How to post and tag AI-generated products on Zazzle

[idraw]

After earlier today posting about AI upcoming lawsuits, and searching for something else, I found this:
<https://www.zazzle.com/policy/content>
specifically this—
• All designs that contain any AI-generated content as part of the final composition should be appropriately tagged as #generativecontent in order to avoid any potential confusion among customers.

I excerpted the above from the following—
The use of AI in Images for sale on Zazzle
As articulated in our AI Principles above, our goal is to support innovation by creating environments where new ideas and solutions can thrive. This can take the form of visual expression on the Zazzle marketplace through content that is AI-supported or AI-generated.
Specifically, the Following Terms and Conditions Apply:
• All AI-generated content must be entirely novel works, and not knowingly copied from any existing design.
• All AI-generated artwork should adhere to the same standards of quality, originality, and accuracy expected of all content sold on the Zazzle marketplace in order to be accepted and listed for sale. Creators must ensure that any AI-generated design is of sufficient quality and accuracy before submitting it for listing on the marketplace.
• All AI-generated designs should be created within the guidelines set by the license(s) and the user agreement of their toolset(s) or service(s).
--->• All designs that contain any AI-generated content as part of the final composition should be appropriately tagged as #generativecontent in order to avoid any potential confusion among customers.
• Any artwork that is deemed to have been created with malicious intent or to infringe upon the rights of others will not be allowed on the marketplace, and could lead to account termination under our User Agreement
• Creators should seek legal counsel prior to listing any AI-generated artworks for sale, especially if there are questions about copyright or other intellectual property issues.
• Zazzle administrators reserve the right to remove and/or reject any artwork that does not meet these criteria, or adhere to our User Agreement in any other way at their discretion.

[KeegansCreation]

Thank you for posting. I didn't know they had already come up with a policy. I shall add generativecontent to those specific designs.

[Barbara]

How does placing a hashtag in front of "generativecontent" avoid confusion by customers?

Colorwash's Home

[LMGildersleeve]

Don't you think that would have been something Zazzle should have told us about? Any changes to policy or other legal documents should be given to us via News in my opinion. 🤔

Nice of you @idraw to bring it to everyone's attention. 💐

[KeegansCreation]

Agreed. I had no idea until idraw posted that. Neither did almost everybody else who has used AI (and still don't unless they come to the forum). I just spent a chunk of the afternoon adding the tag. An MP search tells me I am the 3rd person to do so. After indexing, my designs will show up with that tag too. 

I really wish they had put this in Creator News so it would show up in people's profile page along with the other things from Creator News. It is pretty important.

[Cat]

@KeegansCreation So, you're interpreting this to mean that they want a tag that says "generativecontent"? I've been doing it the other way around - putting "#generativecontent" in the description because you can't put a hashtag in a tag.

[KeegansCreation]

I did just because the guidance says "should be appropriately tagged as". The hashtag doesn't work as part of a tag and it's weird to make it one word but it makes equally little sense in the description. In fact I can't make sense of why the hashtag is there at all. Is it a young people thing to put hashtags in front of mashed together words even when you aren't on Twitter? Or did they mean for us to use this when we share it on social media rather than Zazzle itself? 

Mods, help. What exactly are we supposed to be doing?

[Cat]

Yes, mods... please help. I'm happy to comply with whatever the requirements are, but it's difficult to follow vague and contradictory instructions.

@Scott - sorry to tag you on this, but we really need some guidance here.

[Cat]

Yes, thank you @idraw for bringing this to our attention. I'll add my voice to the chorus saying I wish Zazzle had sent out a notice or something.

I'm confused about tagging things. Do they mean they want you to put "#generativecontent" in the product description, or do they want you to put "generativecontent" as a tag? Because you can't put a hastag in a tag - well you can, but Zazzle deletes the hashtag. It would be great if someone from Zazzle could chime in and clarify.

[chuamishael]

I think tags should do. people aren't exactly typing this terms at the moment.

[chuamishael]

well, the problem is, do people wanna buy a.i. art? some people starting to think a.i. arts are priceless, they rather pay for a plain t-shirt with no design, than an a.i. art..... 🙄  I could be wrong tho....

[angelafuller729]

You would be wrong...  

[ClareS]

It would be great to get some clarification on this #generativecontent requirement. Where are we supposed to put it? Zazzle doesn't use hashtags on the platform, it uses tags, but they're separate words, ie "generative content," also, I don't think customers read the tags, so that wouldn't meet their requirements to inform. Do they mean to use that hashtag on social media when promoting our products?

[KC]

This should probably be something mentioned with a checkbox at some point on the product posting page so that everyone can see it, not just designers who happen to go digging for the information. : )

Likely it's an easy way for Z to potentially hide these products quickly in case of some sort of massive legal action or future directives, AND/OR maybe to create a subsection on the site in the case it takes off as a sales niche.

There may be some customers who do go looking for it specifically, they probably won't use that keyword as one grouped word to search for it?

[WHS_Designs]

when I view the source of the content policy link, I see a long line of code that reads "We have updated our Policies as of January 31, 2022."

it's on line 364 or thereabouts.

do a [Ctrl][F] or [Command][F] and type in "updated" (without the double quotes) -- it's faster to find that way (there are 4 instances of "updated").

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Dear Creators,

We would like to express our gratitude for the feedback we have received regarding the recently developed AI Guidelines. We understand that some of you may have found them unclear, and we apologize for any confusion caused. We developed these guidelines as a starting point to direct those who inquire about AI and its use on Zazzle. Your feedback is essential in helping us understand how our Community uses AI.
Based on your feedback and questions, we have made necessary adjustments to the tagging copy to make it more clear.

Specifically, all designs that contain AI-generated content as part of the final composition should be tagged as “generativecontent” in the product listing. This will help us track trends and usage in our marketplace. Please note that the # is not needed in the tag.

We are committed to listening to our Creators and welcome your feedback as the tools and technology evolve. As we plan to evolve with it, we will continue to engage and collaborate with you to ensure that we are meeting your needs effectively.

Best regards,

The Creator Team

[idraw]

@Mark 

Thank you Mark for responding. I left a message (to Scott) with a link, in chat requesting that the tag issue be addressed by Mods. Great to know that it has been handled!

[leartiste67]

Thank you for the information. 

[Marblewave]

>>> Specifically, all designs that contain AI-generated content as part of the final composition should be tagged as “generativecontent” in the product listing.

Am I right in thinking that placeholder images generated by AI, which the customer will replace with their own photo, do not need this tag?

[Susang6]

So I am late to this discussion...and have a ?  Right now I have in my description that the products was created from an AI generated image, then in my tags I have "Ai art" and "AI generated"   do you want me to delete AI  art and AI generated and  add only #generativecontent ?    Also when I search I find in Google AI Art and AI generated products but not generativecontent.   Will this tag mess up my  product ranking in the google search ?    

[stine1]

I have just learned of this by coincidence. Why was there never a newsletter for designers or something that I DO SEE?

[TRW]

is the use of the tag "generativecontent" a REQUIREMENT? And please explain what you are doing about designers who are not using the tag or if it can even be proven that the design is an ai creation? 

[Angelandspot]

I had no idea I had been tagging my art AI generated since I started doing those kind of designs last year.  Now I have hundreds of designs in various stores to get retagged.  I found out about it by watching a YouTube video https://youtu.be/10-A-V_KY_8 and she made a statement she was going to make a video about Zazzle AI changes so then I googled to find this forum post.  It seems like the announcement could have been made better when it is something important like a change of terms of use policies.

[vinathie]

Any idea how to add this tag in bulk products? Or the only way is I have to manually re-tag hundreds of products? Imaging someone has thousands product. It's really painful.

[Sara_H]

@vinathie If you've got a lot to do, in the back end, click on show - 204 - scan down and select the ones you want to bulk edit, then on the left hand side is a Bulk Actions option - select edit details and under Tags you have the option to append or insert tags. Put in your tag then tick the box to agree to terms then click Done.

[Sara_H]

@vinathie meant right hand side for Bulk Actions - sometimes I get mixed up 🙃

[vinathie]

Thanks anyway. I thought about it, but I manually changed them all since my tags were suck. Luckily I don't have thousands of product atm 🤣

[igiftcenter]

I'd like to know how one knows content is AI generated just by looking at it?   Does an AI image have a certain look and feel? I'm new to this "stuff" so pardon my ignorance.  

Another question: if someone downloads and image from a stock site and the image does not specify that it is AI generated how would we know it's AI generated?  I'm sure there are sites that require they be designated as AI in some way but what if they don't mark it as such?

[KeegansCreation]

I had a whole post outlining errors sometimes seen in AI generated images but I deleted all of it while trying to rewrite it and now can't muster the willpower to write it all out again. Anyhoo, there are signature errors that show up in ai images and need to be corrected in graphics programs.

[JB]

Yeah a lot of these new Etsy "artists" since the explosion of the AI generators do not tag or make mention that they use AI to create the clipart they are selling. And they are selling it fast and cheap, so it is taking over. If you design using clipart or create clipart, you can still tell what is AI generated and what isn't. Even without error, it has a look. I don't prefer it, but sometimes there are things generated that I would love to have a talented person paint instead, but can't find, so I have purchased or used a generator to make it. AI art still doesn't look as good to me as hand drawn or true hand painted though. It's hard to explain exactly what it is, but the "watercolor" AI art, while much of it looks very beautiful far away, looks kind of a hot mess up close or it just looks "fake" or too neat... more cartoonish and digital looking up close rather than a scanned watercolor art that someone actually painted on paper and scanned/photographed and cut out etc.

But yeah, you could buy loads of clipart from a shop on Etsy and not be told its AI generated and may not know. and as AI gets smarter and smarter, it will become harder and harder to tell -- especially when it comes to photorealistic images. You could buy a stock set of people that look like real models sat for photos and it is becoming VERY difficult to decipher if it is a real person or not. (Scares me!) So yeah this is tough one.

[LauraLee]

I'm just throwing this out there, since it is news to me recently.  Judge-rules-ai-generated-art-not-protected-by-copyright-law-human-authorship-is-a-bedrock-requiremen... 

[Connie]

I really wish Zazzle would require that AI designs are marked as such in the description as well. Most customers aren't going to scroll all the way down to the tags to see "generativecontent." If they even would know that that meant AI! (I actually wish a lot of sites would require that, also, especially Etsy!) I mean, I generally can tell, but sometimes in the small listing images I can't, until I buy the graphics or mockups and realize they ain't real!

[WolfMoonArt]

I completely agree with you. It should be mentioned in the description. Most people aren't going to know what generativecontent is, nor are they going to see or look for the tags.

[xzendor7]

I include in my artwork AI Art so that people know what they are purchase and I only promote it on a shop specifically geared at AI Content.

Also in my opinion it is never a good idea when creating AI Artwork for sale to reference other artist work in creating your imagery.

It is best to reference art styles, art periods, art themes along with a mix of other things you can imagine that will result result in very impressive works of art.

Also if you are getting low quality out, don't forget to do an Image To Image using the same prompt to refine the look of the image with greater detail.

[WolfMoonArt]

As Connie mentioned previously, I feel that it should be mentioned in the description that the specific artwork is AI art. Most people are not going to see the tag or even know what generativecontent is. If I asked the average person on the street if they know what generativecontent is, I'm sure most people would give me a confused look. However, if I asked them if they knew what AI art is, I'm sure most people would understand what I'm talking about. I have just started creating AI art myself, and I'm really loving the results I'm getting. It's not perfect, and I can see that some things will need to be corrected in Photoshop, but I would love to be able to use some of the images I'm getting to sell on Zazzle. I currently sell original photos and digital art creations done from my photos. I have them in two separate categories in my store, and I plan to put a third category for AI Art Creations in my store, also, so I don't have to open up a separate store for them. 

[LMGildersleeve]

If you used the words "AI art" in Zazzle search you can see creators already use AI in their descriptions at the very least.

"enerativecontent" may not be searched by a customer and I agree with you and Connie 100% but if you are concerned for the customers sake, use "AI art" instead.

[Lais]

In my opinion, "AI-art" should be included in the title of the products as most people don't read the descriptions. 

[WolfMoonArt]

That's probably a good idea.

[spring333]

Thanks for this information I want to be sure i am following the rules the best i can. I do enjoy doing ai art as well as traditional so I am glad I can actually sell this as well. We can add the ""generativecontent" in the product title too then with or without the ai yes? Happy creating all.

[KeegansCreation]

I wouldn't put it in the title. There is a limit to how long a title can be and putting that in will likely put you past it.