Cara, a specialized social network designed for artists, has experienced yet another scraping incident, marking its third attack in just ten days. Founded by Jingna Zhang, a well-known fashion and fine art photographer, Cara was established to provide a platform for artists who want to retain ownership and control over their work, explicitly prohibiting the use of their content to train generative AI models. This latest incident saw copyrighted images and related metadata from Cara appearing on the open-source data repository Academic Torrents on August 22. Prior to this, similar datasets were illegally shared on Reddit (though they have since been removed) and by Hugging Face, a platform dedicated to AI development.
In a heartfelt message on X, Zhang expressed her frustration: “We are facing a targeted attack. Scrapers know that we operate on a volunteer basis with limited resources to fight back. They consider their actions legal, acting as if they are beyond reproach.” She emphasized the importance of consent for artists wishing to share their work and condemned the notion that consent can be disregarded. Zhang added that she wouldn't yield to pressure to restrict Cara’s access to members only, advocating instead for community support to initiate a legal defense through GoFundMe.
Since its launch in late 2022, Cara has garnered over 1.5 million users, including both professional and amateur artists who view AI as a potential threat to their careers and an affront to the essence of art. While sharing and promoting their work is essential for gaining clients and collectors, these artists are determined to prevent their creations from being used to train AI systems that could ultimately seek to replace them. The initial emergence of generative image models like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E highlighted the risks, as these models were trained on vast collections of images, many protected by copyright, which were scraped from the internet using automated bots. Recognizing this peril, Zhang launched Cara to create a safe space for artists to share their work without any implied consent to its use in AI training. Although no online platform can guarantee complete security, Cara offers some legal and technological protections along with a clear ethical commitment to artist rights.
Zhang maintains that even small efforts can create significant impacts. “In a climate where it feels like nothing is being done, Cara is striving to effect change,” she said in a phone conversation. “While our approach may not resolve every issue or revolutionize the internet's framework, our efforts still stand to make a meaningful difference.”
However, scrapers frequently challenge artists' claims to ownership and control over their work. They argue that the advancement of AI justifies the extraction of any data, irrespective of consent. This rationale was evident in the actions of the original scraper, known as “MandarinDrawnPoppy994,” who posted a collection of nearly 12 million images from Cara on the sub-Reddit r/DefendingAIArt, asserting that scraping is essential for developing effective AI models. After engaging with the original poster, Zhang successfully convinced him to remove the dataset, leading to an unexpected collaboration on creating an open-source tool designed to help artists identify if their work has been scraped.
Unfortunately, the problems did not end with this victory. Shortly after, a different entity scraped Cara's data again. This time, the images were uploaded to Hugging Face by a user named “Ioannis/Captive Dreamer.” In response to reported copyright infringements, Hugging Face's Trust and Safety team stated, “We have thoroughly reviewed these reports. Since we do not host copies of the artworks, but instead link to the originals on Cara, there is nothing we can disable under our takedown policy.” The team clarified that their decision does not reflect ownership determinations but rather their responsibilities regarding content stored on their servers. Hugging Face has not provided additional comments regarding the ongoing situation.
