgotsnapped 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Please read the post before commenting in future.

          [–]mygreensea 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          That's not how anti-competitive or monopoly laws work. Valve does not put out AI generated content or make money off of them, so banning them does not come under anti-competitive practices.

          [–]ShuinoZiryu 0 points1 point  (13 children)

          Not a problem if you aren't stealing copyrighted content for the AI.

          Just submit the dataset you're feeding into the AI.

          [–][deleted]  (2 children)

          [deleted]

            [–]maybe_this_is_kiiyo 2 points3 points  (1 child)

            or pick up a pencil. though that admittedly takes a ton of time and study to get good at.

            [–]tehbored 0 points1 point  (9 children)

            Training an AI model isn't stealing.

            [–][deleted]  (3 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]j0s3f 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              That's not true. A lot of lawyers have a different opinion. That's why there are multiple cases at the moment about this, in different stages. Until they are settled, its a very high risk for everyone using AI generated content with AI trained on unlicensed data.

              [–]Shiverthorn-Valley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              So many IP lawyers disagree with you dude, but loving the confidence

              [–]EmeraldRaccoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Did you ask chatgpt to write you a confidently wrong reply?

              [–]falcon4287 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              It sucks right now, but it looks like the laws will be settled in the next few years.

              [–]yosimba2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              They won't be able to definitively tell if it's generated or not, barring watermarks or metadata.

              I would keep going if I were you.

              [–]GKP_light 0 points1 point  (30 children)

              For this, they should just clarify in the TOS to make that the full responsibility of such thing is to the devs.

              [–]G1fan 0 points1 point  (28 children)

              I'm think Valve already dissallow games on their platform that use the copyrighted works of others without their consent.

              [–]GKP_light 0 points1 point  (27 children)

              but with "generate by AI" is not "copyrighted works of others without their consent".

              [–]bmystry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              That's not how that works, Steam as a platform is held responsible for selling something they think might violate copyright. Same was as if a merchant selling physical goods would be held responsible for selling stuff that they suspect might be stolen.

              [–]squatOpotamus 8 points9 points  (13 children)

              I know this isn't a popular stance, but we could just abolish copyright laws.

              [–]potterharry97[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

              Id vote you for president

              [–]j0s3f 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              And then you cry because only one person buys your game and gives it to all others for free.

              [–]NoddysShardblade 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              Or just have somewhat kinda sensible ones?

              Insane stuff like "copyright lasts for life of the author plus 80 years" don't even come close to passing any common sense test.

              [–]Batou2034 1 point2 points  (6 children)

              then no one would be incentivized to create anything new. Why do you think patents exist?

              [–]bugs_in_trenchcoat 0 points1 point  (2 children)

              this argument is equally true when you apply it to legalized slavery

              [–]Algiark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Some say the ancient Romans could have invented a steam engine and started the industrial revolution a millennium early, but didn't, because slavery was cheaper.

              [–]danby 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              Patent and copyright are not the same thing.

              [–]Batou2034 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              they are both forms of intellectual property rights protected by laws though, which is all that matters in this example.

              [–]Samuraiking 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              I think Copyright, in SOME manner, is extremely important. Are you genuinely okay with making a completely unique and original design that is great, and making $1,000 off it, but someone else copying that same design and slapping it on the same things, but since they have a bigger budget and reach, they make millions? I wouldn't be.

              I think we can all agree that Disney CONSTANTLY rewriting copyright laws so they can extend their rights on the same 100 year old IP for another decade EVERY decade, is bullshit, but I think copyright laws should, ideally, be somewhere in the middle.

              [–]_EllieLOL_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              25 years or death of the creator, whichever comes first

              Gives them some time to establish their brand, then let the market decide

              Gives them more incentive to produce quality work since otherwise their competitors will release a better product and people will buy that instead

              There’s probably hundreds of cola brands yet people still mainly buy coke and pepsi because they established their brand, yet they’re still forced to make a good product or people will switch

              [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Everybody's gangsta until Spotify stops paying small musicians and Disney starts stealing small creators content.

              This isn't some "small AI creator takes on Big Corporate Goliath" scenario.

              [–]fisj 4 points5 points  (27 children)

              I don't have a lot to add here, other than I'm shocked this isn't big news yet. Have you posted to the internal steam dev forums about this? Not as a cudgel, but maybe a plea for others to join in asking Valve for clarification. There's likely to be significant interest/concern in this.

              With Adobe firefly, we already have "blessed" tools using generative AI, so a blanket stance seems completely untenable.

              [–]potterharry97[S] 4 points5 points  (19 children)

              Nope, but I might. Yeah when I received the first message I was a little baffled, but just thought they might be wanting to cut down on obviously AI trash assets like I've seen in some nsfw games, but even after improving the quality to the point none of the people I asked to check could tell anything was AI, they still removed it, so idk. Definitely wish they'd put out a statement

              [–]AidenTEMgotsnapped 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              It was made clear that you needed to remove the assets, and instead of doing that you tried to cheat them, not having the sense to stop and think that they might keep a record of the reason for an appeal being needed? That's hilarious, and I'm surprised they didn't outright ban you.

              [–]AnimeSuxx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              why didnt you follow steams ruling and replace the assets/pitch your game to another platform?

              [–]thatfreakingmonster 0 points1 point  (2 children)

              but even after improving the quality to the point none of the people I asked to check could tell anything was AI

              Valve asked you to remove AI assets from your game, and your solution was to just try and hide the fact that it was AI? That's... sketchy.

              [–]TheManni1000 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              valve is sketch they alow it in big games but smole indie daves fail?

              [–]Shiverthorn-Valley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              I mean. You were told exactly what their reasoning was, and its entirely your fault that you tried to guess at a secret secondary meaning, and then tried to fix the secret second issue you didnt even know if they cared about.

              Kinda seems like they dont need a statement. They told you what the problem was. Other games with AI art have either met the requirements, slipped past unnoticed, or were approved before this policy was put in place.

              [–]GameDesignerMan -1 points0 points  (2 children)

              It makes sense from a business point of view, and I support them in their stance even though I'm in favour of AI-generated assets.

              There are some big lawsuits going on at the moment that will determine the future of AI, but I expect they'll adjust their stance as the legal issues get sorted out in court and there's a solid precedent established.

              [–]stroud 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              lol why are you being downvoted for this?

              [–]GameDesignerMan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Not sure? From the message they sent out they made it pretty clear.

              [–]stuaxo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              I'm shocked there hasn't been more of this already tbh.

              [–]j0s3f 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              Adobe Firefly is still in beta and you cannot use anything created with it commercially. Once it is released, I am sure Valve will allow content created with Adobe Firefly for games.

              [–]lbandy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Firefly clearly states in their EULA that it's still in Beta, and is for personal use only. It'll be interesting to see if/how this changes once they move out of Beta, but my guess is they are still trying to figure it out, and just buying time.

              [–]a9group 5 points6 points  (15 children)

              They just involuntarily launched a competitor. Oops.

              [–]AidenTEMgotsnapped -3 points-2 points  (10 children)

              If a competitor was stupid enough to try and willingly and proudly host copyright theft, they'd be sent to hell via lawsuits.

              [–]ANGLVD3TH 1 point2 points  (3 children)

              I think the stronger argument is that training data is covered under being transformative, so there is no theft. At the same time, the strongest argument doesn't always win, especially when large and powerful corporations are fighting it, and I can very easily see a situation where it is ruled the other way. Valve is just being prudent here, it makes sense in the current climate.

              [–]TehSavior 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              I don't believe it is.

              Think of the images in training data as code on github.

              In order to use them in your project, you'd need to respect the license the code was released under, yeah?

              Training models basically takes a bunch of unmodified data, and uses it to create a new thing, based off that data.

              It's derivative, not transformative. Instead of starting with one thing, and creating many outputs, the methodology for creating a model involves using many inputs, to create one output.

              An output reliant on the hypothetical github code, that might have had licensing that says you're not allowed to put it in the funny data blender.

              [–]potterharry97[S] -1 points0 points  (1 child)

              Yeah, it seemed transformative to me, and I believe my changes to any generations were transformative enough as well, but idk.

              [–]CitizenKing -2 points-1 points  (4 children)

              Considering half the comments in this thread, there will undoubtedly be someone stupid enough to do it.

              It's like they can't fathom that AI art is just the AI playing Frankenstein and splicing already existing art together to try and match the request given. At this point I'm starting to think the major theft apologists just want to live in the delusion that we're further along technologically than we actually are.

              [–]monsieurpooh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Don't know why this nonsense argument still gets parroted by people who don't understand how computers work. If you just copy/pasted pieces of images together you'd never be able to get an actual astronaut riding a horse. You'd get two separate images, one of an astronaut and one of a horse, cross-faded. That's why making image generation actually good was such a hard problem for decades.

              [–]DevRz8 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Tell me you don't know how generative ai works without telling me you don't know how generative works.

              [–]Jack8680 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              It's like you can't fathom that AI doesn't work like that.

              [–]DinglerAgitation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              How do you think traditional artists create their mental visual libraries?

              [–]DevRz8 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Lol, would love to see someone prove copyright theft. Please do it. Seriously would love to see someone win a case against ai for using a similar line or eyelash as their character. Maybe even a whole nose lol.

              [–]kikimaru024 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              LOL you can't be this delusional 🤣

              [–]Shiverthorn-Valley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              Thats an adorable sentiment

              [–]Numai_theOnlyOne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              They don't. Valve doesn't take any money outside of the 30% cut. Heck you can't even give them money for product placement and marketing.

              [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              What competitor? Epic Games owns Artstation and also took moves to give creators the right to tag art for AI generation use.

              [–]battleship_hussar 3 points4 points  (5 children)

              This is just sad, hopefully when AI generated content is ruled as transformative they'll reverse this backwards policy.

              [–]AFaultyUnit -2 points-1 points  (3 children)

              Exploitative is the word. The current forms of generativeAI is theft on a massive scale. Unlicenced and uncompensated scraping of artists works should be illegal.

              [–]SmurfStomper6 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              training data is covered under being transformative, so there is no theft

              Anti-inspiration

              [–]painki11erx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              The thing most people don't understand about AI is that it isn't learning how to create art, It's using art that other people already created.
              If you were to wipe art off the face of the internet 3+ yrs ago, AI wouldn't be able to make shit. And the majority of people using AI couldn't care less, even when they do understand that.
              And then they try to justify it by saying "If art is so hard to make, just use AI. Get with the times or get left behind."

              It's really sad what AI has done. I'm a 3d artist and I haven't gotten into animation yet, so my characters are posted online as just renders/turntables you know.
              I've been learning 3d for 11yrs and I have 3 brothers who grew up watching me create stuff. They used to be really impressed by what I made and said they would never be able to do what I can.
              Fast forward to this year and all 3 of them are using AI to make thirst trap slideshows for TikTok. They aren't impressed with my art anymore, instead they ask me why I still do it, when I could use AI that can make an image in 15 seconds. "You could probably make AI pics better than all of us. I don't understand why you refuse to utilize it to make money from thirsty people?"

              I've always been an artist person, creating brings a sense of speechlessness when you finish a project you've been working on for months. Something you didn't think you were capable of, something you've never tried before, something that challenged you. AI will never replace that, and the people who don't know the feeling I'm talking about will never understand that point of view, because at their core, they are consumers.
              That's also something they don't understand. They aren't creating, they are consuming. They tell a program what they want to see and get results. It's a glorified search engine.

              [–]Batou2034 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              it is illegal

              [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              I'm not in any way a lawyer, but "Transformative" in the original law only shows up in the example of "derivitive work" which is transformative but doesnt qualify as fair use. JK Rowling cant, for instance, write a sequel to a popular book by a new upstart author and sell it.

              Transformative, thus, doesnt just mean "I changed something."

              Transformative as a protection instead of an example of what doenst count as fair use was then added in the 90s by the Supreme Court, as an expansion of Fair Use, which has 4 factors.

              (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

              (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

              (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;

              (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

              The first use is clear - are you selling it or just releasing Pokemon Uranium for free - a court might rule in favor of the Uranium dev's on this specific factor. OP is, we can assume, not protected here and trying to sell it.

              The second factor "considers the nature of the underlying work." Use of a more creative or imaginative underlying work is less likely to support a claim of fair use - eg, using art, which is in this case, instead of using a nonfiction work. Nonfiction is harder to win a fair use lawsuit over.

              Three is how much of the work is in this case AI generated. If you sell a painting thats AI generated for $40 million, you would *very very easily\* lose step 1, step two, and step three. Maybe you could get away with this if its a painting in a game like in Atomic Hearts, but IDK if a judge would accept this loophole, since in that case you're just displaying a work that you have no ownership of, and you can't just play a Beatles song in your new Elder Scrolls game.

              IDK, I'm a layman

              And step 4, the big fear is specifically artists losing both their jobs and share in the industry. If Disney uses AI art and for that reason lays off artists, I would argue that they are not only breaking step 4 but then intentionally using it to cause a negative effect on the market.

              Also, big companies should have no right to fair use of small creators, it should be one way. IDK if any big media company currently do or has tried this outside of news media, but if they did Id expect a backlash.

              [–]Technician-Acrobatic 3 points4 points  (2 children)

              All 'artists' whose output is usually overpriced are going nuts in the discussion. Those with unique skills and portfolio have no reason to be scared of the AI generated imagery. In any case Valve can try to hold the unavoidable changes just for a little time.

              [–]harry_1511 0 points1 point  (1 child)

              If you think artists are overpriced, then those programmers shouldn't be paid much too. The pro artists out there also don't support AI. Just look at how much backlash Marvel's Secret Invasion opening intro received when it was aired.

              [–]ezmonkey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              People pay programers more because the final product is something that you usually use to make more money. So if you pay someone to make a website with a database, you will use this probably to provide a service and make more money.

              if you pay an artist, you are either getting the art for your personal enjoyment, or you are using it to increase the visual appeal of an existing product, like a website with a database that you use to provide a service.

              I feel it is much easier to relate that the code that you paid to build the actual website, the one that allows you to provide a service and make more money, itis assigned a larger dollar value (you would not be able to provide the service without that piece of code) than you are going to assign value to the design or logo that you put on the website.

              A second part that I probably shouldn't get into is that art value is subjective. Code value is less subjective. There are many many people that will do "art", but for my subjective opinion, most people that make art are not that good. Really good artists are paid as much as top developers per hour or even more (example, compare to average of that company, and random software engineer of same company).

              The rest of the artists are not top artists, and are paid less than a mediocre salary. In the same way, if you have a mediocre programmer, you would not pay him as much as a good programmer. One thing that is probably not clear is that there are as many mediocre programmers as there are mediocre artists, but you see lots of mediocre art on the internet, but you don't see a lot of mediocre programs on the internet (because people share their "art" all the time, but people don't share their "code" all the time). In the same regards, you see a lot of mediocre artists that believe they are good and try to sell their art, but you don't see a lot of mediocre programmers sell their code. Because bad art is more useful than bad code, which leads back to the beginning of why developers seem to be paid more.

              tldr; professions are paid for their product. if you hire them and their product can make you a lot of money, then they are paid more. Good artists are paid more than good programers.

              [–][deleted]  (3 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Hi, yeah sure, made a youtube video on my whole situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m60pGapJ8ao&ab_channel=PsykoughAI

                [–]lbandy 2 points3 points  (15 children)

                Can you share the Steam page of the game in question (or if it's no longer available, once you created one on itch.io)? I'd be curious to see which assets they found.

                [–]DaletheG0AT 1 point2 points  (11 children)

                I think OP didn't share it for a very specific reason: His whole argument and complaint would fall apart if it was copying another character's likeness.

                I see now... >_>

                [–]kvxdev 1 point2 points  (8 children)

                As another dev... We got both message IDENTICALLY. And considering that after the first message, we switched to a hosted model that was trained on public domain... (+, we edit the pictures and it would be our 6th game on Steam, 3rd of that iteration, simply the first to use AI assisted art)....

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                Yeah, other devs have received this too. I've posted screenshots of the messages in a text. I did not copy any characters likeness just used AI art in the game but I believed I transformed it enough for it to have been kosher but i guess not.

                [–]WerewolfCircus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Sounds like you knew it wasn't kosher and are looking for sympathy when if you posted your game it'd be obvious it's a rip off.

                [–]axonxorz 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Hosted in the sense that you are hosting the model on your own hardware and fed it all the training data?

                [–]DaletheG0AT 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                Interesting. Thanks for chiming in. Admittedly I am brash and skeptical when there's any ambiguity in such a bold statement.

                As someone who is also using AI tools and doing some gamedev on the side, this is good to know. AFAIK adobe's model is trained on their own stock photos, but honestly I have no clue, nor do I know what the license is for using images generated by firefly. But if it's anything like adobe stock, you have to pay for an extended license to use in a videogame.

                Now, for a moral question. Is it right for adobe to use their own stock images (created by users who are paid by adobe on a per-use basis) to generate entirely new images in which adobe doesn't need to pay any cost? Will they eventually phase out the need for user-created stock photos by incentivizing use of AI generated images with a lower licensing fee?

                EDIT: I'm using adobe as an example here, because if they can legally source their AI datasets, then it should be all good right? Valve shouldn't be able to reject games based on that. How's a video game studio even going to know that their own artists aren't using AI tools? It's going to be everywhere if it isn't already.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                It wasn't, i made original characters, see my videos here outlining my game dev process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m60pGapJ8ao&ab_channel=PsykoughAI

                [–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                Sure, made a YouTube video explaining the whole situation, not sure which specific assets triggered it as they never told me.

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m60pGapJ8ao&ab_channel=PsykoughAI

                [–]lbandy 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Thanks, so this was a sequel, and it was a hentai game with full-screen generated images.

                Did the first game also get a warning or was pulled, or is it still rocking?

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Yup, first game is still up. I think there would be an even bigger shitstorm if they took down existing games. As there are even AAA games with AI generated assets like Atomic Heart

                [–]TotesMessenger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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                [–]poork 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                care to take a screenshot of these messages? I just find it a bit hard to believe, it seems very inconsistent with Valve's past behavior re asset store models, etc. not to mention high profile games already releasing with ai assets

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Added some, see edit on main post

                [–]Annies_Boobs 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                Curious if they know that High On Life has multiple AI artworks scattered throughout.

                [–]TheManni1000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                they only ban indi games with ai

                [–]Numai_theOnlyOne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                I think it's the extensive use of the ai as described. Not ai in general.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Roiland's a child groomer so I hope that gets banned. Insane they're recasting Rick and Mory instead of cancelling the show. I'll see if I can report it myself.

                [–]NikoKun 2 points3 points  (20 children)

                Well that's a bunch of BS..

                It should be entirely on a case-by-case basis, not a blanket ban. If someone's just putting out some low-quality garbage, like mobile apps.. Then ya that shouldn't be allowed.. But there are VERY valid uses for AI assets, and even AI driven NPC dialog.

                This is like banning the future of gaming! Harmful to the potential.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Seems blanket, and even applies to text and music generated by AI. And now with Unity developing AI tools for devs, I'm curious how all of this is gonna come to a head.

                [–]Numai_theOnlyOne 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                ... isn't the primary of use of AI any different then any low quality garbage mobile game? In my experience a game often plays like to he graphics look. If the graphics are very cheap the game is usually the same.

                We don't know what's generated here, but I assume it's primarily the visuals that steam didn't like.

                [–]NikoKun 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                It's not always about graphics. While I find AI generated textures to be acceptable, or AI generated environments to have potential in the near future.. What I'm most interested at the moment, is AI generated NPC conversation. That enables something never possible in games before, but always hoped for in the minds of those playing them. The ability to naturally & dynamically converse with an in-game character, to ask them for information about the game world, or help with a quest. The possibilities in that regard, are endless and amazing. It could enable games like skyrim to go to the next level, never obtainable by manual conversation scripting.

                [–]Numai_theOnlyOne -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                But to be correct, Op seem to talk about "art pieces" not clear with rights and very obvious AI generated.

                What you specifically name with Npc conversation would also not have any copyright issues with the text as quests and knowledge of npcs is based on your game and what they are allowed to know. Shouldn't been any issue so far.

                What I read here in this whole article are people complaining on steam instead of seeing that it is their own fault using a widespread technology that somehow NO BIG COMPANY so far in the same way used for their games and don't wonder why such a powerful tool isn't used already for decades by everyone..

                Steam just currates low quality games.

                [–]Darkfeather21 -1 points0 points  (11 children)

                But there are VERY valid uses for AI assets

                Yes, for instance, if you can't be bothered to just pay an artist for their work.

                [–]NikoKun 2 points3 points  (10 children)

                No. For instance, dynamically generated NPC conversations that can actually converse with the player and discuss in-world information with them naturally, instead of having to rely on pre-scripted sentences. There's endless possibilities for games that were never possible before, and I want that potential in games!

                [–]Darkfeather21 -2 points-1 points  (8 children)

                And they'll never sound as good as something that was written with story and intent by a human.

                You want depth to your game, hire a writer and add a text prompter, like Morrowind.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                But you agree that in this case it is valid, and OP should republish when they believe they've finished the game instead of pulling a Cyberpunk 2077 and trying to sell it before its finished

                [–]DinglerAgitation -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                I think the OP was making Hentai games, which is pretty much the epitome of low-quality garbage.

                [–]hmpfies -3 points-2 points  (1 child)

                The issue is the impossibility of verifying that the developers have right to the assets used. It's not about quality, it's about valve not openly selling games that infringe on copyright. If the AI was trained on copyrighted material that the developer does not possess commercial rights to, then any asset produced has the risk of infringing on said copyright, possibly without the knowledge of the developer using said generated asset. As such, allowing the use of assets like this is a liability to everyone, including valve. So unless you can show you have ownership, no steam for you.

                [–]NikoKun 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                No, because that'd be relying on assumptions and faulty premises about whether infringement even takes place. This all hasn't been proven yet.

                It's not on game developers for using the tool, or even on the AI companies for pursuing the obvious next steps. At best, It's on the data-collection companies, and they're the ones that should be gone after, IF anyone.

                In my view, there's nothing wrong with AI viewing content, to learn from it, and the things AI produces aren't close enough to any original content, to qualify as infringement. They merely compete in quality. This is the natural course of technological progress, and we were always going to get to this point eventually, and it's only gonna keep improving in its abilities.

                From a futurist's viewpoint, I honestly don't understand how people are gonna come to terms with AI actually learning things, and being more capable than humans. I find the current reaction to be ridiculous false narratives.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                But in this case, the use of AI itself doesnt do anything that improves the quality of the game and he's free to re-publish when its finished.

                It seems strange for OP to be claiming to release a paid game before they even call it a finished product with low quality AI art

                [–]Throwaway-aigamedev 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                Posting on a throwaway because I don't want my game to get banned.

                ​

                I published a game on steam around the time this post was created that contains art with the dall-e 2 rainbow signature on the main menu of the game.

                ​

                It's possible that Valve missed my game, but I certainly didn't try to hide it. It's in literally every one of my store screenshots.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Seems recent, i think within the last month or so.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                My game was admittedly low effort shovelware, and i also had a prior game also made with AI, so i'm posting these videos outlining the situation, cause it's not too big of a deal for me if my prior game get's taken down:

                ​

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m60pGapJ8ao&ab_channel=PsykoughAI

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Did you get mad when Cyberpunk 2077 did pretty much exactly what you're doing now?

                [–]hornetjockey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                I don't have an issue with AI generated content on principle, but it sounds like the Valve lawyers have brought up a specific concern about who has rights to the content when the AI has been trained with copyrighted media. I'd bet we are going to be hearing more about this from all sorts of industries soon.

                [–]Mahhrat 1 point2 points  (15 children)

                Im thinking the point being missed is an 'actual artist' (being some rubbish conglomerate business) is very rapidly going to use AI to generate, and copyright, every single piece of art it can...a little like bit mining.

                Then they will sue anything close as infringement, looking to be paid that way.

                The outcome of that will define IP rights in ways we probably can't envisage.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Yeah, it's pretty much the type of regulation that hurts small players, rather than protects anyone, but that's the way it goes.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Except you CANT copyright AI generated art thats the point. At least, if the courts rule that way.

                [–]Samuraiking -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                Well, no... that's not it at all. Do you know how AI art generators get their AI? From scanning actual art by actual artists. In early iterations or even shittier generators, they rip our large swaths of art, art that would be considered copyright infringement if it was done by a human being. It's a big moral issue right now that a lot of artists are not okay with.

                I'm personally very pro-AI art and think that when it's done properly and given enough time, it will be making its own unique content and it's fine to use other artists work as inspiration if you don't actually copy it, just like real people do. But, until we get it to that state, I understand the hesitation.

                Imagine 10 years from now if some of these games that used AI art turn out to be big hits that made multi-millions of dollars. Now imagine the artists formed a lawsuit together because there's another (ironically) AI scanning program that scans all public AI generated art and is able to find out which ones ripped literal pieces of their art. Now Steam would potentially be liable for hundreds of millions or even a few billion dollars worth of damages to artists.

                It's sad, but this is just the reality of the tech right now. Like I said, I hope we get it to a stable and morally safe state so we can enjoy AI art without any infringement or plagiarism, but we aren't there yet.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (11 children)

                No, the point is you cant copyright AI art at all, the original painters cant.

                [–]Mahhrat 0 points1 point  (10 children)

                Wouldn't it be up to the owner of the AI (if such a thing is even morally acceptable, of course) to copyright everything that AI creates?

                That AI is then tasked with creating as much of everything as it can - I guess a bit like how patent trolls patent all kinds of nonsense then try to sue their way to riches?

                [–]reggie499 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Hmm, well obviously they are catering towards AAA studios here since AI would help even the playing field and give smaller studios/gamedevs a chance to compete. AAA studios would need to actually start trying and not make such awful choices. To go deeper here, AAA studios have had a track record of making bad games and charge a lot of money for them, not to mention how abusive they could be towards their own employees. Giving AAA a chance to "catch up" and set up a foundation for AI in the field of game development would be in their best interest.

                This resistance towards AI in general though will halt some serious progress.

                We really needed people like Andrew Yang to help get things moving, and give people a new way forward. If we already had some form of UBI, many wouldn't be as worried about their "job being lost."

                Sad really.

                I assumed, in light of AI, creating, working, living itself, what have you, would be smooth sailing from here on out... but I see... we still have a ways to go.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                No, actually big studios are the ones trying to make AI art legal, its a focal point of the writers and actors strike, which also affects video games.

                SAG though says on case by case basis the strike can be lifted for game actors and animation.

                [–]AreYouDoneNow 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                Valve are always really obtuse about their reasoning. Is this just because the images used to train the AI are potentially infringing a copyright license?

                And this is still BS from Valve because they accept Russian developers copy + pasting Unity assets all the time... and the Unity Asset Store general use license expressly forbids 1:1 copy + pastes of game assets, specifically:

                Licensor hereby grants to the END-USER a non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide, and perpetual license to the Asset solely:

                (a) to incorporate the Asset, together with substantial, original content not obtained through the Unity Asset Store, into an electronic application or digital media that has a purpose, features, and functions beyond the display, performance, distribution, or use of Assets (“Licensed Product”) as an embedded component of that Licensed Product, such that the Asset does not comprise a substantial portion of the Licensed Product;

                If you look at anything from the "developers" like Atomic Fabrik or "beats rolls", you can see those asset flips clearly violate that license/copyright agreement.

                Valve is just fine with it. This is a bizarre double standard.

                [–]escalation 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                They're probably just fine with it as long as you agree you provided the content. They likely care less about the actual origin of the content then who ends up holding the bag if a horde of lawyers comes asking legal questions and demanding money.

                [–]AreYouDoneNow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                You'd think the same would apply to OP and his AI generated art, then. That's why I feel this is a really frustrating double standard from Valve.

                [–]Nviii_r 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Can we see your art?

                [–]x2oop 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                So there goes my dream of creating an indie game...

                [–]ItsFalco 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Bro just learn to code and draw. It's not that hard I promise.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                You just cant sell it, of course you can still make an indie game.

                [–]mechnanc 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Are you still able to release games on Steam, just not that one? They just banned the app?

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Yeah, no problem with my steam account, I still get payments from my previous games and can release new ones in the future. They just refunded me the publishing fee for this one and retired it.

                [–]Pomidoras_Abrikosas 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Fuck copyright law, make it more sensible, 100 years later u cant create anything because it was already done? Bro smh

                [–]AliceTheINTP 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                im assuming this is the same guy, this popped up on my recommendations earlier:

                How I Made $1000 Publishing an AI Generated Game on Steam (Gone Sexual?!?!)

                tbh, idea was good and couldve gone far, tho yea letting steam review it with unpolished art probably was the biggest oopsie

                [–]TheLazyIndianTechie 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                One more note. Disruption always causes a break in the flow of the world and causes a section of people to get worried and the other to capitalize. I really feel bad for those coachmen in carriages that lost their jobs when the first automobile came around. There are so many better examples than that. But the point is. I think people need to stop complaining, embrace the change and adapt.

                [–]escalation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Do you foresee that happening when "embracing the change" affects the majority of jobs? Do you think most will quietly not complain when AI driven automation extends to robots learning from observing workers, updating an AI database and then replacing those workers en masse?

                Might be less of a problem if people had alternative means besides working to ensure they have food on the table and a roof over their head.

                [–]MaxDaten 1 point2 points  (6 children)

                Isn't DLSS AI tech trained on a dataset of many frames from many games? You actually can't tell if every game creator consented for their game to be used to train an upscaling model…

                [–]HayleyGurl99 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Nope

                https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/nvidia-dlss-your-questions-answered/

                The DLSS team first extracts many aliased frames from the target game, and then for each one we generate a matching “perfect frame” ... The supercomputer trains the DLSS model to recognize aliased inputs and generate high quality anti-aliased images

                My understanding here, is that it's trained directly from the game itself, not from all games.

                Also DLSS can't just be added into any game with the click of a button. Nvidia trains the data for developers, it's not some asset they just add.

                [–]Mkilbride 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Yet there are modders doing just that. Adding it to any game they want. :P

                [–]hmpfies 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                DLSS isn't generative. you're not breaking copyright when you're super sampling an image you own. DLSS isn't actively emulating artstyle or design. The image will still fully resemble the input, just with higher image fidelity. Better image quality isn't copyrighted and trademarked by a single games company. Nobody is upset about training on a wide dataset for non generative tasks. Generative AI with unknown, or too broad datasets runs the risk of infringing upon copyright.

                [–]barneydesmond 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I'm not certain, but I was under the impression that DLSS was trained on the games it's enabled on. That'd be why there's a shortlist of DLSS-enabled games.

                It's also possible that DLSS is trained on lots of games, and then tuned (and enabled) for each individual game; that would then be the messier case of potentially-unknown-provenance of training data. That said, nvidia could've easily had the foresight to get ahead of that, and put clauses in past contracts that permits them to use game creators' visual data for AI training.

                [–]MTOMalley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Right? I don't get how DLSS gets a pass for AI upscaling trained on copyright data? How's that ethical?

                [–]Renamonfan265 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                A frame in a videogame is not that comparable to a piece of artwork in terms of copyright. Give me one game what doesn't allow it to be recorded or screenshotted lol

                [–]yosimba2000 1 point2 points  (9 children)

                This doesn't sound right. How can anyone know if something is generated by a learning model or not? No forensic tool can give you that.

                You can always recreate that image with more time in Photoshop... Same outcome, yet one will be able to tell which one is generated and which isn't?

                OP's story is fishy.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                Added screenshots, it's a thing that's happened to other devs, seems like it's just started so only a few people have experienced it so far, but it is a thing a few people have experienced.

                [–]yosimba2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Thanks for the evidence, and I apologize for calling you out.

                [–]hmpfies 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                1. tons of forensic tools can give you that, most learning models have watermarks of some sort, like chat GPTs word generation fingerprint. Where it arbitrarily applies certain weights to certain words based on word count, letting an inverse AI figure out if a given text was written by chat GPT with ease.

                2. Sure, you can go around these rules. You can also lie about owning the rights to a certain asset when in reality you pirated it from the asset store. If nobody asks for proof you'll be good. But if anyone finds out you're fucked.

                [–]yosimba2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                If you had damning evidence like a hidden watermark or metadata, sure.

                But in the general case, even with inverse searches, the best you can ever get is a "maybe". Consider further that there are many other generative models. It's impossible to definitively conclude anything.

                [–]Rebel-Egg-Games 3 points4 points  (17 children)

                False alarm, this is a fake story.

                Why do I think that?

                - only one data point - post from 23 days ago, if Valve would take massive action against many AI-powered games, we would have many more such data points - dozens of new games get released daily on Steam.

                - user who posted that, posted only one post, half a year ago that he is working on a game

                - user in question never posted a link, screenshot, name or anything related to the game

                - there are way too many AI-powered games on Steam

                This makes me think that it is an account of a journalist who just layed foundation for a story.

                However - of course, I have no definite proof, so I might be wrong.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 2 points3 points  (12 children)

                I'm not doing this for any attention lol, i didn't even mention the name of my game as that wasn't my intention with this post. A similar other post was made just now: Another user facing the same issue

                [–]Arkwendor 0 points1 point  (5 children)

                u/potterharry97

                Please, show us images that were rejected by Steam.

                [–]geeky_username 2 points3 points  (4 children)

                What does that have to do with anything?

                [–]ghost_of_drusepth 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                There's a big difference between e.g. rejecting assets that depict known IP (like Harry Potter characters) and rejecting assets for being generated by AI. Without examples of what images were flagged, it's difficult to differentiate the two possible drivers of this story.

                [–]Arkwendor -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                What does that have to do with anything?

                If the author of the thread used neural networks to generate already existing copyrighted characters, then it's not about neural networks, it's about Valve not wanting to deal with the copyright holders of those characters.

                [–]Rebel-Egg-Games 0 points1 point  (5 children)

                I found that post recently (after I commented), but still - thats just 2 data points with no real information (what was rejected).

                Considering what you are saying is true - you probably generated some spiderman/pikachu or something, which would be in fact an IP violation.

                I second to what u/Arkwendor suggested - pics or it didn't happen.

                [–]YesMan847 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                to me it also does sound like he's lying to fear monger because he's being hurt by it. why the fuck would valve have anything to do with the copyright of your game? they can't be sued for that.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                I have nothing to gain by fear mongering lol. I added screenshots here

                Rejection messages

                I didn't bother providing proof as this post was just an FYI to other devs, and it had all of like 6 comments and upvotes until this morning, for the last 3ish weeks.

                [–]YesMan847 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                I have nothing to gain by fear mongering lol

                that's the issue here isnt it. nobody knows if you're lying or not. is it hard to create a screen shot that looks like that? i can do that in css in like 30 minutes. unless valve makes an official statement, this just doesn't seem plausible. how can valve know if you have an ai asset deep in your game somewhere? so are they only penalizing people who use screenshots with ai assets in it? what about ai voice? ai music?

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                No, OP provided a youtube video of the game. Do you think he planned this post six months ago?

                "Hentai Puzzles: The Origin" according to OP, shovelware that they didnt finish and were just gonna sell and then finish later.

                [–]featherless_fiend 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Second data point here, establishing a pattern. They banned his hentai game for AI apparently. His pinned tweet about it is dated June 16th:

                Ehh... With terrible sadness, I must announce that the next project also won't be released in the near future. This time it wasn't banned, just in limbo. Valve's approach to AI-generated content is to ensure there are no legal issues, and as of now, this matter is unclear.

                So there's a good chance this isn't a fake story.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Added screenshots to the post for proof

                [–]deedoedee 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                which appears to belongs to

                Things like this is how information security experts detect phishing emails.

                In other words, unless you have actual screenshots / proof, I'm gonna say this is probably fake.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                Added some, maybe the employee who reviewed my game used to write phishing emails

                [–]deedoedee -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                OP delivered, I retract my statement

                [–]Honza8D -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                i believe OP, but tampering with the underlying html is extremely easy so this is not much of a proof

                [–]FuriousAqSheep -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

                That's good. They are obviously staying on the safe side of the IP bomb that is generative ai. You may think it's bad for you to reject your game containing ai art, even after it's been modified, but what would be a lot worse for them would be to have steam accept the games, then be sued for hosting IP theft, lose, and have to take way more drastic actions, such as deleting games already bought by its clients.

                Until IP rights are clarified regarding ai generated data this is the safe approach: accept only content generated by ai trained on assets you own the rights to.

                [–]TheTrevLife 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Correct response

                [–]MatthewWolfbane -2 points-1 points  (4 children)

                I missed the part where that's my problem.

                [–]potterharry97[S] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye

                [–]numberchef 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                Can I ask what type of game this was? It is adult themed (like the other example)? Is that why you're anonymous and not sharing the images?

                Is that why you wrote earlier "I'd prefer it not to be associated with my name" - kind of a weird thing to say...

                [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Adult is a small part of it, but also the AI bit. Assume people would dox the game for the AI stuff if half these comments are any indication haha.

                [–]digitalpacman -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                Well, yeah, you still had AI content. They told you to remove it and you didn't remove it. Why didn't you just do what they asked?

                [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (3 children)

                Overall, this is good move, but I wonder what method they’re using to verify content.

                [–]yosimba2000 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                It's pick and choose, there is no tool that can definitively say this or that barring damning evidence like a watermark or metadata.

                Enough time in Photoshop will give you the same result, so how do you differentiate Pic A from Photoshop with Pic A from Midjourney? You can't, and it's why Steam's AI rule is going to be unenforceable.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                My guess was that they're scanning the app files for some sort of trigger in the file name or image metadata.

                I'd agree that it is a slippery slope and very challenging to implement, so if they're making this call it has to be automated to scale. If not, many will get swept up.

                It also focuses on imagery, while AI text or audio is viable and would more easily get missed.

                [–]yosimba2000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Exactly. I don't expect many games to be impacted, it's simply impossible to prove.

                [–]Masculine_Dugtrio -1 points0 points  (13 children)

                Honestly I'm glad to hear this. AI generated content was only possible because it was trained off of others existing artwork without consent.

                I get it, the work generated is technically new, but at the end of the day it was built off others hard work. It can take decades to perfect a style, anatomy, color theory, etc... And all of that is taken without permission to advance an AI. When all of this was open source, I had plenty of friends finding their content in the training model.

                Screw that, I'm okay with it if it is trained off of licensed content, but beyond that it needs a hard reset.

                We can debate the difference between inspiration between man and robot, but at the end of the day copyright exists to protect people, not programs.

                AI's end goal and purpose is to replace people for corporate profit. 🫤

                [–]phantomthiefkid_ 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                Ironically it is the "ethical" AI that benefits corporate profit the most. Because only giant corps like Adobe own enough dataset to train AI.

                [–]Masculine_Dugtrio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Which is a different debate, but Adobe isn't stealing everybody's artwork without their consent by the millions, and is actually paying for the photograph that they are using via license.

                So again, I'm okay with AI training models, but it has to be through license. You can't just take somebody else's work and put it through a program. It devalues the work individuals put into their craft, and replaces them.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Which is why unions like SAG and WGA are on strike, and largely pushing to block use of any AI art/writing in at the least movies and film, hopefully in the game industry too. You can also call your state or federal representative to ban companies like Adobe from laying anyone else off for AI art, they probably are old and dont know about it but may be willing to help.

                [–]MTOMalley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Or just use ethically trained models like adobe's firefly

                AI is here to stay

                [–]NikoKun 0 points1 point  (7 children)

                What about AI driven dynamic NPC conversations? Are those saying "good" now, also saying we're never allowed to have that in our games? Because I find that an unacceptable demand, that restricts the potential of how far games can advance in the future.

                [–]Masculine_Dugtrio 0 points1 point  (6 children)

                I think that is a separate debate from artwork.

                Being able to have conversations, and recount things we have heard or read online like news articles or opinion pieces is very different. This conversation we are having right now is not monetized, nor is it a part of any personalized project.

                But if an AI wants to be trained off of books so that I can imitate a fictional character, that is a license that would be needed. Because the writer should be compensated, if a studio or independent creator starts imitating their characters via AI.

                Same deal with music, got to have the license to the music if you want the AI to be trained off of it.

                Basically I draw the line at intellectual property, if you would need permissions or a license normally to use the work, then I think the same should apply when training an AI off of it. Going around actually hiring an artist, and training an AI to do similar work as theirs is an extremely insincere and gross way of making artists irrelevant.

                And I understand that isn't always the intention, but the work that is being produced by AI art generation, is because it is built off of millions of other people's work without their consent. The only reason that it can make a dress, landscape, is because somebody else put in that work first.

                And before you say well that is how humans learn, if I could stick a book up my ass and learn everything I would. Inspiration, the human experience, and their ability to learn how to do specialized crafts over decades, is not the same thing as AI.

                [–]NikoKun 0 points1 point  (5 children)

                The way I see it, AI doesn't need to be trained off any specific content, in order to mimic generic characters, or at least, it won't for long. And it's ability to do so, is rapidly improving, even without ever having seen such content. The current state of AI is merely a temporary stage of development.

                When AI truly doesn't need to view or read any protected "intellectual property" (if it even is), merely what's freely available and public domain, and can still produce just as good quality or better, than the models we currently have with questionable sources? What then?

                The typical response I get to these points: "well I don't believe it'll ever be able to do that", is entirely faulty, and has already been proven wrong, both by how tech advances, and recent developments in AI research.

                [–]stroud -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Did you use third party intellectual properties that you don't own?

                [–]DayAntique -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Good

                [–]ThrownAwayGirl49 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Good, fuck ai bullshit.

                [–]RedDuelist -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Rare Steam W

                [–]Batou2034 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                This is a Good Thing. AI generated assets trained on other people's copyrighted material are only being trained how to remix them, not how to create new works with sufficiently differentiated material. If you use AI, make sure you know the source and copyright of the training material used. If you don't, you are likely to get sued for IP infringement.

                [–]ratcodes -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Good.

                [–]TerraParagon -4 points-3 points  (32 children)

                GOOD. Fuck AI art. Actually learn your craft you lazy bastards.

                [–]geeky_username 4 points5 points  (26 children)

                I'm sure someone said that 30 years ago about Photoshop

                I'm sure someone said that 30 years ago about Protools for audio

                I'm sure someone said that 20 years ago about 3D modeling tools

                [–]wooglet23 0 points1 point  (13 children)

                Photoshop is a tool, you still need to have all the knowledge about composition, color theory, anatomy etc.. while none of that is true when it comes to AI. I'm not against AI as much as that person but your point is quite silly as a rebutal to their comment.

                [–]geeky_username 2 points3 points  (12 children)

                while none of that is true when it comes to AI.

                Yes it is.

                It's very easy to generate some garbage with AI. We laugh all the time about bad AI art

                It's the artist that knows what is and didn't good, the tool doesn't matter

                [–]wooglet23 1 point2 points  (11 children)

                An artist a 100 years ago, and an artist who uses Photoshop as a primary medium today, could both be given a pen and a paper and could produce something of quality. An AI artist couldn't, since they are entirely reliant on AI

                [–]geeky_username 1 point2 points  (10 children)

                since they are entirely reliant on AI

                Why's that a bad thing?

                I'm not going to be able to ride a horse like someone from 100 years ago and they'll not be able to drive a car like me

                [–]PolishedHippo 0 points1 point  (6 children)

                those things are tools. AI art is not a tool, it makes the whole thing itself. Your contribution is as much as that of a client asking an artist to draw them something. If you dm an artist "draw me a dog" you're not the artist, so why do you think you are one for doing the same thing with an AI?

                [–]geeky_username 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                AI art is not a tool

                Yes it is.

                it makes the whole thing itself

                So does "render clouds" or "Lens flare" in Photoshop.

                Your contribution is as much as that of a client asking an artist to draw them something.

                You keep switching between AI-tools and "is someone who uses AI an artist?"

                The entirety of computer graphics is "asking" the computer to draw something for you with code and math. So what of them? Are they not artists? Is what they produce not art?

                Then every video game and every CGI animation isn't art, because you had the computer "draw" those things for you.

                If you dm an artist "draw me a dog" you're not the artist, so why do you think you are one for doing the same thing with an AI?

                These are arbitrary semantics. If you add a clause to your request to the artist, then you can claim you are the original artist. What is the difference with that and assembling a bunch of code and math and telling the computer to render the image?

                Except now the "code" is natural human language instead of computer code.

                [–]NikoKun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                AI IS a tool, and the assertion that it isn't, is laughably absurd.

                Plus, this isn't just about AI art.. What about AI generated dynamic NPC conversations? Are you saying we're never allowed to have that in our games? Because I find that an unacceptable demand, that restricts the potential of how far games can advance in the future.

                [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                Photoshop does not use copyrighted content, is the thing. Every single hand in the process give consent.

                [–]geeky_username 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                And right now Adobe is putting our their own AI models with entirely legal assets.

                Training with copyrighted material is just a process problem. It has nothing to do with the technology itself.

                [–]NikoKun 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                What about AI driven dynamic NPC conversations? Are those saying "good" now, also saying we're never allowed to have that in our games? Because I find that an unacceptable demand, that restricts the potential of how far games can advance in the future.

                [–]TerraParagon 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                The AI will just talk in circles and never have any substance. If you find that fun then go on ahead

                [–]NikoKun 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                No, it won't. What gives you that impression, and what makes you think THAT'd be how it'd be implemented?

                It all depends on how it's setup.

                And actually, you're describing a problem that already exists for NPCs, with human writers. They already talk in circles or with vague small-talk that doesn't really match up. Look at background conversations in GTA or Skyrim, very few games have done better, and the ones that do eventually run into other limitations or just run out of script. And that's just the physical limitation of pre-programming such things. With AI they'd make a lot more sense, and even be able to discuss the changing situations around them, or the player's unique actions in their world. Even if it's not perfect, it'd still be better than what we've been doing.

                I wasn't even talking about NPC-to-NPC conversations, since I figured the potential was obvious.. I'm also not concerned with AI's current technical shortcomings, since they've already shown improvements are possible, in latest research.

                I was talking more about the player having conversations with the NPCs. Are you really happy with robotic and pre-scripted conversation trees? With AI, they'd be dynamic conversations, the player could ask about more unexpected scenarios or topics, in ways the developer couldn't have predicted with pre-scripted conversations.

                Depending on the prompting setup for a character, and the context that character is given, there's incredible potential there, and plenty of ways to limit what the player can ask of individual side characters. There's already ways to keep the AI 'in character'.

                I swear, it seems naysayers lack any vision for how this stuff could be used..

                [–]TerraParagon -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                The vision is that there are less and less ways the human race interacts with the world other than consumption.

                [–]Vytlo -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                Good?

                [–]ketamarine -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

                Good on valve.

                They stopped NFT / crypto gambling creeping onto their storefront, and are now stopping AI generated shovelware.

                We don't need thousands of knock of and janky games full of AI generated assets when there are so many great games out there made by actual devs and artists.

                [–]emveeoh -4 points-3 points  (45 children)

                Everyone is so confused by the legalities of AI, but it is actually very simple.

                Whenever you derive a 'new work' from a work that has been copyrighted, you have to obtain a 'master use' license from the person/entity that owns the 'master'.

                We can thank Biz Markie for clarifying this in his sampling lawsuit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Upright_Music,_Ltd._v._Warner_Bros._Records_Inc.).

                AI datasets will, eventually, need to have a license for each item in that dataset that they 'sampled'. They will need to obtain these licenses from whoever owns the 'master'.

                If our legislators were doing their job, they would mandate that any AI output would also have to list its sources.

                AI might be new, but intellectual property law is not.

                [–]SexDrugsAndWhatEver 8 points9 points  (10 children)

                this take is very .. reliant on precedent that may not apply. more likely this is still undecided law and it will take a court case that goes all the way to the supreme court to settle it. generative AI isn't 'sampling' any more than you or I are 'sampling' when creating output after consuming various media - so long as there is significant difference between the samples and the output.

                for someone to successfully bring a case, they would have to be able to point to work A produced by AI and then point to work B that they have rights to and prove that A is a derivative work of B in some meaningful way. for some AI generated content im sure that's doable, but it isn't clear that every work produced by AI should be impacted.

                [–]sarahlwalks 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                This. All of this right here.

                [–]LyreonUr -1 points0 points  (6 children)

                this take is very .. reliant on precedent that may not apply.

                It absolutelly does apply though.

                What the courts think is only useful to define the legality of the situation and regulate companies. The ethics and logic of the relationship is settled: If you dont have ownership or a license for the assets being put through an algorithm and the algorithm itself, you equaly dont have ownership of the results. Any other opinions about this come out of oportunism, really.

                [–]SexDrugsAndWhatEver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                i think that's a very loaded legal opinion that has yet to be tested in the courts. copyright as defined in the law has the concept of a derivative work and i dont think ur definition above matches what is written in the law.

                [–]WickedDemiurge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                This isn't necessarily true. We're not talking about taking one work and modifying it so that it is slightly different, we're talking about using a million works, none of them saved directly, to train a general algorithm that is good at art.

                ​

                The obvious ethics and hopeful legal status should be that de minimis use of any piece of work should have zero OP obligations. Possibly contributing 1/1000000th to a final work is not something we should give rights to, as keep in mind that all IP rights are at the expense of freedom of expression rights.

                ​

                Even if we're going to say on the net that it's good that Marvel can control Spiderman, we shouldn't go so far as to prohibit all coming of age stories that involve someone with spider based powers. Hell, coming of age stories and spirit animals / animal based powers or kinship are older than most civilizations.

                [–]ogrestomp[🍰] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                It’s not sampling though. In sampling, parts of the original are used in the derivative work. I work with ai models, not using them to generate art or stories, the actual models. I containerize them and build apis so that data scientists can offer their models as a micro service.

                I want to preface this by saying I do think there will be laws written and rules to deter works from being included in datasets. For instance maybe new laws around data privacy may inadvertently make it so that data sets need explicit and recorded permission to include anything that isn’t in the public space, including copy written content, but as it stands the laws are not written yet to include what actually happens when these things are trained. AI ethics is a huge talking point in the space, and I know first hand that companies are trying to navigate this because everyone knows it’s just a matter of time before laws and rules come through. At my startup for instance, we implemented a mandatory documentation workflow before uploading any models. Part of that documentation is an explicit statement of what types of datasets were used to train the model. An uploaded can refuse to document, but we put that they refused on record with the model details so that users can decide for themselves.

                Now to my point. The popular opinion of how AI generates content is woefully ignorant due to media oversimplifying the concepts so that their audience, who aren’t experts, can follow along. AI models do not sample anything. There actually is a completely different program used to “train a model” than the one used to generate content. The one generating is called the inference. Training occurs and data is fed in. None of the original data becomes part of the model. Instead, the data is used to trigger data flows. Those flows then store whether they were activated by a particular piece of the data. The data itself is only used to trigger those flows. In this way, there is no way to recreate anything that was fed into it. You can’t claim copyright on weighted values stored. A ruling against this would open pandoras box on restricting a whole lot of things that are already established. AI learns patterns, similar to how certain tropes exist through different shows or movies. Then it applies those patterns into a completely new canvas. Once the model is trained, there are files that get passed to the inference. The inference then takes new input, say a prompt, and creates a new image by feeding the prompt through the flows and with a random seed generator, flows are activated based on the new prompt and a new image is generated. I’m on lunch break and on mobile, sorry if this just confused more.

                [–]emveeoh -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

                There is a recent federal court ruling that addresses your "essence of" argument:

                Pharerell Williams/Robin Thicke vs. Marvin Gaye "Blurred Lines"

                https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/15-56880/15-56880-2018-03-21.html

                "The estate of Marvin Gaye argued that Thicke and Williams stole the "general vibe" and certain percussive elements of "Got to Give It Up" for their song "Blurred Lines." The court ruled in Gaye's favor. Thicke and Williams paid $5.3 million in damages and will pay a 50% royalty fee making this one of the biggest payouts in music copyright history." Source: https://library.mi.edu/musiccopyright/currentcases

                We shall see if the courts respect precedence or not. Until something changes, the old laws apply. Thus, my 'matter-of-fact' tone and why Valve's pushback on creators doesn't surprise me.

                Note the "fair use" of the case citation above. ;)

                [–]SexDrugsAndWhatEver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                i do think if u find something copied wholesale then it will be an easy case, but i dont think its so cut and dry that every output from a model trained on work X is in violation of work X. i'm not sure the overlap is as black and white as u think.

                again i think this is undecided law at this point and it will be some time before the question is answered in a general way.

                [–]FromHereToEterniti 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                I don't have a problem with any core argument you are making here. I think you're entitled to think what you are thinking and I don't object to it in any way, I want you to understand this, it is important.

                But I highly object to the certainty and authoritative tone you're using. There is absolutely no way that you can be certain about what you wrote.

                And if you were a subject matter expert on this topic, you would have known that there is absolutely no clarity about the copyright status of AI content. I don't know why you believe what you believe, if you just don't know how AIs generate content or if you just don't know much about copyright law.

                But I do know for a fact you're the kind of person no one should ever listen to. You're dangerously overconfident regarding topics you without any doubt can not be confident about to the degree that you claim you are.

                Also, welcome back. It's been a long 5 years. Curious you decided to do so on this post. That's quite uncommon as well. Just overall... I don't know what you're up to here, but... It definitely does not look like normal user engagement.

                [–]ogrestomp[🍰] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Yeah, they’re using the definition of “sampling” to encompass what AI does to it’s training data, but if you know anything about sampling music and also know how to train AI models, it’s clearly not the same concept.

                [–]SuchAd6855 4 points5 points  (3 children)

                IMO this all needs to go away. It’s used in absolutely absurd ways now - before long you won’t be able to sing a song you wrote yourself on YouTube because an algorithm says the advertising rights to your chord progression belong to the relatives of a musician you’ve never heard who died 30 years ago. It’s just stupid at this point.

                Also this is just USA copyright law. It’s not morality. I don’t know why but zoomers and millennials took don’t copy that floppy way too seriously and now think laws created to benefit huge corporations constitute artistic ethics.

                [–]sarahlwalks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                I'm a very young millennial, and I think the way copyright is implemented is insanity.

                [–]ygjb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                zoomers and millennials took don’t copy that floppy way too seriously and now think laws created to benefit huge corporations constitute artistic ethics

                Not really. It's because Gen X and later consumers developed their artistic tastes and aesthetics based on the generally available media, which since the late 80s til now have been progressively more engineered and encumbered by copyright. If you compare and contrast most media productions, the mechanical presentation of that media (e.g. sound editing, mixing, sampling, etc, but also every element of cinematography) is vastly superior in presentation, but that doesn't mean that the art itself is better.

                It's not that there isn't new art being generated, or that the music that the most popular musicians, artists, authors and cinematographers are lower in quality, it's that the tastes of consumers have been shaped by an intersection of new media technologies offering better sound, better visuals, and higher production values. At the same time an army of lawyers have worked to prohibit any of the traditional creative re-use that drives the gestalt that spits out new art, all in pursuit of higher profits.

                Unfortunately in the high-fidelity and high-resolution era, older stuff that has to be transcoded from analog to digital, upscaled, and resampled to be presented in a competitive market place, that means that older content doesn't draw the same audience until individuals grow and mature their own taste to get past the "processed/fast food" that makes up modern mainstream media.

                The wiki link the parent comment had even addresses this, illustrating that the types of musical mashups that were common in the 70s and 80s pretty much died in the 90s (and went into the memory hole, because after that ruling, previously sampled tracks had to be cleared or could not be distributed).

                Intellectual property rights are absolutely critical to protect artists, but unfortunately the rules that were originally set out to protect and cultivate creativity have been completely captured and subverted by corporations and their lawyers to choke out any creative competition that hasn't paid them off (in the form of track clearances and licensing fees). I also don't think there is an easy way to unwind that stack without also removing protections (such as still remain) for independent artists :(

                [–]Technician-Acrobatic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Yeah lawyers have way too much to say in US to an abusrd level of lack of common sense

                [–]brent_tubbs 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                It's not really that clear. That's a district court case, from New York, which isn't going to be binding precedent in other circuits. Compare this more recent 9th circuit case for example, where they held that you can get away with "de minimis" sampling without needing a license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMG_Salsoul_v_Ciccone

                [–]emveeoh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Another interesting copyright quirk...
                drum loops, drum beats, and drum patterns can not be copyrighted because they aren't technically considered songwriting.

                [–]TheTerrasque 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                I'm sorry, but unless you can either show that you have copyright for all text you've ever read, or have obtained a 'master use' license for the entities owning such text, your comment is in violation of copyright law.

                [–]stewsters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Unless you invent each word in your reply, you are just copying.

                [–]EGO_Prime 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Whenever you derive a 'new work' from a work that has been copywritten, you have to obtain a 'master use' license from the person/entity that owns the 'master'.

                We can thank Biz Markie for clarifying this in his sampling lawsuit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Upright_Music,_Ltd._v._Warner_Bros._Records_Inc.).

                That's only for raw sampling, which is not what AI does.

                AI doesn't take or store the original data, it finds patterns in a data set and learns those meta items. It is completely transformative, and once the AI is done, no longer stores the original image data.

                The original owners would have no claim to the data, any more then a master artist would have claim to a student's future works.

                [–]arvindh_manian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                To my knowledge, this is an oversimplification. Fair use, I believe, doesn't hinge on a 'master use' license. The linked case is specifically about music sampling, which I feel is significantly less transformative than AI-generated content. Even in music sampling, there's still the potential argument of de minimis -- that so little of the copyrighted work was used that it doesn't rise to the level of infringement.

                [–]BakuretsuGirl16 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                AI datasets will, eventually, need to have a license for each item in that dataset that they 'sampled'

                It should be noted that this is already happening, IIRC Getty Images known for their stock photos is licensing their library to AI generators for training.

                [–]BlueArmistice 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                Shutterstock also has an AI trained exclusively on their library so the images have a clean license as well.

                [–]emveeoh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Even MidJourney keeps a comprehensive record of every user image generated from its AI. ;)

                [–]Stormy116 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                Yes but you dont have to do that if you view material with a copy right and learn how to create art from it. All artists view other artists are while learning how to create their own. Its mashed up so much there is no claim they stole it. Theres no way youd ever have every image included in the dataset allowed to make a claim that would be obviously insane.

                [–]spankenstein 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                The difference is we as humans are generally exposed to random stimuli in day to day life but the computer is only exposed to the information that you provide to it.

                [–]Stormy116 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                So youre good with it if it’s random??

                [–]DaletheG0AT 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I think OP is being sneaky by not providing any more context as to what was rejected and why. For all we know he's using AI generated images of harry potter.

                I don't think it's the fact that its AI generated here, but instead using the likeness of another copyrighted character. No way of knowing as OP is anonymous and has approximately 0 credibility.

                [–]GrixM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I don't think it is straight forward that AI generated content is legally derived from its training material. It is certainly not the same as sampling music.

                [–]megafly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I can almost guarantee that Disney didn't obtain any rights to the dataset used to create the opening credits for "Secret Invasion"

                [–]eilertokyo 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                That precedent has already been overturn in a number of countries and will eventually be overturned here. It would kill virtually all AI research in the US.

                [–]stewsters 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                And all creative work. I would wager there are no artists that have not seen and learned from another artists work.

                Unless you are putting fingerprint on a newborn.

                [–]emveeoh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                We are all the product of our inputs.

                [–]emveeoh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                I disagree. There are many aspects of 'fair use' that would still apply. Fair Use examples: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and research.

                [–]stewsters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Any artist that experiences art should also have to register his samples. Saw the an ad that inspired you? Gotta get permission for that inspiration!

                [–]bombmk 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                Sampling is not finding a piece of music and then reconstructing the notes that hints at the original and recording those notes. Your logic would label just hearing a piece of music as "sampling". What matters is what is used in the final product.

                Your own link has a section about how they got around sampling rights by interpolation - and actual transformation like AI does would take that a step further yet.

                So, no, it is actually not very simple. Because it is not even close to the same thing as sampling.

                [–]emveeoh 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                There is a recent federal court ruling that addresses your "essence of" argument:

                Pharerell Williams/Robin Thicke vs. Marvin Gaye "Blurred Lines"

                https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/15-56880/15-56880-2018-03-21.html

                "The estate of Marvin Gaye argued that Thicke and Williams stole the "general vibe" and certain percussive elements of "Got to Give It Up" for their song "Blurred Lines." The court ruled in Gaye's favor. Thicke and Williams paid $5.3 million in damages and will pay a 50% royalty fee making this one of the biggest payouts in music copyright history." Source: https://library.mi.edu/musiccopyright/currentcases

                [–]bombmk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Yeah, they basically ruled that it was interpolation. Without rights from the songs composer.

                Still not the same as what AI does.
                Now an AI result could end up producing a result that was close enough to be analogous.
                But the mere use of the original material in the AIs process would in and of itself not constitute the same thing.

                [–]TheManni1000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                this is false. copyright does not care about the proces! it only cares about the end result and if in the end result is not vissible that other work was used then its ok.

                [–]Numai_theOnlyOne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                This is my assumption as well, and the way currently new AI tools are build upon.

                [–]Honza8D 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Good thing AI art isnt anymore derivative than a human using another art as inspiration (which every artist does)

                [–]Pinsplash -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                lol

                [–]CoolGalEmma -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                Good

                [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                [deleted]

                  [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  OP flat out said its shovelware thats unfinished and used AI as a placeholder in a game they were selling for money.

                  Its "Hentai Puzzles: Origin"

                  A vid called "How I made $1000 with AI generated art"

                  [–]Godphila -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                  Yeah! Now do the same for pallet-swap mass production games.

                  [–]GnarlyLavaBear -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

                  AI generated content is so obviously plagiarism that Valve is just being smart by blocking it now as opposed to having to remove games, and issue refunds, when courts eventually rule that it is plagiarism.

                  You can't forget that there are lots of large corporations out there who want their piece of the AI pie. The only way for them to do this is to sue the LLM for using their IP without permission in their models. A court ruling can set a precedent that AI-generated content needs permission from all copyright holders that it is using in its models. It's an obvious outcome and Valve knows it.

                  [–]Technician-Acrobatic 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                  All artist who trained (studied) artwork of Van Gogh or Picasso then created new work in their original style should be sued for copyright infringement.

                  Human neurons vs AI neural network work in the exact same way, by building up experience on past work of others and their own.

                  [–]GnarlyLavaBear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Van Gogh and Picasso are dead, and Van Gogh's works are all in the public domain. Many of Picasso's works are also in the public domain. So, yes, artists may attempt to recreate their works as much as they want.

                  More importantly, you fundamentally misunderstand how "AI" and this "neural network" operates. Those are marketing terms, not reflections of how the technology actually works. It doesn't reason, it doesn't "learn," it's just auto-complete. An evolution of the markov chain.

                  If what you are saying is true, then let's remove all of the images and assets from the training model and just show it some tutorials? If a human "neural network" can learn like that then surely an "AI" can.

                  [–]TheFleshBicycle -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                  Good.

                  [–]helldaemen -2 points-1 points  (5 children)

                  I'm extremely doubtful this is real and not just some wishful thinking, trolling, on the AI Doomers part.

                  [–]stewsters 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                  Yeah. Games have been using proc gen for 40+ years, it's a bit late to clamp down on it.

                  Unless other people get these I would be doubtful.

                  [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                  I added screenshots for proof. I guess it's cause generative art imaging is fairly new, and seems like it's an iffy territory legally, so Steam's playing it safe.

                  [–]funplayer3s 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Yeah your screenshot APP ID is blacked out. Easy enough to find a liar with a false ID and permaban you is why.

                  [–]hmpfies 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Proc gen hasn't had severe risk of infringing on copyright, possibly even without the devs knowledge, until this point. the distinction makes sense. Other people have gotten this notice.

                  [–]AFaultyUnit -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                  Good. Hopefully the current AI models that were built on theft and exploitation get ruled illegal.

                  [–]captaindealbreaker -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

                  Their stance isn't that they aren't allowing AI generated content, it's that they can't allow content based on other people's IP.

                  If you made a Stable Diffusion model with original artwork and then used that to generate your assets, it would be fine. But using publicly available models that use copyrighted work as training data is a HUGE legal grey area that you frankly shouldn't be exploring if you're trying to make a commercially licensed product.

                  Going back and modifying something generated with such a model doesn't make it original either. The burden of proof that your changes are transformative falls on you in a legal case.

                  [–]Rylai_Is_So_Cute -3 points-2 points  (1 child)

                  1) Valve says don't use AI to make assets, give you one chance to remove it.

                  2) You try to play smart my using AI assets but try to hide it.

                  3) You get banned.

                  My guy, probably they developed a tool to detect AI generated content. It's all on you.

                  [–]Ultrabenosaurus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Not sure why you're getting downvoted for simply explaining the OP's actions in brief. Regardless of whether people agree or disagree with Valve's stance on AI-generated assets, OP was told not to use them and intentionally tried to trick "the system" into letting their AI-generated assets through anyway and is now salty they got blocked. That's just dumb and OP deserves it.

                  [–]LeonBlaze -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

                  Good

                  [–]stuaxo -3 points-2 points  (3 children)

                  Given that "AI" images are remixed / based off the training data and nobody has made a service with provenance for licenses, or just trained off known good data this is inevitable.

                  The fact is the tool providers went for an "better to ask for forgiveness that permission" model and as usual that pushes the problem downstream.

                  [–]j0s3f 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  Adobe Firefly is trained only on images where Adobe has the rights to do so. I am quite sure they will charge a price that reflects that for the generated images. But compared to getting sued and not being able to publish a game on steam, it might still be worth it.

                  [–]1243231 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                  Did OP use Adobe Firefly?

                  Regardless, if thats true Firefly wont be killed by copyright law, however union negotiations and legislation might, I'm gonna get a meeting with one of my Senators and that'll come up.

                  [–]BisaLP -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

                  Good.

                  [–]mrmadrealms -4 points-3 points  (47 children)

                  Learn to create your own assets or buy them from a vendor.

                  [–]MostlyRocketScience 2 points3 points  (5 children)

                  Or just use Adobe's Firefly AI which has the rights of all training images cleared

                  [–]zarawesome 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Firefly doesn't generate porn assets, is the problem.

                  [–]Voyajer 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                  Adobe firefly was trained off of Adobe stock, which has midjourney images being sold within. So it's not quite clear cut whether they own the rights to that training data.

                  [–]MostlyRocketScience 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                  Adobe Stock requires labeling AI art and I would trust the Firefly devs to be smart enough to filter that out, especially since being only trained on rights-cleared images is such a selling point for Firefly

                  [–]Banjo6445 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  if you search for the latest assets on the unity asset store you will see tons of AI-generated textures/icons/etc. what's the difference were you purchased in on store or generated by yourself?

                  [–]TheNSAagent 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                  Effectively very little, however there is a chance the datasets used to generate the paid assets were verified to not contain any copyrighted material. Or else the seller can be held liable for copyright infringement. Take this with a whole salt mine, I am not a lawyer nor do I know Unity's ToS.

                  [–]Banjo6445 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  There is another aspect. why is AI trained on another artist dataset is prohibited, but artwork done by an artist also trained by a dataset of other artists is not

                  <image>

                  [–][deleted]  (35 children)

                  [deleted]

                    [–]mrmadrealms 0 points1 point  (23 children)

                    Get your head out of the sand. AI generated art isn't going anywhere. Wait until the legal situation has settled and watch the floodgates open.

                    🤓🤓🤓

                    [–][deleted]  (22 children)

                    [deleted]

                      [–]KelloPudgerro 0 points1 point  (10 children)

                      all signs point to copyright obliterating ai generated stuff

                      [–][deleted]  (9 children)

                      [deleted]

                        [–]Galdred 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        And how can we be sure that the vendor assets would pass Steam AI test?

                        [–]mrmadrealms -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

                        If it doesn't look like shit, it ain't AI.

                        [–]tomerbarkan 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                        Strange, doesn't seem they have a problem with this game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2095900/This_Girl_Does_Not_Exist/

                        [–]Algost_ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        good. They are obviously staying on the safe side of the IP bomb that is generative ai. You may think it's bad for you to reject your game containing ai art, even after it's been modified, but what would be a lot worse for them would be to have steam accept the games, then be sued for hosting IP theft, lose, and have to take way more drastic actions, such as deleting games already bought by its clients.

                        Until IP rights are clarified regarding ai generated data this is the safe approach: accept only content generated by ai trained on asset

                        Maybe cuz it's already available, maybe they add these rules right now for future games, and in a second time going back on every games they allowed in the past and say "Hey, nont possible anymore, sry dude"

                        [–]jecowa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        That game might be part of the reason for the ban.

                        [–]WhaleSong2077 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        my cpu is grateful at least when it comes to 3d AI assets since they are still usually terribly optimized, vertex shaded things. once theres a retopo / optimization AI then we're in business

                        [–]G1fan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        But I like doing retopo :'(

                        [–]u--s--e--r 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                        I'd love more clarification on assets that are partially AI created.

                        e.g. I have some albedo textures I've created through some process, and I use a model to general a roughness texture.

                        or I've created a LoRA or whatever it's called on my own character design, then use control net to generate new images with my character in new poses.

                        or I've modeled some objects and I'm making a hand painted style game, I might iterate through some generated textures to get roughly what I want then finish painting manually.

                        Alternatively I paint the rough version then iteratively use the AI model to get closer to the final result before doing a final touch up manually.

                        [–]TheNSAagent 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        Kind of a loose rule with art is that 80% is someone else's, 20% is yours. If the AI-generated assets are merely a small- to medium-sized building block to your own work, then it's (mostly?) fine. At least in how you're describing it. But if you're just dropping it in as-is with no attempt at modification, then absolutely not.

                        tl;dr: Textures are fine, LoRA is questionable, painted filter is also a very hard maybe.

                        [–]u--s--e--r 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        But if you're just dropping it in as-is with no attempt at modification, then absolutely not.

                        I've only played a little with stuff like stable diffusion, but I am a hobbyist game/engine dev and I feel like people just straight dropping in stuff from stable diffusion are generally going to get next to nowhere (or at least spend a lot of time looking through thousands of generated images).

                        Maybe there is space for a game or two to embrace the jank (ignoring legal stuff), or maybe it might work for some genre (card games maybe, like an MTG rip off --> not a consistent style)?

                        There is tonnes of cool-looking output from generative AI models, but it seems non-trivial to get a large amount of consistent looking useful output.

                        Even for something like a visual novel I feel like there could still a significant manual effort/time to make it look any good (across a whole VN, not a page of two).

                        I'm mainly understanding this from a 3D game angle, so there's some effort involved even in slapping anything generated from SD onto a mesh and looking like an actual thing at all.

                        [–]TheDevilsAdvokaat 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                        Wow. I've got some AI generated textures.

                        Is this the kind of thing they do not like?

                        [–]nabbun -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                        Not as long as you have the rights to the work used in creating the final product. Or licensed it. OP didn't and they tried to cover it up with hand painting. Steam isn't playing around with opening itself up to lawsuits just cuz OP is lazy or worse, knowingly stealing.

                        Just read the actual response from steam! It's all there.

                        Here's a clearer explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/14m5ano/valve_is_banning_games_with_ai_generated_assets/jpzt9gt/

                        [–]TheDevilsAdvokaat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Ok I'll have a look.

                        [–]FastFooer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Do you own all the dataset that was used to train the AI, if so, you’re in the clear.

                        AI is not the issue, the issue is what AI used to generate the content. Lawsuits and legislation are finally being brought forward to address this.

                        AI in its current form is a copyright infringement generator.

                        [–]Guarana_SUI 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        What about all the shovelware that is allready on steam using AI?

                        [–]OkRub4398 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                        As a developer, you can refer to the successfully released and sold game "Atomic Heart" which got AI-generated art (you can check on youtube) in the ending "storytelling" part, it's obviously generated. Here the picture is an example of that, it looks like Valve got some double standards.

                        <image>

                        [–]OkRub4398 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        It would be pretty interesting to see how valve will defend this.

                        [–]tidy-dinosaur323 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        If they own the images used to train the model that generated that art, or used a tool like Adobe firefly, they should be good

                        [–]OkRub4398 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        If they owned any picture related to the final scenes, they would mock them up. They even not cleared floating hands or heads on pictures, even I can do it in paint ;D

                        [–]Kosai106 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Good.

                        [–]tpurves 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                        So... rogue and nethack have been doing proceduraly generated content since the 1980s....

                        [–]PolishedHippo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        What they mean is quite obvious man. They dont want games that have assets created by AI art generators like DALL-E. This is because since they use stolen artworks, you technically dont have the copyright on the images generated

                        [–]hmpfies 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Nobody has in issue with procedurally generated content. Thats not what this is about. This is about the legal grey area that scraped datasets lead to, where people could be infringing on copyright without even knowing it.

                        [–]zyzzogeton 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        On the bright side, they responded. Imagine if the Apple store did this.

                        [–]AidenTEMgotsnapped 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        'it took them over a week to provide this verdict' That probably means all AI appeals were immediately sent to manual review so they could check to make sure the content was actually removed, and that people weren't just trying to pull the same thing you tried to do. You were asked to remove the AI content, not to try and stealthily cheat at getting approved (that also doesn't work if they know you're using AI in the first place).

                        [–]darkestdollx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Hey Valve, if you need bots to help you figure out which submissions are AI, we at /r/chirperai got your back! 😉

                        [–]Particular-Yogurt-21 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        I think this is a misleading post. An AI tool with an open source training data set would not receive this. They think they have something and are sure you are not using a tool with a clear copyright bill of health.

                        [–]taklamakan666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Great news!

                        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        And how the fuck are they going to make massive battle scenes without ai?

                        [–]DrKersh 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        galactic civilizations 4 have AI GPT incorporated, in images and text, but it is all based and trained in house

                        [–]TheManni1000 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        i guess they have to ban high on live then

                        [–]MTOMalley 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Way more games than that, but yes! Even bonelab has midjourney based posters.

                        [–]Samuraiking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Do you not have rights to AI art you generate? Like, maybe certain sites have a ToS where they retain the rights to use them too, but can you really not use them? I would understand if you can't copyright AI generated art, but it should at least be copyright-free then, no?

                        I guess I can understand a way it COULD be a copyright issue, I'm just wondering what the actual legal issue is specifically.

                        [–]sr71speedcheck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Can you share screenshots of the assets that caused the problem?

                        [–]sylinowo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Yeaaaah in the steam TOS it states that ai generated content in games is just straight up prohibited

                        [–]Kats41 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        Common Value W.

                        Everything about this thread is [chef's kiss]. Can't kit-bash other people's art and call it your own. Beautiful.

                        [–]DayAntique 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        This story and all the comments crying about it are satisfying to see

                        [–]Ok-Company-5016 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                        I asked them to explain how they can tell what is AI and what isn't since there have been AI games that slipped through.

                        But they aren't answering, instead of proving what is AI, no doubt this is done by personal evaluation which is leading me to believe we are going off on the original decision again of some Steamworks reviewers.

                        There is no way to prove AI art is actually AI art conclusively in a court of law, so this is just bullshit from their side.

                        This kind of shit has happened before, some Steamwork reviewer making their own decision for their own activist bullshit.

                        [–]HellsoulSama 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                        Tough call... the second they start to explain to you how they are able to detect these types of things using their own algorithms is the second that knowledge/info goes public to a bunch of people who would then make new ways to exploit and avoid that detection algorithm.

                        It's a tough pill to swallow though, I agree... people trying to do something creative using tech-influenced art is now considered a no-no instead of just being enjoyed at face-value as something visually-pleasing to look at

                        [–]Ok-Company-5016 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        They aren't detecting anything with algorithm, they are eyeballing it. There are still AI-gen games being published. There is nothing on Github that can tell what art is AI-Gen reliably either. There is no legal implication for AI art at all because its impossible to take them to court.

                        This thing is purely a decision made by a single department because AI-gen games are still up on Steam right now. There is just a Steamwork employee blocking it on their own. The procedure is too sloppy and unprofessional to be an official move.

                        [–]HellsoulSama 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Hmmm, well, if that is the case then making subjective decisions for what to keep on the platform and want to take down then it's definitely going to be a dumpster fire, much like the original reaction in the thread.

                        Like I mentioned though however, trying to keep up with the sheer quantity of newly created AI-generation-assisted contents being applied to add to the platform is going to be a hell of a job... hence the current state of not fully checking everything over and instead judging each book by its cover.

                        [–]ADoritoWithATophat 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        There was a case with the monkey that actually proved ai products are not under copyright of the people who generated them. A monkey grabbed a photographer's camera and took a picture of itself. the photographer tried to sell the photo, but since it wasn't directly made by him, he wasn't legally allowed to it. this case now encompasses copyright law regarding AI generated tools, since you didn't make it yourself.

                        [–]escalation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        The camera owner wasn't legally allowed to copyright the image. This does not necessarily mean that he can't sell the image. Essentially, neither the man, the monkey, or anyone else owned that image.

                        [–]rhapsodiangreen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        In my opinion as someone who's distanced but somewhat adjacent to this work, the legality isn't as unclear as so many are making it seem. Attorney and musician Damien Reihl has been making some compelling cases as seen in this TedTalk on algorithmic bias and music. There's a natural cross-over in generative AI. Also, in studies that use generative AI, there are in some ways less ethical concerns because the images used are 1 of 1 and made completely at random (talking about using human-looking images here).

                        [–]Renamonfan265 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Sorry buddy but steam's response is very reasonable, they were polite enough to even give you a refund. You got rejected a second time because you didn't do what they explicitly told you to, instead of removing supposed copyright infringing materials you tried to.. hide it?

                        They also gave you a good opportunity to correct them if in fact the model you were using was only trained on public domain material and did not have issues with copyright.

                        The obvious "fix" is to release the game once you are at the point where all the textures are improved and your own, which you said you planned to do anyway

                        [–]Hyrgola 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Maybe you should hire a human artist, maybe

                        [–]harry_1511 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Great, if you want to produce quality content, then hire people who can do a proper job, or do it yourself if you are capable. Don't be cheap and rely on AI for shitty content.

                        [–]bustersbuster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        lol. lmao.

                        [–]ryoshu 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        They are banning some AI-powered games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1519310/AI_Dungeon/ is driven by GPT-2 by OpenAI.

                        [–]Conscious_Angle_3521 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        still available in the store

                        Edit: It seems that it used to cost $20, but now it is free

                        [–]ScradleyWTF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        I guess you could use AI to learn how to make a game the right way with your own assets.

                        [–]ShadowRider777666 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Okay THIS; gives me a clear picture as of what Valve allows or not.

                        [–]TheLazyIndianTechie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        I honestly think this whole tirade against ai-generated content is stupid. I mean, humans who create art are trained on impressionist art or just general art by others. So, it absolutely doesn't make sense as an argument that art generated based on data trained on a large dataset cannot be allowed.

                        What people are getting worried about, and need to avoid, is that this somehow replaces their creativity. No it doesn't! It's just a tool to enhance your productivity and come up with even crazier art in much lesser time.

                        [–]HellsoulSama 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Not a popular opinion, but even as someone who has dabbled in both game-dev and ai-generated game-assets/art, I am very much on the fence about this myself. It definitely isn't an easy decision for platform owners.

                        There's already enough random garbage content on platforms like Steam, so now with AI making it even easier for anyone to throw something together, we will have even more stuff to have to slog through to find what we are looking for/may actually be interested in playing.

                        This will go for any industry, since it affects anything which is "made easier by AI-assisted content-generation" such as articles, YouTube videos/media, games, etc. ... we are all going to have to find new ways to cut down the bulk of content... and Steam has answered by doing just that it seems.

                        (Don't get me wrong, a lot of people <myself included> who didn't have refined development skills before and couldn't showcase their talents will now be able to make some really awesome games, write awesome articles, and create decent YouTube content, etc., but for the rest of the 90% of the mass trash/bloat that gets thrust onto platforms in hopes to make some $$ with a "quantity instead of quality" approach, we all suffer along with the platform itself.)

                        [–]PwanaZana 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                        Edit: removed my slanderous accusations

                        [–]potterharry97[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                        The characters don't seem to resemble any copyrighted characters that I've been able to find. This is literally the game page of my game which was taken down: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2376440/Hentai_Puzzles_Attack_on_Tight_Panties/
                        If i do a reverse google search on both the characters, there are some somewhat similar looking characters on google, but Anime is a generic enough art form that any simple anime character you come up with might vaguely resemble like 10 other characters. I believe if resemblance was the issue, they would have told me which character of mine, resembled which other pre-existing character. The AI ban seems to be recent, but it has affected other devs too by this point, so I know it's not just my game.

                        [–]PwanaZana 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                        fair enough, fellow man of culture.

                        I have besmirched your honor.

                        [–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                        Dw haha, I'd be skeptical too if it didn't happen to me. I might have been the first person this happened to as I couldn't find any info about this anywhere as it was happening.

                        [–]daush 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                        So they gonna delete high on life? Awesome game thought

                        [–]potterharry97[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                        not sure if they're gonna take down existing games with AI content, but we'll see i guess

                        [–]UnitedNeedleworker62 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Well deserved. Fuck AI art.

                        [–]Pale_Ad_2502 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        lol. how bad those texture were if even the steam support had to deny the game?

                        [–]JunkNorrisOfficial 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        Hey, how obviously it was that assets are AI generated?

                        [–]GenesisAria 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                        AI Does Not Infringe Copyright!! That is NOT how AI works. Recently many countries around the world have been rapidly pushing that AI generated content is free use and does belong to anyone. If AI infringes copyright, so do your eyeballs whenever you look at something someone else made, and use the ideas to make your own. Ai does not USE copyright material, it merely studies and learns an algorithm that happens to make similar things. It if, by definition, plenty deep into what is legally referred to as "transformative artwork".