This post today isn’t about stolen images!
PS Facebook Page Discussion Post
This post is about misrepresentation by an industry leader who claims this is her art and offers classes and assets based on AI renderings she has appeared to have created with Midjourney.
Whether or not it is hers is currently a debate in the court system but the current ruling is that artwork generated by artificial intelligence is not eligible for copyright. There is some debate if entering the prompt is enough to give the “human input” part that makes it copyrightable and basically it seems to all depend on what court you land in but the Supreme Court seems to be upholding the idea it isn’t copyrightable.
On top of the above, Meg is using a platform that had faced criticism (even has a class action lawsuit) for stealing copyrighted works of art. Note: the legalese bascially says you can use these creations as you wish *but* you do not have a copyright to them and basically anyone with an account can download them from your gallery.
Late Monday night I sent out a substack post and talked a bit about Meg’s possible use of AI bots to create her new “medium” as she calls it on her page.
I wasn’t sure if it was AI so I tried to see how easy it would be to create some of these images and sure enough, it was not hard to get close enough to be able to write the post with some confidence that she was using AI as some part of her process. Especially when you looked at the art and saw some of the obvious AI tells like additional fingers.
Meg though posted a few times throughout the day saying it was HER art and outright denying AI by the end of the day saying it was an action and everything she’s learned.
Here’s some of the rebuttals against the allegations regarding AI:
Comments on various posts including the alleged AI artwork:
Don’t worry Dana, you too can teach anyone how to write, “whimsical watercolor illustrated…” into midjourney and have results!
Anyway, the substack started a discourse about the whole case.
Throughout the day I had been sent various things behind the scenes that were eye opening but none so much as this. NOTE: to view Meg’s profile you have to have an account with midjourney!
That’s just a small amount of Meg’s profile. Update on 9/27 in the evening – she has since made her work private and her username has changed. I downloaded everything she created though since I had a hunch she’d do this (reminder, this is legal per midjourney’s TOS).
Here’s a crash course in what the sources below that I’ll show you will look like.
At first I was curious if it was just a coincidence so I scrolled a bit and within a second or two I found this post on “megbitton’s” profile:
If you are unfamiliar with the platform what this is is showing the user “megbitton” and the artwork she got “upsized” from the grid of 4 images she got after using the prompt, “Whimsical painted watercolor illustrated posed portrait head and shoulders image of a beautiful 6 year old girl with shiny beautiful long brown hair blue eyes posed with hands against face head tilted to the side couture lace pastel pink silk dress high neck turtleneck carolina hererra meg bitton”
After that prompt in midjourney she got this group of 4 pieces:
She chose to upsize the 4th option (U4 if you’ve done this on the app).
At the bottom of each link you can click the “parent” to get the original grid for the upsized artwork Meg used.
Note that the date it was uploaded predates my post on 9/25.
Does this look familiar to you?
When I saw that match I decided sleep is for suckers and got to work.
I don’t have time to resource every bit and bob that Meg has posted that is “NOT AI” but I think I have enough to make my case solidly now that she is using AI in part or in whole depending on the piece to create her new “medium” in photography.
She also has used many of these pieces created in midjourney to sell on her assets page. I am not a lawyer so I can’t tell you if it’s legal or not but I thought it was worth noting.
Note again that the links I’m sharing will only work if you are a member of midjourney. Since most aren’t members, I’m adding a screencapture of the image on Meg’s profile after the link.
Yesterday after my substack post Meg posted this:
Let’s start with the top image, shall we? Note, this is also for sale.
Note the watermark on the image.
Background on midjourney
Child on midjourney
Rabbit on midjourney
“Oh you’re a hater, it’s just a coincidence!”
Fine.
Next!
Note Meg’s comment when someone asks for a tutorial, “…it’s just like every other black and white tutorial”
Is it?
I guess literally it is since she turned it black and white…
Background on midjourney
Girl on midjourney
Next!
Background on midjourney
(I haven’t found the kids yet since there’s 8 THOUSAND of these in her profile)
Next (this pack is for sale too)
Background on midjourney
Sled on midjourney
Dog on midjourney
I think she used this stack of snowballs twice.
Child in black on midjourney
Child in cream on midjourney
Now lets start with the first one that I tried to figure out:
Background on midjourney
Girl on midjourney
Ghost on midjourney
Pumpkin bucket on midjourney
Candy bowl on midjourney
Mummy on midjourney
Next
Background on midjourney
Girl on midjourney
Next
Background on midjourney
Girl on midjourney
Sun on midjourney
Toys on midjourney
Next
Girl in pink hat on midjourney
Boy with teddy bear on midjourney
Child sitting on midjourney
Next
Background on midjourney
Next
Note this comment from Meg regarding this creation:
Source on midjourney
Now, I’m not in her Facebook Group but I’ve been told she’s posted more there. Like this commission:
Girl in brown (Meg likely edited in the pink and changed the eyes to blue) on midjourney
Next!
Source on midjourney
I could go on and on and show you all the asset back sources on her midjourney profile but I think my point has been made.
Despite what Meg has claimed, her new “medium” is AI. Which is whatever so long as you’re HONEST about it.
But I guess honesty doesn’t get you sales.
But you do you Meg and keep enjoying yourself.
Update 9/28/2023
Whew, what a day.
I was out of the office for most of the day yesterday but would get blips of reception and just shake my head as the day went on and more and more comments rolled in on Facebook.
I don’t even know where to start but I’ll try to make this somewhat sensical?
Not long after my post went live things started heating up in Meg’s Facebook Group:
Sure, some of these art pieces are composites of either a background created with AI and then a child and maybe a decorative piece(s) created in AI and pieced together, some have edits, but not all.
Case in point, this photo.
Interesting to note that after I brought this particular image up in the comments on Facebook, Meg deleted it from Instagram.
Finally by afternoon Meg posted this in to her group:
My life goal isn’t to do ANYONE in, it’s to keep this industry honest. My intention isn’t to make anyone feel bad/sad/mad but it’s a byproduct of doing what I do to protect the industry that I love and work in and I accept that.
I’m pretty sure other photographers were teaching long before Meg did. I’ll admit to laughing inappropriately while in the hospital waiting room reading that one. How long has Imaging USA been around? I think over 100 years right?
In the interest of being honest I will say that Meg approached me about working for her in 2020 and I agreed to against my better judgement (and she knows I really was on the fence about it).
It was mid-2020, money was tight thanks to the pandemic and life being life. Basically, I was going to track and find all of the images of hers being used online without permission and send out DMCAs.
In the wedding/portrait photography business I don’t think there’s many that can honestly say there isn’t a job they took for whatever reasons (money, schedule, etc) despite their better judgement and this was no different.
Before things really got too far underway though I was messaged an ad that someone on Meg’s team had posted for their company and it was using stolen artwork.
I immediately dropped Meg as a client. She claims the employee that did it did so without her authorization. But, she had previously said that all ads went through her for approval. When you own a business and your name is literally on everything, you unfortunately also take responsibility for what happens. Anyway, in the end I dropped her and we parted ways.
Now, regarding the AI argument.
This is just getting pedantic. She says here she “builds every single thing” and then composites and edits it and reiterates it doesn’t just come out like that after a prompt.
But for at least one photo, there was no edits at all. A few others were lightly touched and sure, there was compositing of different AI elements into the other AI elements but, to me at least, that’s not really transforming a whole piece.
For the record, my husband has never bought me a lens.
ONWARD!
I found the midjourney account, with the username “megbitton” which included images that match up with her photos she’s posted recently, and her assets she has for sale and posted it here. The account has since gone Pro and private and also changed the username.
Unfortunately for her, I had downloaded everything public – which is legal per the TOS of Midjourney. I am a member so I can also use the images however I want – for business or otherwise (which is why they have the handy dandy download engine to begin with).
So basically, my understanding is (again, not a lawyer!), per the TOS for midjourney, Meg can sell the puppy pack with all these dogs as she owns them but I can also download them for free, or even sell them myself, without any repercussions. And they aren’t copyrightable in the US because they’ve ruled (for now) that AI creations aren’t eligible for copyright.
Did Meg create these pieces with input to a bot? It appears, yes.
Did Meg then combine some images making a new image? Yes.
Did Meg tint/color/run actions on some pieces before publishing? Yes
Does any of that make the new image entirely her own and completely without AI input? In my opinion, no.
Did she make a new piece? Yes, but it’s not a piece that’s transformed enough by US Copyright standards to be considered unrecognizable from its original state.
Also, I’ve been asked if Meg used images she inputted to get her results. That’s traceable in prompts and so far, I haven’t seen any that she did this with (it’s saved with the prompt). I have Meg’s profile still pulled up from yesterday and am still able to peruse it and anything I’ve checked hasn’t had one so far.
For example:
