#art under attack

[prometheus-exe]

“This Isn’t About AI. It’s About Ending Fandom.”

You’ve heard the talking points:

“AI is theft!” “Stronger copyright laws will protect us!” “We need to stop AI with tighter restrictions!”

And it sounds good. Like justice. Like creators finally taking back control.

But ask yourself — who benefits when copyright gets stricter? Because it’s not you. And it’s not fandom.

This Isn’t About AI. This Is About Control.

The people pushing for harsher copyright laws aren’t your fellow fan creators. They’re mega-corporations and IP holders who have always hated:

Fanfiction

Fanart

Parody

Cosplay

Remix culture

Educational use

Commentary

Open tools

Archive communities

Now they’ve found the perfect bogeyman: AI.

And they’re weaponizing it to scare you into giving them exactly what they’ve wanted for years — full lockdown of everything they “own.”

What Happens If They Win?

Let’s be blunt. If these copyright maximalists succeed, here’s what the future looks like:

Artist alleys at cons? Gutted.

Selling unlicensed prints becomes legally risky. Organisers too afraid to allow it. You draw Spider-Man? You better lawyer up.

Professional cosplay? Treated as infringement.

Want to wear a detailed character costume and accept donations or sell photos? They’ll hit you for using their IP for monetary gain. That includes Etsy shops, OnlyFans cosplayers, even Ko-fi tips.

Crafts? Fan merch? Etsy? Deleted.

That handmade Pokémon amigurumi? That Sailor Moon plush? Gone. Takedowns are already happening under current rules — and they want stricter laws to make it even easier.

YouTube? Tumbleweeds.

No more analysis channels. No more video essays. No more gameplay footage. No more AMVs. No more transformative commentary or reviews. Only “official content” — curated by the rights-holders, monetized by them, scrubbed of critique.

Fanfic? Memes? Gone quiet.

AO3 is protected by U.S. safe harbour rules — for now. But if new laws force platforms to vet or license all content... Fanworks become a legal liability.

You think Big Mouse is going to license your Reylo fic?

“But I’m not making money!”

They don’t care. They want total control. Whether you profit or not doesn’t matter to them — what matters is that you’re using their property without permission.

That’s the world stricter copyright laws will build — a creative wasteland.

AI Is the Excuse — Not the Problem.

Do ethical concerns around AI exist? Of course. Do we need transparency and better standards? Absolutely. But that’s not what these proposed laws are about.

This is about corporations using fear to expand their power. To make it harder for anyone to remix, critique, transform, or build on culture — AI or human.

They want your support to stop AI. But they’ll use that support to destroy fandom.

We’ve Been Here Before — SOPA, PIPA, and the War on Fandom

Back in 2012, the U.S. government almost passed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). They claimed it would stop piracy and protect artists.

What it actually would’ve done was:

Let corporations and the government get court orders that could effectively cut off or block entire websites over alleged copyright violations.

Treat linking to accused sites as something that could get platforms punished or blocked.

Threaten user-generated platforms like AO3, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, fan wikis…

Put the burden of enforcement on users and sites — not the actual infringers

Fandoms, creators, and the entire internet rose up in protest. Sites blacked out. Petitions exploded. Politicians backtracked. And we stopped it.

But now they’re back — using AI as the Trojan horse.

If they couldn’t pass SOPA to fight piracy, they’ll repackage it as “protecting art from AI.” And if you cheer them on without reading the fine print, you’re handing them the weapon they failed to get ten years ago.

Don’t Let Them Do It.

“It starts with AI. It ends with fandom.”

Fight for transparency. Fight for creator rights. But don’t hand the hammer to the same companies who’ve been trying to smash your communities for decades.

They don’t want to save you. They want to own you.

Sources / Further Reading

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – overview Explains what SOPA was, how it worked, and why critics warned it could endanger user-generated platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

How SOPA/PIPA Threatened Free Speech & Safe Harbour – EFF Breakdown of how SOPA/PIPA would have enabled site blocking and harmed platforms that host user content. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

Fandom and Copyright Norms – Casey Fiesler Research on how fan creators operate in a legally grey area, relying on norms and tolerance rather than clear legal protection. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3635549

Cosplay and Copyright in Japan – Klemchuk LLP Explores how professional cosplay is being pulled into copyright/licensing, including proposals for fees to rights-holders. https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate/cosplay-in-japan-faces-new-copyright-law

Fan Merch & DMCA Takedowns – Etsy Story First-hand account of a fan crafter hit with a DMCA notice over handmade anime dolls, showing how fan merch is already targeted. https://blerdyotome.com/2020/05/13/now-this-is-a-story-all-about-how-i-got-hit-with-a-dmca-notice-from-funimation/

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence – U.S. Copyright Office Official hub for the USCO’s work on AI and copyright, showing how governments are actively rethinking the rules right now. https://www.copyright.gov/ai/

[parkstone-international]

Art Under Attack

Blog: Art Under Attack

Art incites great passion. Individual artworks are adored and people become devoted to particular artists. On the flip-side, however, this strength of feeling can equally well be a negative one- many pieces of art are passionately hated.

This hatred and anger often prompts the destruction of artworks, in protest at what they represent.  When a leader is overthrown, we often see news footage of…

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[artmastered]

*** ‘Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm’ at Tate Britain, London

I headed to the Tate Britain at the end of December for two reasons: one, to finally take a look at the recent reinstallation of the museum's permanent collection; and two, to see 'Art Under Attack', a show about British iconoclasm from the Tudor Reformation to the present day. Categorised under 'Religion', 'Politics' and 'Aesthetics', the attacks covered were thoroughly documented in the gallery space; where possible, each case was represented by photographs of the artwork before and after the assault, fragments of any broken statues, interviews with relevant figures, and newspaper accounts.

Some of the most famous attacks on art were included here, such as the knocking down of Nelson's pillar in Dublin by the IRA in 1966, and numerous defaced icons of the medieval era. But no investigation of this kind could be complete without the work of the mighty Suffragettes; Mary Richardson’s meat-cleaver slashes to Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus in 1914 was particularly well-documented. One of the most interesting accounts was the investigation of three attacks on artworks then exhibited at the Tate Britain itself: Reg Butler's maquette for the Unknown Political Prisoner, 1951-52 (crushed in 1953); Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII, 1966 (marked in 1976); and Allen Jones's Chair, 1969 (covered in painter stripper in 1986). This section prefaced the exhibition of contemporary artworks that have directly confronted the idea of destroying art and what it means to do so; a fascinating concept when you really think about it.

‘Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm’ is on at Tate Britain from 2nd October 2013 to 5th January 2014.

[sacrismoon]

Glass fragments of painted windows from Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (c.1630s)

[parkstone-international]

Art Under Attack

Art incites great passion. Individual artworks are adored and people become devoted to particular artists. On the flip-side, however, this strength of feeling can equally well be a negative one- many pieces of art are passionately hated. This hatred and anger often prompts the destruction of artworks, in protest at what they represent. When a leader is overthrown, we often see news footage of their statues being toppled. In 1776, George Washington’s troops actually used a statue of King George III as a weapon- melting the lead to make thousands of bullets to fire at the British. In a more personal protest, in the 1600s Royalist Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, who had a great parlour filled with portraits of the royal family, hung a portrait of Oliver Cromwell upside down amongst them. After his death it was given to Inverness Art Gallery, where it has been hung upside-down ever since.

Madonna and Child c.1475–90 Winchester Cathedral Photo © Dr John Crook

Although nowadays we are more likely to hear of members of the public running amok in public galleries, 500 years ago it was the English authorities who were destroying the people’s art, rather than trying to protect it. During the Reformation and after, the King’s men attacked and demolished religious art, fearing the people were worshiping it- so successfully that only around ten percent of British medieval art survives today.

Christ before Pilate, unknown painter, c. 1400- 1425. Egg tempera on panel, 29.8 x 33 cm. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

In the early 1900s, attacking artworks became a favoured method of protest for the Suffragettes in their demands for the vote for women. They targeted numerous British paintings during 1913-1914, choosing idealised and adored images of women by male artists, in protest at the contrasting, terrible treatment that many real women received. These angry ladies’ methods clearly hit a nerve, since gallery directors considered banning women from their establishments. Destroying artworks always prompts outrage and draws attention, making it an effective method for those wanting their voice to be heard. Artworks were still being targeted in the name of women’s rights in the 1980s, when Allen Jones’ Chair was damaged on International Women’s Day in 1986.

Allen Jones, Chair, 1969. Acrylic paint on glass fibre and resin with Perspex and leather, 77.5 x 57.1 x 99.1cm. Tate Modern, London.

This past year has seen resurgent spate of attacks on art in Britain, as a Rothko was targeted at the Tate, and the campaign group Fathers4Justice has followed the example of the Suffragettes and called for independent acts of protest. Both a Constable painting and a recent portrait of the Queen have been defaced with the word ‘help’ in the capital in recent months. So is this use of violence against art ever justifiable? Are the artworks just innocent pawns in political games, or do their messages make them a legitimate target? A new exhibition at Tate Britain is the first to explore the history of physical attacks on art in Britain, and looks too at the way many artists are now using violence as a creative force. Check out Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm until 5 January 2014. Or if you want to read more about religious art, have a look at Ernest Renan’s Christ in Art or Nikodim Pavlovich’s Icons.

G.A.

[7andrewreeve7]

An Unoriginal Essay About Originality In Art

The problem of defining originality in art is almost as old as the on-going argument of what constitutes art. Marcel Duchamp successfully challenged the notion of what is considered art with his ready-made sculpture Fountain– a urinal placed on its back –…

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[chloewaite]

Art under attack at Tate Britain, a very interesting insight into the many reasons art has been attacked from religion, politics to the chapman brothers, even a whole art movement devoted to destruction.