Why IP Protection Makes Sense Part 1

Let’s start with the elephant in the room.

You’ve seen the email notifications and news reports telling you that a server containing your identity and work has been hacked. You were a front-row seat attendee when legal groups or your peers told you that a site owner allowed a third-party company to train its Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) model on your work. Better yet, you read the new terms of service and learned that the site you use reserves the right to own what you put on their servers and can train their GAI models on whatever they want. Yep, you’ve been there and got the T-shirt.

You’re an independent illustrator, writer, graphic designer, or other visual storyteller. By being modern and keeping up with the digital age, you’ve got samples of your work online everywhere. Why? Because you want to promote yourself and get hired by a big company. You’re talented and want to show what you’re made of. Maybe, just maybe, you’ve found a site that helps you monetize some of that work.

The companies that participate in or claim victimhood in data proliferation and theft have much larger pockets than you, and no matter how much fuss you put up, the attorney firms still get more out of the “settlement” than you and your peers. Angry? I know. Feel defeated? Makes sense.

Now let’s talk about technology’s role in all of this. Software did not all of a sudden wake up one morning, conscious of the world around it, and decide, “I’m going to steal art and identities today.” It took people with a plan and a goal. People who understood other people, technologies, and business frameworks around them. The software was only relevant as far as it could accomplish the assailant’s intention. The rest is history.

So we’re mad at the tech. We claim to have a staunch moral code that, if applied to the amoral or immoral, puts a stop to the villainy. But we failed miserably to understand that we live in a world governed by physics.

“…Yet their strength and their speed are still based on a world that is built by rules.” — Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)

I hate using movie quotes to sum up real life, but when something makes sense, you go with it.

What did I mean by stating physics and quoting *The Matrix*? Imagine you did the opposite of the ones who took your art and identity, but with similar thinking. You understand people, make a plan, and set a goal. You use technologies and business frameworks to do what? Protect your work and your identity. Because, like those who sought to capture your work, technology is a neutral pawn in the bigger scheme of things. The same technologies, tools, and business frameworks that can cause harm can become the advocates of protection.

Myth:
Software technology has a specific goal to steal from creators and can only be used for malicious reasons.

Fact:
The same tools some creators denounce are secretly protecting them, and they don’t even know it.

Stay Tuned for Part 2 Next Week!