FanX bans AI art from vendor floor
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Fans gather around an artist's booth at FanX in 2022. Photo: Erin Alberty/Axios
As artists fill the floor of the Salt Palace for this week's FanX convention, guests and organizers will be on the lookout for the latest contraband: AI slop.
The big picture: AI-generated art has increasingly become a point of contention at fan conventions, with traditional artists calling for a "revolt" against artificial intelligence.
- They say AI threatens to out-compete them — right as it trains on human-made creations that tech companies are accused of using without permission.
Driving the news: FanX earlier this month alerted vendors that AI art would not be allowed and offered refunds for exhibitors who planned to sell it.
- It "does not meet our originality standards and is not permitted out of fairness to artists who create their own work," the convention's guidelines state.
What they're saying: Artists broadly cheered FanX's announcement.
- "I have spent my whole life being the best cartoonist I can be. ... This increase in art theft and AI has been really discouraging," Draper-based Disney artist Adrian Ropp posted on Facebook.
- Ropp, who is showing pieces at FanX, said he has seen his work used as the generative basis for three AI creations in a single week — including one painting that was being sold for thousands of dollars.
Between the lines: It's unclear how FanX will determine whether merchandise is AI-generated; organizers did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Zoom out: Protests broke out in August at Toronto's FanExpo Canada when a telecom company's booth offered AI-generated portraits of attendees.
- A few days later, police escorted a vendor out of Dragon Con, a fan expo in Atlanta, after organizers found AI-generated merchandise.
The intrigue: Fan art already poses murky questions of intellectual property, with rows of vendors selling prints, figurines and other memorabilia depicting popular characters — including many that originally were created as visual art for, say, anime and video games.
Yes, but: Copyright holders frequently turn a blind eye to fan art because they benefit from the engagement, community-building and celebration of their work.
The bottom line: Some entertainment companies and artists see AI as copying on a different level — or as Disney and Universal worded it in a lawsuit against Midjourney this summer, "a bottomless pit of plagiarism."