You put your heart into your work, and you deserve to control how it is used. Learn practical ways to safely share your art online, understand how to advocate for your rights regarding AI art, and how determine what happens to the files you upload to AI tools.
When you use an AI tool to brainstorm or organize, it is vital to know what happens to the information you share. In this session, you will learn how to quickly read a tool's privacy policy, understand what is safe to upload, and explore the current rules surrounding copyright and AI-generated concepts.
Before uploading a rough sketch, a list of your clients' requests, or a finished painting to any new tool or platform, ask yourself these three simple questions:
1. Does this tool claim the right to use my uploads to train future versions of their AI?
2. Is there a clear "opt-out" switch in the account settings?
3. Am I comfortable with this specific image or idea living on someone else's platform?
If the tool uses your data for training and you cannot opt out, it is best to only provide text prompts or extremely rough concepts.
Beyond individual technical defenses, protecting intellectual property requires collective action. In this session, you will learn how to leverage AI as a research and communication assistant to organize community support, identify key policymakers, and draft compelling advocacy materials to protect creator rights.
Instead of spending hours navigating bureaucratic directories, use an AI assistant to build your initial advocacy framework. Try prompting your LLM with these structural questions:
1. "Who are the current legislative representatives in [Your Area] assigned to committees on technology, commerce, or the arts?"
2. "Help me draft a firm but professional open letter to a digital portfolio platform requesting an explicit opt-in policy for AI training."
3. "Summarize the core arguments of recent Copyright Office statements on generative AI so I can present them simply to my local artist collective."
Using AI for the heavy lifting of research and drafting allows you to focus your energy on building real-world coalitions and driving systemic change.
There is no single magic button to protect your art online, but by stacking a few simple habits together, you can make it incredibly difficult for anyone to exploit your work. Our resources provide a guide that details this information in more detail.
Before uploading any new painting or sticker design, learn how to run it through free tools like Glaze or Nightshade. These tools add a microscopic, invisible layer of noise to your image that confuses AI models and prevents them from copying your specific style.
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook often bury their AI opt-out settings deep in the menus. We will walk you through exactly where to click to ensure your feed isn't being automatically fed into social media training algorithms.
AI models need high-quality, full-frame images to learn effectively. Discover how to safely share your work by posting dynamic crops, angled lifestyle photos (like a postcard sitting on a table in a local coffee shop), and subtle but effective watermarks.
You own the copyright to your art the moment you create it. Learn the basics of registering your most important pieces with the copyright office, and how to write a simple, polite "Cease and Desist" email if you ever find your art being sold without permission.