Editorial Team
4 min read
ArtStation Makes AI-Training Protection the Default and Applies NoAI Tags to Existing Work
ArtStation says it will default new projects and existing uploads and profiles to NoAI protection, work with Cloudflare to block known AI crawlers, and keep ordinary search indexing. The change answers community criticism, but enforcement details and the platform’s unresolved AI-generated-content discovery problem remain open.
- ArtStation is making NoAI protection opt-out for new projects and applying it to existing uploads and profiles.
- Cloudflare controls can monitor and block identified AI crawlers, but ArtStation says public work cannot be made impossible to scrape.
- The platform will preserve ordinary search indexing while acknowledging that its tools for separating AI-generated work from professional portfolios are not enough.
ArtStation, a portfolio and marketplace service whose terms name KitBash AS Operations LLC as the contracting entity and which introduced optional NoAI tagging in 2022, said on September 2 that protection against AI training would become the default for artists’ work. The move shifts the burden from individual creators to the platform, but it does not make a public image unreachable or settle how generated work should be ranked.
A default change with a narrower legal boundary
The company’s announcement says NoAI will be enabled automatically on new projects and applied across existing uploads and profiles. Artists can remove the tag, so the setting is opt-out rather than permanent. The updated terms define NoAI Content as material that may not be collected, mined, scraped, or used in datasets for generative-AI programs, in their development, or as inputs to them.
That prohibition is specific to generative-AI use. The same terms say ArtStation will not use or license users’ content to third parties for those purposes whether or not a project carries the tag. Separately, artists retain ownership while granting ArtStation a perpetual, worldwide, sublicensable license to copy, adapt, display, and distribute work to provide, improve, and promote the service. They also authorize use of content to improve ArtStation’s internal safety systems and search and recommendation tools.
The practical boundary is therefore not “no machine learning.” It is a stated prohibition on generative-model datasets, development, and inputs, alongside permission for the platform’s own safety and discovery systems. The terms also require users to mark work made with generative-AI programs as CreatedWithAI, while allowing non-generative assistance such as upscaling or noise reduction without that classification.
