“This is an act of theft”: Brides are using ChatGPT to “steal” custom wedding art, and artists are furious

The rise of generative AI has led to a new worst wedding trend as brides grab art without paying and ask ChatGPT to alter it. One TikToker and wedding expert highlighted a video in which a bride demonstrates how she does this, skirting around paying $115 to an artist in order to get a sketch of her venue for free.

This is only adding to the many ways in which artists are losing income thanks to AI.

Brides are using ChatGPT to alter wedding invitations

AI models like ChatGPT have already been widely accused of mass art and writing theft to generate their responses. What Tori Moore (@torimooore) exposed on Thursday seems like an escalation.

Her video shows another TikTok user screensharing to show how she found a drawing of her wedding venue priced at $115. Instead of buying it or contacting the artist to request a different version of the art, she saved and uploaded it to ChatGPT and asked it to generate a sketch-style drawing of the original.

@torimooore

stop stealing art! i’ve seen several brides post videos about how they take art from etsy or things they’ve seen on TikTok and upload it into ChatGPT to use for their invitations or decor… that is theft! and it’s insane how normalized it’s becoming!!

♬ original sound – TORI

“It’s important to me that you guys know this is stealing,” said Moore. “This is an act of theft. And I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say that, but I’ve seen several TikToks of DIY brides stealing people’s art and uploading it into AI platforms to transform it into something else.”

“And that is stealing from the artist. That’s theft. That’s copyright infringement. There are so many layers to why that’s wrong.”

Whether or not you could legally call this practice theft or copyright infringement is unclear, but what is clear is that the original artist from the DIY bride video did not get paid for her work.

Is it stealing, though?

While most commenters considered the bride’s actions morally wrong, some quibbled over whether it was technically illegal.

“If it is publicly available by searching it and going to images, then that is not stealing,” said @snorlax_king.

This is not accurate, however, as artists often copyright their work before putting it online.

“That’s not how copyright works,” user @danialexandriamusic pointed out. “A Disney movie is publicly available does that mean I can do whatever I want with it? Nope.”

Whether that changes if you ask ChatGPT to alter the image needs to be sorted out by the courts, but plenty of other TikTokers still had strong opinions.

“For those saying it isn’t stealing because the bride didn’t go on to sell it: someone paid for that commission at some point and that payment would have included usage rights; or, the artist would have been selling the image in some format,” wrote @megan__gilbert. “Either way, it’s misuse of someone’s art and one of those two parties is losing out with things like this.”

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