Wizards of the Coast announced that the company is rethinking its AI artwork policy, for Magic: The Gathering, where it concerns vendor marketing creative assets.
This announcement comes after artist Reid Southern posted screenshots of an alleged conversation with Midjourney CEO David Holz on Midjourney’s Discord server (see below). Midjourney is a popular AI art generator that is currently in wide use. In the conversation, David Holz, posting as “DavidH,” writes that he had rendered out “huge swaths of MTG cards as test sequences” while testing the program as well as indicates that they scraped Magic: The Gathering artists’ styles to train the Midjourney algorithm. Midjourney is involved in an ongoing class action lawsuit brought against it by several artists that allege the software had been created using copyrighted artwork.
In the announcement, WotC was quick to reaffirm that they require creatives that contribute to Magic: The Gathering to refrain from using AI generative tools when rendering final images. WotC had previously stated these guidelines for use of AI with Magic as well as D&D (see “‘D&D’ Artist Tries to Slip AI Artwork“). They added that they will also work with vendors to address the use of AI beyond the actual Magic products, which includes social media and marketing creative assets. The company also stated the following:
“We can’t promise to be perfect in such a fast-evolving space, especially with generative AI becoming standard in tools such as Photoshop, but our aim is to always come down on the side of human made art and artists.”
Wizards of the Coast also recently announced that they will speed up the shipping process for Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair drop sets (see “‘Secret Lair’ Shipping“).
Source: ICV2
