Earlier this week, we reported on a Fab user who uploaded over 38,000 AI-generated assets over a short period of time, drawing attention to the broader problem of AI content flooding Epic Games' new marketplace. After Ronan Mahon's original Twitter post gained traction and the user's total uploads climbed to 41,000, Epic finally addressed the matter, issuing a low-profile, easy-to-miss statement on the Unreal Engine Forums.In his statement, Epic's Senior Director of Creator & Developer Experience, Sjoerd De Jong, apologized for the "degradation of the Fab experience everyone experienced," announcing that the user in question has been removed from Fab, along with a series of new rules the company plans to implement to prevent similar situations from happening again.Going forward, Epic will require creators to indicate during the publishing process whether an asset was created using generative AI, while also adding automated tools to help detect AI-generated assets and exploring spam-prevention systems, such as daily upload limits. Additionally, the studio is updating its content reporting form to give the community a clearer way to report assets suspected of being AI-made but not properly marked as Created With AI.De Jong also noted that users who wish to hide assets marked as Created With AI can do so through the content preferences menu, accessible via "the button found in the top right corner of search results."Unfortunately, even though many Fab users – as in, real flesh-and-blood human artists and game developers – expressed their desire for AI content to be removed entirely from the marketplace, or for Epic to follow Cubebrush's approach by making AI content accessible only via direct links and otherwise hidden from the platform, the director reaffirmed that AI will remain on Fab."We want Fab to be a welcoming place for creative expression, from first-time creations to advanced projects, and from original creations to AI-generated work," De Jong said. "Fab's goal is to be a place where creators can easily find what they're looking for, of the quality and style they're seeking, and be confident in their purchases."Due to this, along with the Created With AI filter not being toggled on by default, the reaction to the announcement was mixed, with some users praising Epic for the changes, while others criticized the company for taking a half-measure instead of banning AI entirely. "It's not welcoming, it's hurtful, and it's painful, and allowing AI is a slap in the face to everyone who works hard in their trade," one user commented, responding to De Jong's words.Read the full statement here and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Online CG asset marketplace Cubebrush has changed its upload policy to require creators to identify any products that have been created using AI tools.AI-generated content is still permitted on the site, if correctly labeled, but will automatically be hidden in searches and on sellers’ online stores, making it “essentially invisible”. In a blog post explaining the change, Cubebrush describes its ultimate aim as “to have an AI-free marketplace”. Why has Cubebrush changed its stance on AI-generated content? Founded in 2014, Cubebrush is now one of the most popular online marketplaces for stock content for CG work, including 3D models, materials, tools and 2D images.At the time of writing, there are just under 150,000 assets for sale. Although most are created in the conventional way, by hand, an “increasing number” of new products offered for sale have been created using AI tools. According to Cubebrush, while it has “consistently denied new creators with [AI-generated] portfolios applying to open new stores … a small number of existing creators on our platform have started uploading A.I. content”. How has Cubebrush changed its handling of AI-generated content? Previously, Cubebrush staff manually hid AI-generated assets being offered for sale on the marketplace, which hides them in search results, and in creators’ stores.The site has now changed its upload policy to require sellers to tag assets that have been created using AI. Any tagged assets will be hidden automatically, and any assets found to have been mislabeled will now be deleted. Stores that “consistently fail to properly identify their A.I. content” will face permanent bans from the site. Is AI-generated content forbidden on Cubebrush? The policy is interesting, because although Cubebrush’s blog post states directly that “A.I. content is NOT ACCEPTED on the marketplace”, it is still permitted on the site itself.Creators can upload AI-generated content, and if labeled correctly, it will not be deleted, but it will only be accessible through a direct link. While sellers could promote those direct links themselves, doing so would remove one of the key benefits of selling through an online marketplace: that they receive more traffic than most sellers’ own websites or social media profiles. According to Cubebrush, AI-generated content will become “essentially invisible”. How does Cubebrush’s approach compare to other online marketplaces? Other online asset marketplaces have responded to the growth of AI-generated content, and artists’ differing responses to it, in different ways.Some view generative AI as a potentially useful tool, or a money-making opportunity; others see it as devaluing the role of the artist, or even as an existential threat. Cubebrush’s new policy places it towards the latter end of the spectrum. Of the other popular marketplaces, Flipped Normals‘ policy is straightforward: AI-generated content is not permitted, even if offered for free, and will be removed. Fab and ArtStation Marketplace, both owned by Epic Games, permit AI-generated content, if it is tagged ‘CreatedWithAI’, but do not license existing assets for use training AI models. TurboSquid, owned by Shutterstock/Getty Images, does not permit sale of AI-generated content, but it does license assets on the site for use training AI models, under an opt-out policy, and is also launching its own generative AI tool. CGTrader‘s terms of use do not explicitly forbid sale of AI-generated content, although sellers are required to warrant that assets are their own “original work”. CGTrader licenses assets on the site for training AI models, under an opt-out policy; advertises assets from the site as part of a licensable AI-training dataset; and operates its own generative AI tool. Read Cubebrush’s blog post announcing its current policy on AI-generated content Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects. Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by Gnomon.