By Prokofy Neva, Virtualtor
The much-coveted application to be a Fantasy Faire merchant dropped about a week ago or more, and many people pounced and got theirs in immediately.
I'm in training to be a Cat Prince these days, but I didn't pounce.
I dithered and dithered for lots of reasons about applying this year and was actively considering giving it a pass for a lot of reasons, personal and public, but then it was clinched for me tonight as a "no" -- because of this rule:
*While we find it inspiring to use AI creation tools, we ask that you do not sell items at the Faire that are made using AI generated art. We will ask items which contain AI generated art to be removed from the event.
So you can stop reading now if you like but since I'm free to criticize a club that won't have me (and whose AI policy I wouldn't want to attempt to change now), I'm going to go on with some candid remarks. I think FF is the premiere event of SL; I live for it every year as many others do; I literally go and live on those sims in those gorgeous builds for days on end; but precisely for all those reasons, I want it to be better.
Because...I feel bad when a top artist and builder of SL at other events tells me bitterly he has never been accepted as a World Builder; when a top fantasy designer never applies and thinks there is no room for her; when so many people I talk to never heard there was an application process you could actually apply through; when another creator applies then leaves after a day before it starts; when a veteran fantasy builder doesn't even imagine applying because she thinks her brand of fantasy isn't applicable -- isn't it all fairies or something?
And when a minister and a band of creators took part in an atrocious bullying campaign of me in 2022 on Twitter because I dared to challenge their leader -- who continue to ban, and ostracize, and mock and lie about me crazily nearly two years later, even sending me a "dick cookie" inworld as "a present." These methods are despicable. They are never warranted. I don't use them on people myself. I call it out and fight back.
So I'm actually really relieved I don't have to be in this actually beloved event this year as a merchant.
THE NEW FIC
I've been critical of FF past and present -- the hyper focus on the creme de la creme gives it an elitist FIC feel that is always off-putting. To be sure, the same people who gain the vaunted title of "World-Builder" every year really are the best of the best, and I'm here to ooh and ah and be amazed with everyone else. That couldn't always be said of the original FIC lol. Still, I wonder -- especially when some of them are very late with their builds -- or in some cases, even a bit lame and pedestrian in their builds -- why they are given this slot year after year, and no one else gets a chance, even if they have submitted a "Wordling" -- a pre-world, so to speak, that is in an underwater exhibition spot of displays like Lord & Taylor store windows, of a part or a miniature of the world they might build across the sim, if chosen. Again -- there's room for the talent-free amateur shlubs like me -- but on the less popular sims, far from the landing area -- and that's how it should be. It's ok to have quality recognized, to have ranking, to have less popular and more popular -- I just wish it would be refreshed more often.
And I totally get the reasoning for the exclusivity of RFL (American Cancer Society) as the designated charity -- it's safe, it's been around for ages, it's a known brand; it isn't dodgy or strange; cancer is something everyone has in their family if not their own personal experience; it's like Mom and apple pie. My father died of cancer and many other family members and friends. But they died without RFL because RFL isn't what helps an individual person suffering from cancer especially towards the end -- that is not what it's about. It's a wealthy American charity with actually a rather high percentage spent on its own fundraising activity that actually doesn't promote so much any more the old barbershop and high school "relays" it did in the old days as much (especially since COVID) and which attracts mainly white, affluent people who want research into the kinds of diseases that people in first-world, wealthy countries get. It's mainly about funding research, not care. There's nothing wrong with this per se, but it always astounds me that this largely lefty and liberal crowd, consisting of many Europeans, sign up to promote the cause of middle-aged affluent white Americans every year and not more pressing issues. You can talk to me until you're blue in the face about my impression of the American Cancer Society, but just google it and read someone else on the subject if you like. Yes, I know it gets 4/4 ratings for charities. Yes, yes, yes I know about all this state-of-the-art medical equipment, even cures, etc. etc.
But I want more diversity of creative people in this top creative event; I want that creative society to be something that isn't a mere appendage to a giant American charitable machine mainly for Americans; I want the types of good causes given to be to be diversified. So sure, I should go start my own event and no, I won't be doing that. I do this on a very microscopic way in the form I wish and encourage others to make alternative events to FF because likely it won't change and diversity will only come about by becoming diverse somewhere else.
Again, I realize that within the context of SL, you need a machine. It's like a political machine with ward heelers in the district. You can't risk new things or untested things because it is so hard raising money in a virtual world with anonymous avatars, and then getting that token cash out of SL without too much expense and with ample accountability. The people who founded and run FF are eminently professional and accountable. Still, I do wish for more from the premiere society of SL, the most creative and unique people of our world.
To cut to the chase, this is what I think FF needs to do to reform -- and no one cares, and no one needs to listen to me, and I don't matter -- but I'll say it anyway:
o A greater percent of World Builders must change every year -- 50%? The goal is to loosen the grip that a few have on the world-building to give new people a chance.
o A review of the Wordling process should be made to see what percentage of wordlings get to be Worlds, and to increase the space and applications -- and update -- for same.
o A greater effort must be made to go around to many other groups and the forums and blogs widely read around SL and publish the application address. This is never done because it's the same crew that wishes to just have their crowd in it every year. But if it is to go on having credibility, this must change.
o The "ministers" must be changed and the group of them enlarged to have greater accountability.
o AI should be admitted, but put in a section (a separate sim?) where it is recognized as such, so that those who chose to do their own work really are acknowledged for their originality, and that so no issue of copyright emerges for administrators -- but that those who do use AI art have an outlet -- just as those with full-perm models and purchased textures of other artists have an outlet NOW at FF (yes, I realize there's a big difference between licensed and unleased works, but then send me a DMCA notice and support the efforts of artists online to block their works from LLMs).
o Fantasy Faire, Inc. should broaden out from Relay for Life and the cancer cause to other causes -- the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine; immune diseases; hunger and homelessness -- there are lots of causes in the world which could benefit from more attention.
o The Faire should last for two weeks only to save on the cost of sims and make it more special. Every year we are treated to this kabuki theater of the Lindens graciously granting another week, but it's not one really well spent.
o The Faire Quest should have its lootbox available to purchase instantly without questing, but only on the last day of the fair.
And now to various reflections...
FOUR YEARS AS FF MERCHANT
I have been thrilled to be in FF for four years running. The first year I participated, in 2020, they actually didn't seem to have enough people (during the early, worst COVID period) and so they began to ask people in other groups outside their own to apply -- I saw a notice in the Mieville Historical Hunts merchants' group. I was surprised to be accepted -- which I thought was purely a function of having bid as high as US $100 or more on several items in the previous year in their auction. I had a horrible few days when due to the escalation of a laceration of my finger while moving my house, I ended up in the ER with sepsis due to my immune disease, and literally lay on a cot in a supply closet (often my home-away-from-home at busy Bellevue which is actually a thoughtful gesture of the nurses) wondering if I'd live to put out my modest little trinkets at this august event. Ridiculous, eh?
Back home loaded with more meds, I then faced a rigorous vetting of every item in my shop. I had to remove two items -- one was an H.G. Wells book which in fact was just shy of a year or two of public domain, and the other was a poster about my COVID prayer guarden, which people could click and TP to, and come and leave prayers for their loved ones who were sick or dying. I was told that FF focused on cancer, and so I shouldn't distract from it with other causes, even if valid. Of course I had a close family member die of BOTH cancer AND COVID, but whatever, I totally get it, it's their show. I had already fussed for hours fixing textures to be 512 and gnawing away at every conceivable script or prim. I don't believe I managed to make back the booth fee that year -- or at least barely did.
I had begun making things in 2019 and 2020, mainly variations of various "magical" things for Shaman's Hut in the SL Public Land Preserve where I have many levels of scenes and activities. I could never find certain things I wanted in my builds so I decided to try to make them myself. I liked the script "Rez Object on Touch" (which was developed out of "rez wearable on touch" to be able to place items more precisely on the grid) -- it would rez something out, and maybe you could click it and it would animate, or you would animate, or you'd get tea or a book -- I played with these endlessly and made my Mountain Hikers' Tables and various other things of that era and finally made a shop itself called Shaman's Hut, first in Furness at the top of the hill there, then after I was boxed in on all sides by a neighbour, I sold that hill and put the store on the region of Tofalar with the Shaman's Hut installations. A scripter I hired told a friend of his about some of the things I made using his scripts and she invited me into her event, which ran for some years before sinking under the weight of drama, heavy costs of time and treasure, and herding cats.
I had spent 15 years in SL hardly making anything because it didn't make sense to try -- there were so many other more talented people who made stuff you could buy -- and in the gatch era, buy for very cheap -- that it seemed silly to struggle with prim tables or system clothes you could make yourself -- although of course I did. Often on the forums I would be accused of being "jealous" of creative types I criticized for their inside deals and feted care from the Lab but that only revealed their own insecurity and default jealousy of those on a higher creator rung than themselves. I'm not "jealous," guys. I cannot draw a straight line and struggle to glue two prims together but you know? I have other talents.
SL is a very, very striated, tiered, and layered world with a very slippery slope to the top. The foundation myth of SL is "Your World/Your Imagination" where you build it yourself, and "anyone" at any level of ability can learn the simple inworld tools and rez a prim, upload a texture, and slap it on the prim to build a house -- if this was EVER true, is now very much gone, 21 years on.
The reality is that the top creators all work outside of SL now in Blender and Photo Shop and other programs, then upload their mesh models to the world -- they don't use any platform tools. Those very few prim craftsmen who remain aren't in any events and have only a few small shops on Steampunk or historical sims; some people make things in sculpties for lesser-tier events; but basically, like that old song (with apologies to Duke Ellington) -- "It's just a re-hash/if it ain't got that mesh (thanks to Jippity for helping me to come up with that couplet).
For me, the combination of the Premium Plus account for $29.99 per month, which enables you to make free texture/image uploads ($0L), and the advent of MidJourney, meant that I could expand inworld creation -- which is the only creation I really want to do. I'm not likely to learn Blender. I went for 3 years using paint.net and didn't learn about "move pixels" literally until a few months ago. I learned about "Multiply" with several images only like a year ago. I am hugely slow. And I don't care. Don't send me to some Builder's Brewery class. That's not how I learn. Don't keep correcting me. I don't learn that way. Leave me to noodle around on my own, and I will either get it or not get it, but truly, it doesn't matter.
FULL PERM MODELS ARE THE BREEDABLES OF THE FURNITURE WORLD!
When mesh first appeared, you will recall Draxtor was hired to jam it down our throats with a video short that implied that you were a stick-in-the-mind and behind the times if you didn't get with the program and turn mesh. You became unattractive if you had a system body and system clothes and didn't buy an expensive mesh body and mesh clothes to fit it. These were -- and still are -- very complicated and finicky.
At first, only a very few creators could make mesh things well and it was an exclusive club; it widened out, but still remained a skill that only a small percentage of business in SL could command. At some point (and it would be interesting to contemplate HOW and WHY), some creators began making full perm models to sell to others. Maybe the world was becoming saturated with mesh items and people just couldn't take any more (and now we're even more super-saturated). Maybe people got tired of mesh items they couldn't modify or re-texture.
But the full perm model idea was like the breedables of the home and garden sector of the economy -- like a breedable cat, you could buy a full perm chair, and texture it and add a book on it and now you had your "own" creation you could re-sell -- and like a rare breedable or a rare gatcha, perhaps you could sell it for MORE than you paid for it, if you were skillful enough. You could combine multiple models (I always do) and make something unique that way. Yes, breedable furniture -- that's the full perm sector.
MY LAST YEAR AT FF (2023)
The third year at FF, since I didn't bid on the auction (I didn't have any money at the time), I figured I would not get in -- I did, and made back the booth fee of $2500 (US $9.67), but I don't recall making much money for RFL itself or for myself. Then last year, my fourth time, I donated five items, Surprise Eggs inspired by the Panjin sim made by Jade Koltai, they did fairly well but I don't think my donation was more than US $30 -- I made back the booth fee, and then I took home about US $27 in sales of other items, new and old. That's a landslide for me, since I barely sell any of my weird amateur stuff ever. Making the final items for the store, fixing up the store, trying to meet all the requirements as to texture and scripts -- it's nerve-wracking. At the last minute, someone (not one of the matrons designated to check the stores) explained to me that one of the tiny figures in one of my miniature Surprise Eggs was a copy of a game character. I'd never heard of the game or the character at all (I'm not a gamer), so I hadn't realized. I then policed each and every little figurine, and found another one that appeared to be a knock-off or close copy of another game character (and confirmed that with its creator who advised me not to put it in FF) -- so I had to ditch those two, and at the last minute put in some less attractive ones. While I was at it, I checked every single TOS of every single full perm model I had used (I had already spent days checking and triple-checking that all their permissions were correct and wouldn't accidentally release anything into the wild) and found that one creator didn't want you to use their wares in freebies or hunts -- a hugely annoying condition, even if understandable in the SL climate. Since one item gave a snack which included berries never-to-be-put-on-transfer out to the public for free, I had to reconstruct THAT item and make sure it was owner-only.
FEAR AND LOATHING OF "COPY/TRANSFER"
I truly do appreciate bitsofthisandthat and Ever Green and a very few other full perm creators on the MP and inworld who enable "props" -- that is, items that you can indeed put on copy/transfer so as to use them as either deliverable food items that people consume, and therefore must come to them and/or go in their inventory, or items in a scene, like a pen on a desk or a book on a bookshelf that people interact with. Most creators refuse to consider any copy/transfer even with "no mod" or the use of an anti-rez script for fear of copybotting and fear that others will sell their full perm sets "as is" and deprive them of the business. They guard their creations with a FIERCE culture of instilling the fear of ostracism and abuse- reporting to anyone suspected of violating their TOS. This organic, non-electronic, verbal form of community expulsion -- discretionary ban from a group, a store, a vendor -- is really they only enforcement they have, although some makers have big enough businesses to have lawyers and to have the patience and willingness to display RL names and addresses and file a DMCA takedown notice to a violator.
They do this in part because Linden Lab no longer openly combats IP theft -- LL long ago REMOVED from the Abuse Report system any option to report copyright abuse or IP theft -- they only accept requests under the DMCA takedown procedure. Big creators do star turns saying they'll help the little guy with these things -- the problem is that the little guy may like to keep their anonymity. I have filed ARs and DMCAs on behalf of creators who made "works for hire" for me as defined under New York State law -- and got the violators removed from SL (at least those alts; they easily make new ones and re-spawn on anonymizers). I haven't done this in years, mainly because I stopped commissioning builds with few exceptions. I had too many problems with people who either wouldn't put their builds on full perm despite being paid; or wouldn't even turn the build over to me at all; then left SL so I was stuck having to worry about blowing it off the sim accidentally without a copy.
ANTI-REZ SCRIPTS WORK FOR MOST USE CASES INVOLVING THEFT
Yes, Contraption Flying Monkeys, anti-rez scripts DO in fact work most of the time unless you deliberately try to foil them -- and even with that flaw, no one ever steals a glass in a funny position or a fork with only a morsel of food because they can't conveniently re-sell it. Most people buy food for its pretty display dish or dispenser itself, and what comes out of it is decidedly secondary. That's why all the top creators actually put copy/transfer on their food items (or even mod/copy/transfer, imagine!) because it doesnt matter. They don't care.
I'm not going to get into the clothing sector as there are all kinds of other dynamics there -- people defeating copyright merely so they can mod the goddamn dress not put on mod (I just don't buy things not put on mod any more); people breaking copyright merely to be "inspired" to "their own" creation (so they say); people defeating copyright so they can copy the exact same look that another furry has who is then livid that they've done this; and yes, to resell hastily and make an escape to yet another alt.
In any event, my main purpose in having a store at FF wasn't to actually sell my wares and make cash -- that was not realistic. It wasn't to contribute in any significant way to RFL -- if RFL got $50 out of my little store, great, but it got a lot more out of my bids on the auction for beautiful creations by top artists in SL.
My main purpose was actually to be in the "Backstage Group" and, after I had finished my store and fretted and stressed with everyone else 100 x more talented than me, I would have a few days or more to wander through the sims and see them in all their glory -- before the rush of the crowds, where the lag would become unbearable.
HORRID LAG
Lag was always what kept me away from the early years of FF -- that, and the crazily hard quest that in those years would have clues like: "Find a leaf on one of the hundreds of trees on this sim, and on that leaf is a lady bug, and on that lady bug is a spot, and on that spot is a speck, and there you will find your clue." But you still wouldn't be done. One year, when I decided to go back when it seemed less laggy (who knows why) I literally had to have one of the matrons take me by the hand and help me find the clue on nearly every single station. It was just awful. She was extremely nice to do that. But I guess they got a lot of complaints because then they made it easier.
Last year, it was abombinably laggy -- the worse ever! -- a fact made worse with the advice of one prominent creator who suggested all these wonky things to do with your machine or viewer settings that did not work, when in fact there is one unfailingly simple thing to do -- and which you HAVE to do at FF -- and that is turn off the view of other avatars. Then you can walk again.
In fact, that is the single biggest flaw of FF that is otherwise spectacular -- there is no way to criticize it effectively. When they are wrong about something like lag, and you question their chosen expert on that subject in their in-group, you will never get through to them; круговая порука as the Russian expression has it, a kind of mutually-reinforced circle. It's likely still to be laggy as a result this year.
Of course, turning off the view of avatars defeats the whole purpose of the Faire! You want to be able to see everybody's exotic costumes. Half the fun of the Faire -- after you've gawked at the amazing builds on the sims -- is to gawk at all the get-ups! And buy some for yourself. A key part of the fun for me personally at this really premiere event of SL was having a character for the duration of the Faire. So the first year I had a Wendigaunt, a Wendigo-type character which is a peculiar actually local New York State folk monster that looks like an anthro deer on two legs with glowing eyes and such. Static (later to become one of my persecutors) had a gatcha with a bunch of those avatars -- I won the rare, and lumbered about in him. There was another avatar named Tree I believe who had the exact same avatar and we would run into each other occasionally during the hunt and cry "Bro!", it was great fun. The next year I had the Dinkie Shaman I believe, and the hit of that Faire was the baby Dinkie you could carry around in your arms. Last year, I found a Dragonrider constume and wore that around.
But the lag absolutely killed the Faire for me last year. I'm puzzled why it was so bad. My computer and set-up was no different from past years. Somebody said it was the extra sims, but that makes no sense -- there are thousands of contiguous sims on the Mainland with all kinds of laggy stuff and I didn't drag my ass as much on Mainland as at the Faire even with just a few people on the sim late at night. I think the notion that people could have 768 textures that would be virtually the same as 512 and not laggy like 1024s in loading was one culprit -- not sure how that idea took root but it seems to be gone now. I think the Lindens perhaps didn't lay on their most super fast sims -- who the hell knows? I know the organizers, who are very professional and detail-oriented, likely did everything in their power. They re-start the sims every day -- something I don't do even with my own sims. At FF, you don't find preventable things like the organizer putting her boyfriend's ultra laggy buildings and fences everywhere "just because" -- lagging entire sims to their knees. No, they don't work like that, as these are people who also worked for years in NGOs and media in real life. Still, something went wrong, they wouldn't take any outside views on this or even seek them -- and hey, the Lindens are like that, too so it's an unbeatable combination.
CONTRAPTION FLYING MONKEYS
Last year, it was very important for me to struggle against the difficulties -- despite my own reluctance to once again go chasing after the cool kids -- and watch while some of my tenants and some very talented people were rejected, or flounced out of the Faire after altercations (which I naturally found disturbing) -- and persist in trying to have my own little amateur store: because of the Contraption monsters. I wrote extensively about this here (probably the best summary), here, here, and here.
I once tried making a timeline of the tweets along with a short form of all this because it was the usual jumbled mess of an SL drama, and I gave up. It always takes longer to explain and refute attacks with falsehoods than it does to lambast someone with the original falsehood.
Several dozen twitter accounts took part in this nasty campaign (I recorded their names), and they used the gimmick that griefers have used from time immemorial -- they accused me of "bullying" and "exposure" which in fact they themselves were doing. The worst of them was @ThatEerieEric -- I never did figure out his inworld name -- claiming falsely that I was a racist (based on crazy griefer vandalism of my Wikipedia, and past posts, and incessant campaigns inworld that continue to this day, where day-0ld avatars with names including my business name "Ravenglass" (which are not used on any managers in my groups whatsoever), crash into groups and start spouting Trumpist, racist, crazy crap -- causing some business owners then to AR me and scream at me -- and griefers to continue to post to this blog comments claiming I am behind these insane attacks. It's an age-old KGB-type tactic -- "the false flag" and this moron readily bought it and bruited it about further and just went endlessly on with it because...why?
Because I questioned the wisdom of his alpha wolf in his wolf pack and publicly challenged him with another argument. In other words, I behaved as you normally do in a liberal democratic society -- the kind of liberal, democratic society these people demand to live in themselves in RL -- societies that they demand be tolerant of their extremism -- or else.
@ThatEerieEric and some of his pals published the most grotesque memes to harass me -- the Family Guy cartoon character pulverizing his wife into red mist shouting "Shut up!". He promised to DM people with details of my "racism" -- because if he published actually links it would be easy to debunk these false claims. Better to start a whisper campaign. Creepy.
These people made my life miserable both on Twitter and with attacks inworld over their own fragile, infantile egos merely because I dared to stand up to Walton Wainright, and hold my ground, over the question of anti-rez scripts, where he believed he and his scripter knew best. He had been irritated at a girl -- a new creator as it happened -- who put an anti-rez script inside some clothes he wanted to wear on an RP sim to relax on -- and it made it too laggy for him to pass a script limit test for that RP sim and he had to then waste time changing clothes and miss the fun. He was irritated and irritable to start with and so barked against anti-rez scripts of that sort on Twitter.
I pointed out that the one I had commissioned as a bespoke script to prevent theft -- technically an anti-rez script as well but on a different use case and principle on food items -- worked very well and was NOT laggy. It had been thoroughly tested. I thought the conversation would end there. In fact while it went a few more testy rounds with WW, in which at one point he even conceded that YES there was another use case and mechanism for food -- his scripter ( and more importantly his posse to whom he essentially dog-whistled on Twitter) couldn't bear that their leader was "dissed" and went after me viciously. SL is full of these posses with caped supermen leading them to glory across the plains and up into the mountains. In many ways we are still in the Wild West, even 21 years after the founding.
BRAISED RIBS
Walton's company scripter couldn't bear to see himself or his Fearless Leader questioned in any way. I urged him to come inworld and see what I was actually talking about and stop barking nonsense. He then decided to buy my Trash Can Cuisine himself and hack away at all my stuff until he found one part of one big dish of varied food where the script had been accidentally left open (see above for these struggles every time you make something with licensed works like this). He then used his knowledge of that now-open script to defeat my food tray and show he could take braised ribs or whatever and sell it out of a separate box now. He claimed that he could do this without even viewing my commissioned script -- and was impervious to the argument that a) his manipulations in doing this as a scripter bent on challenging me were not even typical copybotter's behaviour -- such people don't want to waste too much time on these capers nor do they want to bother with stuff that won't sell; b) it doesn't matter because even top creators put their food deliverables on copy/transfer because the danger of resale is minimal -- a fork bent in a funny position with a piece of potato is not a hot item in the chop shops of SL, where mainly gatcha rare copies are featured; c) it took absolutely nothing away from him or his point about laggy clothing.
The ONLY argument he could justify was that the deliverable food items for the most part originated as full perm models with terms of service that forbid resale with copy/transfer. So because you can't guard this sector electronically (via hard stops or watermarks) or administratively (via Lindens, who only accept DMCAs), he and others in the posse insisted on using social ostracism and harassment instead.
I don't feel that's a recipe for safeguarding intellectual property or for a civil society. They do, and therefore I'm going to declare them as uncivilized.
MINING REAL LIFE AND BULLYING
So again, for days and weeks on end, I faced an onslaught of truly vicious, nasty assholes in the Contraption posse who mined my real life information -- which is easy to find as I link it; mined my vandalized Wikipedia (which Woodbury types constantly maul to try to pretend I've claimed Black people put bugs in Romney's software -- something I've never remotely claimed of course) -- and then feigned fear and horror claiming I was somehow doing the same to them, including to their fearless leader because I...read his open web site and described him as working as a creator for a company in RL.
All of this was sheer and utter nonsense and chief among the scared, witless children perpetrating this schoolyard bullying was Ketsui Naidoo of En Pointe and Novus, who says on her picks that she is "only acting" when she RP's "a murderous bitch" but people chose their RPs accordingly.
One of the things that I discovered about these insecure Tragically Misunderstood Artists in the Contraption posse is that some had newly arrived on Twitter after flooding out of Flickr (for a time) when you were compelled to buy a subscription if you had adult content. Or they were used to an even older Mean Girls' favourite platform called Plurk -- and if someone read their public comment on Twitter, even if they weren't a follower, and responded to it, they felt horribly violated and intruded upon. That's because they imagined they were in the usual closed, magic circle of SL where they keep the not-cool kids very far from themselves and only let in people who flattered them and bought their wares.
The basic problem with a lot of people in SL who deliberately make trouble for others is that they don't realize they are in public and others see them more acutely than they can see themselves, and they are impervious to any lessons to be learned from them.
I had always thought if I didn't flatter them but at least bought their wares -- which I did in profuse quantities to furnish my rentals and my own homes because I thought their stuff was wonderful -- it wouldn't matter if they didn't like me, my politics, or my blog. We're not culturally compatible and that's fine. I have a secure sense of my self in my own world and I'm tolerant of them in theirs but I don't find that they themselves share such a mutual tabula resa for civil society. With them, the first free election would be the last, like Algeria in the 1990s. They enforce their sense of themselves and their world -- which again, must seem terribly fragile to them -- by using the most abhorrent tactics on social media and inworld, banning, bullying, mocking, dredging up RL to harass and expose -- all the while accusing their victim of doing the same to them and shrieking like banshees. It's such a racket -- in both senses of the word!
"IT'S NOT CULTURE BUT ABSENCE OF CULTURE"
I just spent an hour recounting to my son (at his request) the meaning of this phrase in my professional and personal life over the years, the subject of another blog some day, but what it boils down to is this: sometimes people go to great lengths to make way for some sort of behavior (advocacy and use of violence), or some kind of activity (extreme religious practices, or conversely, extreme aversion and apprehension about anyone practicing the most benign and widespread religious rituals) -- and call it "culture". But it's not culture; its absence of culture. It's the inability to concede enough space for pluralism, not merely diversity of one sort or another. It's the inability to conceive that people should be allowed to practice as they wish if they do not impose it forcibly on others -- or at times the unwillingness to confront extremists who do force others to adopt practices or accept practices that are not mainstream. Culture is in fact tolerance of a plurality of cultures; absence of culture is in fact intolerance of any other culture but one's own. This is amplified in the hothouse of the virtual world where not only anonymity can enable intolerance and extremism but can make it easy to ostracize and bully people through banning, expulsion from groups, boycotting, even setting vendors so someone cannot purchase a good from another person.
I combat these forms of intolerance now, in their almost cartoonish and seemingly benign form (you can always log off; you can always TP to another sim) because I am convinced that the Metaverse will take over more and more of our lives, and sooner than we think, we will live in a time where someone will make it impossible for someone else not to be able to buy a loaf of bread because they don't like their race or religion or gender or lifestyle -- or what they wrote on a blog or a tweet. OR conversely: people with decidedly minority lifestyles will use authoritarian methods to silence others' criticism of them or expression of their own majority views. If people can get fired from their jobs over a tweet when the Twitter mob comes for us -- now called X so some of us started calling it Xitter -- then it's not inconceivable to imagine a real-life Internet where someone can set a vendor -- a shopping site -- not to allow purchases even of bread from some certain group of people who will be marked as such by name, number, or facial recognition.
People believe they exercise a liberal form of freedom by banning from their sim or from purchases of their vendor someone they don't like, who challenged their alpha wolf, who had a different opinion, someone they falsely smear as racist or opposed to transgender people (particularly ridiculous), and that they thus are in fact making society "better". But when their judgement is predicated on silencing dissent and criticism through social media mobbing; when they ban someone's participation in a public marketplace otherwise open to all, they are making an authoritarian society, one that surely they themselves would not want to live in.
That's why I fight it. It's wrong.
Second Life is filled with insular, claustrophobic social groups, some more extreme than others, some more willing to tolerate newcomers than others -- with 40,000 concurrency, it's a fairly small village of mainly English-speaking groups and and you can easily get to know people by at least social reputation -- helped along by looking at their profiles with their self description and the groups they join (if they don't hid them) which say a lot.
There are groups with events where I turn out to be the only human; there are groups where I TP in a friend who turns out to be the only furry; there are events where everyone is literally in a suit and tie or evening gown as if at a RL soiree and I'm in a hoodie and sweatpants; there are events where I realize this is no one or only one other person on "the alphabet train"; there are events where unless you have transitioned through surgery in RL or declared yourself as some microscopically-defined alphabet identified person, you are viewed not only as a fraud but an exploiter of authentic alphabetizers; there are divisions as to whether you have breedable pets or not; whether you will buy or re-sell gatchas or not; and of course many divisions based on sexual preferences or even home decor styles.
Fantasy Faire is strictly G-rated, although it allows a bit of PG display of partial nudity or adult furniture if kept very tidy and not too in-your-face or "interactive". But teeming behind these restrictions are people who decidedly sell adult wares, have adult activities and clubs, and in generally live out the full range of public adult activities legal on the Internet with violence, torture, abuse, and even cannibalism preferences you can list on your picks, complete with whether you are willing to be pissed on or not. Which is their right, if they don't violate the TOS or US law.
It's no secret that many of the in-group of Fantasy Faire are: ) BDSM practitioners -- a practice which I abhor or b) RP players of some sort in publicly lewd or sexualized non-standard lifestyles -- not only LGBT but a huge host of others identities; c) pagan/wiccan/atheist; or d) vampires and others tilting toward extreme fantasy, gore, horror -- which isn't my thing whatsoever. I'm a norm; I'm vanilla; I'm Catholic; I don't care for adult clubs and so on. So THAT's really what it's about. THAT is what the bullying is over. That's what REALLY bothers this crowd, some of whom are too young to have remembered my epic debates arguing against BDSM as a valid philosophy and for human rights and particularly women's rights on the old Alphaville Herald. There used to be space for such debates in this virtual world. There isn't now.
The scripting issue is merely an emblem of these "cultural differences" -- because what is copyright if not protection of a culture? The rant began with a complaint about a RP sim -- something I'm never on. I countered with something from Bellisseria barbecues or Mainland backwoods picnics -- food delivery, in this case a southern-style trashcan lid in a commons area in a group of motel court cabins out of the 1950s. I am totally norm-core, despite being f2m in SL. I think "An it harm none/do what ye will" is a diabolical pervision of "Do unto others as you would have them do until you." I just don't fit. I'm a weekend Dinkie. Yes, I am in training to be a Cat Prince now but so far all I have is the Mardi Gras mask from meadowWorks.
The problem is, my judgement of them as "Not For Us" they deliberately and wrongfully pretend is a suppression of their right to be free as they wish -- and as a result they try to play the victim and make me unfree with ostracism, bans, etc. We're not in high school here; we're in elementary school. We're in the most primitive form of the school yard -- or really the prison yard, as these types of campaigns flourish in authoritarian institutions and societies -- which is what we have with Second Life where there is no free press or due process or independent court system inworld and never can be as it is maintained by one company as a platform essentially, not a real world.
TRASH CAN CUISINE
I like to think out loud and I like to understand the world I am in, both real and virtual. So I go on and on for 10,000 words because I try to understand what makes people tick, why they behave as they do, and of course rationalize this campaign against me of 2022 -- now nearly two years ago and really insignificant to me compared to pressing issues like the war in Ukraine -- was based on fear of copyright violation -- but not only. As the permissions system are over-ridden by both mechanical and social hacks; as merchants seem to have nothing but social ostracism to try to protect the originality of their works -- and in some cases their livelihood -- then they react fiercely to protect their work. If only that were all there was to it.
But the animosity and hatred of "the other" is so much part of this "copyright protection exercise" that there has to be more to it. And there is. People who themselves feel marginalized by society for some "deviation from the norm" fear the oppression of this society to such a great extent that in some cases they themselves become oppressors. They fear that the "normies" will prevent them from acting out their imaginations and strike pre-emptively. And in a virtual world, with ban tools and the Mean Girls' approach to selection for high-volume and high-yield merchants' approach, they can make oppression work on steroids. And they do.
I figured after challenging the Contraptioneers (I was merely a nominal member of the group and not in the in-crowd) I wouldn't get into Fantasy Faire last year, given that I hadn't contributed much to the RFL cause (although I was an enthusiastic participant of many of the events and particularly the Quest). So I was pleased to see that even with Ketsui Naidoo being a world-builder and a co-organizer, known as "a Minister", she wsa unable to block me or the others overruled her -- I'll never know. My sense is that the top organizers are decent and fair people although they can't be 100 percent perfect with such a daunting organizational challenge. There was the mystery of why the scripter of the Faire's Quest got booted from the scene over some drama -- and then reinstated. There are other mysteries as to why certain people who should be finding a home there don't. There's the question of why so many actual top creators in the major events don't even know where to apply. And so on.
And here for the organizers -- as distinct from the creators -- there is another copyright angle: they don't want to be bogged down in enforcement. They don't want to spend the entire time adjudicating between two angry hair creators, one of whom claims they other ripped her hair and not merely "for inspiration". The AI edict comes from this impetus -- they don't want to be looking at every image and trying to make a determination of how artificial it is (it can be nearly impossible) and they don't want to sift through zillions of ARs from angry people who now feel their very livelihoods are threatened, and they can now slam a competitor by claiming "AI". AI art capacity may be a thrill to a talentless hack like me; to someone with actual talent, especially someone trying to scratch out a living online in a sea of content, it can make them deeply angry and/or afraid.
I get all that. I eradicate copybotting from any malls I run -- I don't allow "business in a box" on principle; I insist that what people sell be either a known gatcha or item on transfer intended to be put on transfer (a breedable rare) or their own creation. I do not ban AI art generically because I do not believe that actual copying can be determined, but I'm always happy to hear a case. I think they're virtually impossible to make outside the narrow scope of the Marvel comics and other obvious Disney etc. images. The major events rid themselves of the ballache of copyright claims and adjudications simply by not permitting full perm models in any work -- period. It's unfair, but it's the same impetus as is driving FF to ban AI art -- making less work for themselves.
CLOSING MY STORE
Back in 2022, although I had not had a single complaint about my food-givers and had sold...um...maybe 14 Trash Can Cuisine packages or...3 Enamel Coffee Pots? -- they are primarily used to provide refreshments to people in my rentals commons at at various venues and quests around SL -- I closed my store for many months after this Twitter mob came for me and kept it closed for months while I checked and redid every item. I had to send out three thousand replacements of one item that I had given away for free during the 20th Birthday of SL. Yes, 3,000, by hand, which I did cheerfully, and it was interesting to see how most people had forgotten the freebie; a few people remembered it and had enjoyed it and praised it; others didn't answer when they got the replacement. I didn't want to attempt loading it into mass mailers, which I do have, I wanted to put the personal note into each communication and ask people not to use the freebie but accept this better substitute. The creator in question never responded to my IMs about the Contraption drama -- she seemed to be gone from SL. It happens. The entire drama was a TOTAL NON-ISSUE in fact for me or any creator of a full perm model I had used, but I took it seriously and re-did every giver.
I had to tell my scripter that his name was now being dragged in the mud as having supposedly threatened copybot doom to all my dozens of full perm model creators all because of my carelessness in leaving his proprietary script open (although really, guys, the principle is not such a mystery) or really, because the system was not completely foolproof if you used various manipulations around it. By not using a menu system, and putting giver scripts in each item (to make it more immersive, so that you didn't have the drop down blue screen) I was not making the item as optimal as HE would have made it. And I made that clear to my Contraption detractors. I fully assumed any blame for this mishap. Even so, I had to stop working with my scripter, sadly; I couldn't expect him to take my orders after that, being dragged into this public wrangle with these idiots. The Contraption people live in a world where there is a tight posse of the creative team with its scripter, CSR person, etc. and they can't envision other businesses where someone can't afford a scripter full-time but hires them as needed, and that their work is legally defined as a "work for hire," i.e. it no longer is their property although of course you credit them and keep their name on it. They have no liability for you, is the main point. He was busy with his own projects anyway, but Contraption -- which is at the king of the heap, which can afford to be generous to the little guy (and often pretends to be doing this and that is a whole hilarious RP all its own) -- had to attempt to ruin me and this poor scripter, a creative, known but not hugely famous guy -- just because they are insecure little dweebs. Tiny dicks on parade, throwing big shadows.
At the end of the Faire last year, although the Contraption sim (which was truly gorgeous in every way) was simply too laggy to play their sim quest, I did sit with Walton and a few other Faire worthies and chat for awhile, and I later bought Walton's stuff, which I wouldn't call "making up" after his devastating posse death march against me, but it was cordial enough.
Perhaps I was a bit brutal in my review of his tea set this week because I no longer feel the need to adore and worship WW as I once did, when along with others, I actually stood on a sim FOR HOURS listening to his mournful banjo tunes on that Wild West sim where Victor would occasionally pipe up with a comment but WW was dead to the world, his avatar slumped into position over a banjo. This voguing of theirs always feels peculiar to me, but it's a way of extending their popular personas to more people. We can all come and hang with the characters as if they were our friends, and take selfies with their AFK avatars. Weird, but it works for a lot of people. I won't be doing THAT ever again.
But that tea set... I was just on the point of buying it since I thought it would be perfect for rentals and venues -- but it looked like sculpties, with uneven edges, and the decision to be using PBR now, with all its flaws and bugs, was a poor one, in my view. It made it look ragged and mottled. I felt I was the only one in the world who could say this obvious thing. But I bet not many of them sold. I ended up not getting it because $1400 is a lot of money for me nowadays (US $5.42). It wasn't on sale at the Faire and I can get it another time if PBR's look improves or I have more money. It is in fact a great set although perhaps too ambitious but it's the kind of set where you can use all the little tables and tins and trays and shelves in many places in many combinations to great effect.
My point in this now shaggy dog story deluxe is to explain that LAST year, I felt that in order to prove I could not be beaten down by those awful people who rule at the end of the day only PART of the Faire, I had to take part. It was quite difficult for me but I did it. The lag was so terrible I had to come and do the quest in bits and bobs at 3:00 am my time with hardly a soul on the sims. Having proved to myself that my favourite (and truly the most premiere) event in SL all year did have decency left in it (not to ban a person over a Twitter scrap with the fanatically beloved Walter and his Goons), I didn't feel as if I had to join it again this year. For one, I could still face the same obstacles, as all year, a hard core of these Flying Monkeys banned me from their sims, making quests organized by Fallen Gods a real chore (but fortunately Sonya will hop you over any of these Mean Girl sims to finish the quest -- apparently I'm not the only person targeted by the Mean Girls if there is even such a system and such an option).
OH NO I CAN'T DO THIS AGAIN!...
But to come to my present story (finally, Prokofy!), I was thinking this year I simply can't take on the Fantasy Faire Frenzy with the fearsome Panic Flamingo: my health was too poor (I have had a marathon of three surgeries and eight doctors to get through in the past nine months and just got thrown of Medicaid in the middle of this and am now scrambling to buy expensive temporary insurance until perhaps I can get on NYC Medicaid -- fun times); after a year of almost no work with the war in Ukraine causing a mammoth refocus for all the NGOs I worked with, and then chatGPT taking away the mundane jobs I used to get (my favourite bidding site completely disappeared), I finally got several jobs, all at 50% or even 25% of my old rate, that is starvation wages, but which I can at least be put on top of my not-enough-to-live on Social Security, so I can pay my absolutely ridiculous electric bills of $350-$550 a month.
...OH BUT I SIMPLY MUST DO IT AGAIN!
Yet... as I lay in bed just now thinking about the things I hadn't finished on my "to-do" list, I remembered the unfinished FF application, and I wondered if really I had enough stuff to put in a 300-prim store. I have my beautiful Dragon Year Surprise Eggs (six) which you can get in my main office still for $50L (or try one for free randomly). But what else? I recalled I had made the fortune tellers' series -- a Magic Turtle, Magic Fish, Owl Scholar, Magic Frog all telling fortunes either with cards or blocks. There were various ponds and odds and ends I made -- nature stuff, forest baskets, etc. If I really booked it, maybe I could finish Dinkie Alchemist Desk to go into a series of other Dinkie desks I had made. There were some cookie and drinks trays -- all of which I had had to re-do and substitute new items in, because of the Contraption debacle.
BAN ON AI ART AT FANTASY FAIRE
So...I was just about to pack it in...when I began to think of all the things in fact I had made in the past year and quite recently...all the fun I had in making them...the delight in how some of them turn out...I can keep myself absurdly happy in my little Second Life by making and putting out stuff that never sells to more than a few devoted people or even gets taken for free.
I went to read the rules.
I had a hunch -- given how this crowd is -- they would ban AI art.
Sure enough, here it is, among the Guidelines to which you must adhere:
*While we find it inspiring to use AI creation tools, we ask that you do not sell items at the Faire that are made using AI generated art. We will ask items which contain AI generated art to be removed from the event.
So it's not just that in the art show, or as a separate art work like a painting, AI is discouraged (although there did not seem to be such a rule at the Raglan Shire Art Walk last year, I felt that most people obeyed that invisible guideline re: AI generated art).
It's any use of any AI generated art at all -- "do not sell items at the Faire that are made using AI generated art".
That means an AI-generated texture on any one prim or mesh -- in my case it will be a full-perm mesh model.
It means any pop-up backdrop that might be put in any egg or scene.
It means any fortune-telling card with an AI art work inside a Magic Frog or whatever.
So all the things I had such fun and joy generating for nearly a year would not be welcome. Every single one. Virtually every single thing I made in the last year has AI art in it, and it never occurred to me to deliberately NOT put in AI art to satisfy what MIGHT be coming as an FF rule - in that sense, we've been blind-sided, but I bet not a single person in the Backstage group now will complain (nor have I seen a single discussion about it). They're in a different world completely than "AI Art on Twitter." The organizers concede that AI art is "inspiring" yet...it can't be in this event all about inspiration because...because...
Let me try to think what's really bothering them. As I said, probably the prospect of trying to have to adjudicate accusations of copyright theft. Probably the prospect of just having lots of angry discussions by prima donnas with very intense views on this subject. In Mieville, I waited for someone to impose this anti-AI sort of edict, as I was told there was at least one person who had very strong views on the topic; the edit never came, so I put out all my works for sale wit AI art in them and heard not a word of reproach of any kind. I don't know if any others used it.
At FF, I think there's another driver, which is fear that others will break into the club created by fragile egos for protection. "What about the people with no talent?" asked Cocoanut on the forums 20 years ago, remember? SL was so skewed then -- as now! -- toward those who made the platform "look good" -- and the Lindens felt "you look good, we look good" and wanted to keep the talentless hacks and the blight out of the camera view. Understood. Fear that "all these other people" will come crashing in and ruin "good taste" or merely "the party".
To which I can only say, "We're here. We're queer. Get used to it."
BUT MAYBE I COULD TRY TO COMPLY?
This question didn't occupy my brain for a nano-second.
Nope. Just to redo my fantastic and basically awkward and stupid Octo-mas set with its various elaborate features would take days upon days if I set about replacing all the AI-generated textures on the models with other, newly-purchased textures, or any I had in stock made by full-perm creators and sold on the MP or image stock pages.
So...I couldn't realistically even consider for a second whether I could actually replace all my hundreds of AI textures in my dozens of wares with other store-bought textures (I'm not talented enough to make my own texture by hand or in PhotoShop or Blender or what have you). In many cases, people are taking images off the Internet and just tweaking them or modifying them when they make something "original" in SL, but of course the really top artists of Fantasy Faire are hand-drawers, real painters, real artists. It's my conviction that the only people in SL who can sell AI art are real artists who either add the legend and reputation to their sale (always a factor in any art world) or who really wield the real skills to prompt and edit AI properly to make it work. I'm happy enough if a paw is out of place or if there are three paws in my cat pictures, something MidJourney often does. That's part of the intrigue and fun. Somebody else will try 20 times until they get rid of those "artifacts" or "hallucinations."
I've noticed that the very best AI art in SL is made by actual artists like Chioma Namiboo or Hermes Kondor who have also taken paint brush in RL hand and arduously drawn and painted RL paintings professionally. That's because it's not just "all in the prompt"; it's all in the vision to start with, and while the machine executes it, you might edit it later. And if you are not a trained or talented RL artist, that's when the difference begins to show.
As I think about it, the only reason FF organizers allow full-perm models -- unlike the other premiere merchant events in SL which ban them -- is because a few of the very top world builders like Alia Baroque use them. And God bless him. Alia is the star of the show for me. His builds, his tours, his quest items, his mini quest items are always superb, engaging, and a true delight. I visit his sim again and again. I learn enormous amounts from him. Alia and Sonya have one of the most open and engaging operations in SL in Fallen Gods, Libertine, and all their "traditional" parties all year, whether for EuroVision or Newb Day or Slap a Fish and their amazing quests. They may be friends with the people who ban me from their sims because they don't like my criticism of them and their works on my blog (I am only an acquaintance) -- but they don't ban me from their sim (PS Contraption itself doesn't either.)
But...
THE BAN ON AI ART IS LIKE THE BAN ON FULL PERM MODELS
Again: all the top merchant events in SL featured on SLSeraphim.com do NOT allow full perm models. All work has to be totally original. It really is an elitist dividing line in SL and the people on the "right" side of it cling to their position as original artists in a world beset by copybots and now what I call artifacture -- the ability of artificial intelligence trained on Large Language Models (LLMs) which slurped up images from all over the Internet, including copyrighted images -- to mix and match and then generate fantastic, amazing art works, sometimes breathtakingly original, sometimes so baldly a copy that you can still see "Getty Images" imprinted on the corner or the signature of an actual artist. There's been an enormous amount of discussion on Twitter about this; I follow all the anti-AI RL artists whose living has now been or will be destroyed (as mine has been, by chatGPT's ability to translate) but I still continue to use it myself.
Why? Because if I make 17 cents in SL from the sale of a few of my copiously generated AI paintings and posters, it will be a big surprise. I have filled up stores and rented booths with this stuff -- but there's so much of it, and PS any one can make their own on even free platforms, so there isn't much of a demand for it as a picture. Judges have ruled you cannot copyright AI art. That's a good thing, because it has been generated on the basis of other people's copyrighted art -- but not so that you can identify it. If you put a generated image in Google Image Search, you will generally NOT find a match, despite the impression created by a few loud voices on Twitter who have made this happen with repeated goosing of MidJourney of things like "Dune".
I've had long talks with artists in SL who are RL artists working in RL art jobs -- they hate AI. I get it. I respect that perspective. If I see somebody's mark on anything that floats up on my MidJourney or Bing, I scrap it. I feel most of the wild things I come up with (which are not Disney or Marvel cartoon heros as I don't care for the Pixar or cartoon style) are not something that would ever draw a DMCA takedown notice. If it does, I would instantly comply with the request. Did it make use of somebody's IP along the way? Of course, the entire system is tainted with theft.
But I am still going to use it because it is absolutely amazing, I'm a talentless hack who can't draw a straight line or "see around corners" as you need to do in creating 3D items, and I already use full-perm models under license, so it doesn't seem like such a big deal. There are big lawsuits afoot now from Getty, the New York Times and others against OpenAI and MidJourney, and we'll see how it all shakes out. I actually hope they succeed. These platforms now have a lot more net-nannying than they used to. I cannot ask Bing or the new ImageFX from Google to generate something in the style even of a 14th century icon painter.
It's a shame, because I love making AI art and using it in SL creations which I feel is the perfect use case for it. I don't think it takes away from anyone else or puts me at a false advantage, it merely makes my little works a bit better and more pleasing to the eye. Someone who has taken a tree bark texture off a Natural History web site or some store or image bin somewhere on the Internet, and then worked it up in Blender, is going to be accepted, but not me who said: "imagine/ gnarled old dark brown oak tree bark, in the style of Hudson River painter. Really?
But again, I don't have a good argument in favour of AI generating platforms. They all violate copyright. They all steal IP. They all should be sued, harnessed, regulated. And I hope the resulting regime is one that still democratizes artifacture and enables people like me to be creative. I don't see these as contradictions in terms.
My livelihood was literally destroyed by chatGPT's ability to translate better than Google. None of the select creators of SL -- quite a few of them computer programmers -- shed a single tear for me or anyone else who performed arduous jobs they thought especially people in third-world counttries should perform for free as volunteers for Google and other beasts.
Yet I'm truly not at all bothered by the FF diktat on AI art -- it's their game. I wouldn't dream of trying to complain or challenge it. Most likely the top creators of FF -- hating AI art as they do so intently -- will not challenge it either. The second-tier people may try to comply and spend more money buying textures on the MP which themselves may be of dubious origin. I just can't do this. I try to buy the top, most respected, most original works like Kushi textures for my little wares, but occasionally I will buy from an unknown and can't be sure it is original. Who can? Unless you drew it yourself.
Yet I do think next year...the year after...the year after that...there will come a time when they can't dictate this edict or enforce it. And no doubt as I walk through FF this year I will spot things that are clearly AI art of some sort, but it will have "slipped through" because of "who they are".
I WANT TO BE CREATIVE AND YOU CANNOT STOP ME
I am going to keep doing my little art projects anyway because I like being creative. AI tools give me the possibility to be creative and not struggle so fantastically as I did even 3 years ago. Instead of having to spend sometimes fantastic sums (for me) on the MP or scour the Internet for a free, unencumbered image of some tile floor or antique box, I can prompt one out of MidJourney that will in fact be more original (sometimes after many tries and corrections) than any of those items, even if yes, it draws from a vasty mash-up of copyrighted work and therefore, yes is an abomination. I'm able to sit with this contradiction in my mind because I have followed exactly how it works and have worked it -- daily -- and watched all the pro AI artists make these utterly far-fetched arguments to the effect that artists have always "borrowed" from each other which I simply reject.
No. I send them to an old NYT article where Joseph Cornell (Gift Link) (he of those wonderful boxes of found objects) paid homage to another artist, Juan Gris consciously -- and the results (some 13 works) looked nothing like the original work he "copied" -- and that was a one-off. Cornell's bits and bobs likely included "copyrighted works" like a ballet program or a photograph, no doubt, but people didn't complain.
That's because it didn't mass produce, it didn't scale abominably; it didn't replicate across frontiers and time zones and enable resale for people who didn't put in the work. In fact, I don't expect there is any real brisk re-sale of AI artifacture conglomerates going on -- all the artists I see on Twitter are struggling, turning back to RL art at times, and crying about how the diabolically inscrutable algorithms under Elon Musk are killing their views or engagement.
I remain at less than 2500 followers as I have since about 2007 and don't struggle for any of this stuff. I just want to be happy and be creative. And I'm actually feeling very relieved now that I don't have to go through the stress, the strain, and the lag of FF, all while pretending that this is all worth it for the supreme experience of Art in a virtual world. It's not for me. If it is for you, great. I will still enjoy everything everyone else does, and who knows, maybe the policy will change, or maybe I will make things without AI art next year.