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Etsy is fine with you selling AI art, but doesn't want you to sell the AI prompts you used to make said AI art. The online marketplace, established in 2005 for artists and small businesses to sell handmade goods, has updated its policies around AI art this week in a move that supports and enables the proliferation of AI art on its platform. The AI update comes as part of broader company-wide policy updates to Etsy's Creativity Standards.
"After carefully considering the complex issues surrounding AI-generated content, we have decided to continue to allow sellers to use their original prompts in combination with AI tools to create the artwork they sell on Etsy," the company said in a post on Tuesday. "We believe this decision aligns with our values of supporting artists through the evolution of art."
Etsy admits that "ethical questions" around AI being trained on copyrighted works are a concern for some. It also notes that "bias" and AI's environmental impact are other potential problem areas with AI-generated art.
Regardless, Etsy will continue to allow AI art as long as sellers disclose that the content or items are made with AI. Etsy has already been enforcing a policy like this for months, according to one Reddit user, who said Etsy customer support considered a lack of AI disclosure on something they bought a "false advertisement," making it eligible for a refund nearly a year ago.
Etsy won't allow users to sell "prompt bundles," however. "We believe that the prompts used to generate AI artwork are an integral part of the creative process and should not be sold separately from the final artwork. Selling prompt bundles without the accompanying finished artwork undermines the value of the artist's creative input and curation," Etsy says.
But the surge of AI-generated content on Etsy has worried creatives as well as some Etsy shop owners, who have either closed their shops entirely or noticed declining sales in the face of a market flooded with AI images.
"I thought 2023 would be a great year for me. But I noticed more AI shops started opening up around that time, and my sales tanked since then," one artist explained in the r/Etsy subreddit last year. "To have all those products [..] buried under all the AI clipart is absolutely draining."
Others called the AI content's impact on artists "horrific" and dubbed Etsy "infected with grifters." Some have called for an outright AI ban. "What a discouraging mess," wrote one Etsy redditor earlier this year in a post calling for an AI ban with nearly 2,000 upvotes.
There are other issues, too. One Etsy artist reported that their original work was incorrectly flagged as made with AI when it wasn't, while others have found what they believe are "regurgitated" AI versions of their work.
Reached for comment, an Etsy spokesperson tells PCMag via email that the company sees AI as a tool that can enhance creativity. The rep said Etsy takes copyright infringement claims seriously and will remove listings when violations are reported and found. In the future, Etsy might add more filters like a way to filter out or only show AI-generated results in the future, the spokesperson shared.
Etsy isn't the only online art site that's faced criticism for allowing AI art. DeviantArt similarly allows AI artwork. It's taken to promoting such content on its official social media channels, spurring backlash from artists. DeviantArt is also facing a lawsuit from a group of creatives who claim that their work on DeviantArt was scraped to train AI models, resulting in alleged copyright infringement.
Etsy's new AI policies come shortly after it said it would start banning certain sex toys from being sold on its site at the end of this month. Insertable adult toys as well as any toys for genitalia will be banned, but other gear like handcuffs, nipple clamps, and harnesses will still be allowed. Sellers won't be able to show the fetish gear on real human models, either. Etsy is also tightening its restrictions on what adult behavior can and can't be described in item descriptions.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include comment from Etsy.