Riot Accidentally Hired a Thief

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[@turtleelturt8735]

As an artist, thank you for being on our side. I am so tired of these people going like " I am an AI artist " - no dude it's the same as calling yourself a chef while you only use the microwave to heat up dishes from the store in a restaurant.

[@timexyemerald6290]

Blame the copium artists saying that ai will npt steal their jobs😂

[@turtleelturt8735]

@@timexyemerald6290 For the record, Ai should not steal their jobs, because Ai can't produce art work without real work. Which is literally taking artists' works and then generating from them. So no, don't blame them especially when the government in the US and EU is considering banning such Ai.

[@octopusuwu1721]

​@@timexyemerald6290What kind of L take is that? You do realise AI can't generate without artists works? From the very start it was stolen, the whole concept and what you are saying is literal bs.

[@foxieuwu28]

​@@timexyemerald6290 Another person who can't fathom the fact that Ai can't work without real artists and their work. It's especially sad when you say that and don't know that these Ai "artists" steal from passed away, well known artists without any permission.

[@viktoriadebreczeni4235]

@@timexyemerald6290it won’t. The internet is blasted with more and more bad ai art, so the ai engine takes those as learning material, making it more and more shitty overtime. It could have been revolutionary, but people who want to feel special will ruin it by posting their cringe promt images everywhere.

[@namba3886]

As an artist, this is some of the finest despair i have ever tasted, since riot is basically the peak for aspiring artists who want to do game art

[@raeste.claire7093]

Yyyyep

[@anubis7457]

From what I've been told, Riot often "collages" art together, way before AI even became accessible.

[@Careagean]

@@anubis7457 Riot artist will often photobash to make the process quicker! There are some speedpaints of splash art being made on youtube where they show their process. Photobashing has been around for ages in the field so its not uncommon or something to inherently be upset at (as all artist that i've seen use it already know fundamentals, and can do it themselves) so it's quite different from how AI is used. Hope that cleared some stuff up :)!

[@louisrobitaille5810]

@@anubis7457AI art is the farthest thing from collage that exists… 😑.

[@louisrobitaille5810]

Why despair? It's actually a miracle that it's the first time it happened in over a decade of the company existing. No company or person is perfect 😓.

[@flo8104]

Honestly, at this point, they should hire the original artists of the art that was stolen to remke the icons...i mean that would be one of the best ways to show how sorry they are for this happening

[@MyLovelyForm]

usually not worth for the artist unless Riot overpaying them a alot, since they make much more money if they sell their art on Fanbox etc and if they make a commision for League they prob wont be able to post that on their Fanbox etc

[@owo1744]

@@MyLovelyForm Whatchu on about? According to a google search, the average US based Riot employed artist makes $128 185 a year, thats around 10 000 every single month. According to another google search, the average freelance artist makes around $50 565 a year, and the majority of artists on places like Fanbox/Patreon/Pixiv, etc, make way less than that.

[@JohnnyTravolta]

Nah bro, they do but only 1%, same with OF girls, not every girl gonna earn much, only 0.1% will earn more than average hoe on the street. If they dont have atleast 2k people paying for art, they will earn less than riot artist@@MyLovelyForm

[@aviore7528]

Not entirely improbable. Riot has history of hiring people who make custom skins or splash arts from deviant. If that plagiarized one is good for them, the original (which is tons better) should be good too

[@w.selfless6022]

or just pay more for the arts to show they are sorry

[@emotional_st0rm]

This video failed to mention that even if it was freelance work, it is still ultimately Riot's responsibility to check it for possible plagiarism and quality control. Its not good enough to just say "well someone else did it for us" when you were the one who signed off on the product.

[@henxiety]

Yep, QA fucked up and it's Riot's responsibility to protect their other artists

[@pyrojkl]

@@henxiety Honestly, in the vid it wasnt clear how it found, personally if i throw the icon in google and dont get something similar back, it would be hard to check, Obviously riot isnt one to want to not pay artists given how many they employ so this is strictly one bad worker that gets blacklisted

[@JonnyDoLake]

It is not feasible for a big company like Riot to check for plagiarism on every individual piece of art they get from freelancers, when they have multiple teams and multiple projects going on at once, however they do have protections against these kinds of situations. You see, when you make art as a freelancer for these big studios you usually have to sign a lot of contracts before even starting, one of these contracts is a transfer of copyright in which, among other things, you guarantee that whatever piece of art you produce for them is your own original work and not plagiarized or taken from someone else. So whoever freelancer they hired probably just broke a legal contract doing this and could potentially get in big trouble if Riot decides to pursue litigation.

[@MangaGamified]

@@pyrojkl If they're pardoned cause they were ignorant it was stolen, people should also be pardoned if they were also ignorant of the law. Just because it was an honorable / noble reason doesn't mean they're pardoned.

[@poro3246]

@JonnyDoLake A big company can spend more resources on QA. That's no excuse for bad quality. Riot is held up to exceptionally high standards because that's what seperated them from most other (bigger) companies. True, with high output, the odds are more likely that something slips through. I think it got the proper attention it needed. Things like this can happen. But if the community just tolerates it, then nothing will be done to prevent it from happening again. Without proper feedback, it's easy for a big company to fall into laziness and corruption.

[@primalgoddess3805]

According to my partner, a die hard league player, Riot fired the art thief and is trying to work with the original artists of the fanart pieces to get the icons remade.

[@hearts136]

People claiming to be artists when they steal work is so frustrating. This means less opportunities for people to show Riot their talents. This is a huge PR disaster.

[@SpaceDragon14]

Not gonna lie, as an artist, It really saddens me to see how the ones behind the hiring job end up doing stuff like this It's not just a Riot thing tho, but it happens in other companies as well, it's just tiring to see 'poor, the rich company got scammed' and it's like ?? that's what they get for not paying attention, Artists spend countless hours to master their craft only to get sidelined for people who steal our work cus someone didn't cared enough to check (now it happens a shit ton more, Thanks AI images)

[@ottersaurus]

Ironically, they will need an AI to check if these drawings are AI. It’s just not reasonable to ask the hiring managers to go “check” every piece of art for league on the internet.

[@cap-ml7ky]

​@@ottersaurusI disagree, riot should be hed accountable. Fire safety was only taken in consideration after people died, let's hope that this is the AI incident that'll make companies realize that they must detect AI art.

[@xalkerwar6628]

I don't think it's even possible to fact-check artworks. I mean, there is a millions of random artists with different skill lvls (mostly very boring or/and bad ones) with even more art pieces multiplied by every day there was an internet around. Or even "Art" itself. You can't just hire a 100 peoples who will 24/7 compare each art with billions of others. You don't even need a same universe or style art to trace over it and add little details. The only way you can check arts is by involving A LOT of people and/or having your own trusted artists.

[@lubue5795]

@@ottersaurus Actually I think it is. I mean, they don't just pick a random artist. Hiring an artist already means quite a lot of work. After all they have to first find the artist, check whether the style matches, whether the quality is sufficient, then contact the artist, wait for a response, negotiate a contract and quality check the delivered images. In that long process, it's really not much to ask to let one of Riots own artist, who will probably be called upon to check the product anyway, on whether it might be AI or not. And as Necrit showed, increasing the saturation or do a reversed image search, are some really quick and easy ways to identify a lot of AI art. And I'm sure there are many other ways as well. So, while platforms like artstation or DeviantArt where people can upload their own art will need AI tools to check for AI images, companies who already have quality control instances really don't need AIs to check and we should expect them not to fall for this.

[@supremeoverlordvader5552]

@ottersaurus i don't think so. Just ask for their first sketches or photoshop file to prove their authentity

[@doodlegarbage6769]

With all the leaks, you'd think Riot would crack down on this stuff by now.

[@Kepptn_]

they will never crack down on this because it's how they have always operated. Riot gives you access to things from their IP and in turn gets to use whatever they want from your things so long as it's related to their IP. it's been in their copyright agreement for years.

[@GrayNotGrey_]

As far as art tracing goes, it doesn't have to be ai per se; there are plenty of artists out there who can draw perfectly well but choose to instead steal poses and 'trace' over the linework of other artists so they can pump out art faster without as much work (Usually changing characters but keeping the same pose) I think what happened was, the artist CAN draw at a acceptable level, but decided to skip some steps and generate an AI piece, then drew over it. Apparently they missed the fact that the hand covered the shoulder originally though.

[@BushSage]

I feel like the use of AI is basically tracing but with a machine

[@gosunflower]

This looks much more like AI with just a lower number of passes over the original image than tracing

[@GrayNotGrey_]

@@BushSage Oh most definitely, AI is more or less automated tracing but it can also be both

[@Aryzo]

Nah i think its full ai. The way the earring isnt attached with a ring or something to her ear in the zyra skin makes me pretty sure that its just good ai art. Not surprising also since it literally copied 90% of another existing artwork

[@cybertpax]

Lol what? How on planet AI is just tracing lol. XD U have no idea how AI works. XD

[@sabershark3102]

I love how in both cases the original is leagues (pun not intended) better than the copy, both portraits have so much more character in their expressions and movements, while the copies look like bootleg versions of themselves

[@jinlurker]

You can tell who actually paid attention to the video when you look at the comments it's amazing.

[@FiguringOutFantasy]

The grind is real necrit. How are you possibly sane with this kind of release schedule? Never understood how taxing coming up with ideas for videos that often was until I tried to do it myself. Respect!

[@MangaGamified]

Hire someone from a low-cost of living country

[@WhisperWings_]

Ai art is one of those thing that unless you spend all your time consuming art (wow that sound pretentious but I mean drawing it or following like a lot of artist on social medias) it can be pretty hard to spot, but that's mainly because AI art is kinda...trained to be as believable as possible. Something not very well known apparently is that there are just "AI Enhancer" programs that enhance a piece of real artwork even without keywords and they can be ran how ever many times the person wants to render them, all of those have those tells, slightly tilted heads, slightly different expressions, clothing with more "enhanced" detail usually trying to emulate materials better. All those alarms were set off when I saw the Zyra pic, and then came Evelynn, which looked to have used a different program, one that merely traces with a few keywords, these programs are usually better about blending colors together but arent able to make larger changes to pose or composition but CAN do things like removing hands or limbs usually done by blending the elements of whatever is behind it. Its a damn shame but in this age where AI art is so rampant people think they can get away with it and unfortunately a lot of the time they do when they steal lesser known artist works, thankfully this time they didn't, so congrats to the League Fanart Community for calling this out when it was spotted and I hope the original artists and Riot can come to an agreement and who ever they got initially will never find work in the industry again ^-^ As an artist, AI art is a fascinating tool, unfortunately its a tool that allows scumbags to be lazy and just plagiarize and get paid for it.

[@holschermarc]

Honestly i hope they hire the original artist the next time they need Splashart or Icons. Would be a nice way to compensate him/her and give exposure to their art. I think at least it would be a fair trade.

[@sushionaram]

I doubt artist would want to work with them after this

[@jmvbento]

@@sushionaram I think that depends a lot on how Riot handles it. If they fire the offender and apologise to the artist (and compensate and/or remove the offending "art"), I don't know why the artist would have a problem.

[@dieptrieu6564]

@@jmvbento Also it's not like it was their fault to begin with. How can they know these people are fraud, lol

[@jmvbento]

@@dieptrieu6564 Yeah, at this point I don't think it's realistic to expect someone to go "hey, is this artwork that got submitted similar to one that's already done across the entire internet". It really comes down to how Riot handles this, imo.

[@dieptrieu6564]

@@jmvbento Maybe when we get stronger AI that can scan the internet in a matter of second, lmao

[@shrubninja6444]

So for AI art, you can use an image as a sort of "base image", which is what I think happened here. That's how a lot of filters work. Like if you use a picture of yourself as the base, then give it the keywords for stuff like "knight, medieval, armor" etc, it will usually make it so the output resembles the original image. Generally you can control how closely it resembles it. In this case, I think the thief used the original art as a base image, put in a couple basic keywords and character names (maybe resulting in that slightly more accurate headpiece as the AI references other art) and then generated a bunch of images until they got some that aren't easily recognizable as AI. Also, I could definitely see somebody paying for a higher quality AI if they're trying to use it for work that they can pass off as professional. If anybody has any other questions, I can do my best to answer. I'm not an expert by any means, but I like messing around with it recreationally, using it for stuff like D&D character portraits and such. Using it commercially or saying the outputs are your own work is super scummy.

[@deankilminster5430]

Same here I enjoy messing around with AI art and thinking of different inputs combinations for pictures. It’s so fun to see what it comes up with.

[@raeste.claire7093]

AI is perfect for dicking around or coming up with concept ideas, nothing else

[@yoomene]

@@raeste.claire7093 using ai myslef i can tell human artist will actually be allways better but ai is cool for messing around when you cant draw like me ^^

[@shrubninja6444]

@@yoomene I don't know about *always*. I definitely don't want it to replace human expression, but AI is advancing pretty rapidly. Now that more and more big companies are getting in on it, I wouldn't be surprised if AI art was functionally indistinguishable from human art in the near future. I think it's just an unfortunate inevitability.

[@kavvueh]

@@shrubninja6444 I think similarly to music, a trained eye/ear will still be able to pick up on it, but if it's done extremely well then it can take a lot of scrutiny to tell the difference. I agree about the advancements, and we're already at the point where the average person can't distinguish AI art from human-created at first glance... it's pretty mind-boggling to realize how fast this is happening! (Or maybe that's just me being old ^^'')

[@Ashtarte3D]

This is yet another example why AI is so insidious. Not only is it blatant thievery but it takes real skill to analyze and find what was being stolen and "freelancers" can royally fuck up the system for real artists out there. Like CJXander (aka Refract Art) has been one of those freelancers for Riot many times having done the splashes for characters like Kai'sa, Neeko and a few other skin splashes. He does great work. But to think Riot hasn't hired him much anymore and yet AI bros like whoever did this get hired is shameful.

[@ehyzen]

doesnt cjxander only do animated splashes? not to discredit him but he didnt paint the splash arts he animates them

[@madnard8744]

geniuenly do wonder if riot takes even attention to who are they hiring

[@Naruzakun]

spoiler. they dont care as long they dont get caught doing it.

[@QuanHoang-fv8iz]

At least from my personal experience, I don't think they really do. I used to be a member of their localization team and my two senior editors whose jobs were to review and edit my work didn't know shit about any of Riot's games and had zero experience working in the gaming industry.

[@chadowsrikatemo4494]

It was a freelancer they got to finish a job fast and save on human resources, if they spent days chcking every single one they would not have saved time nor resources. That does not excuse this tho, there is probably some changes they need to do to filter these people out

[@toopink4death492]

@@QuanHoang-fv8iz I mean you're basically a translator being over seen by a proof reader, there's absolutely no reason to undermine your co-worker's ability just because they didn't work in the gaming industry before, if they're doing their job properly what's there to be dissatisfied about? It's the same with transcribers, they don't know shit about court cases yet they still are qualified regardless to transcribe what is being said in the court room.

[@madnard8744]

that doesn't surprise me@@QuanHoang-fv8iz

[@ElmoreGlu]

I see Necrit I Click.

[@samtrue3]

Could you say you neclick?

[@rockalonepain3453]

​@@samtrue3holy shit. Im about to say exact same thing.

[@aradmojarad2540]

Correct

[@motivationenjoyer9830]

True

[@osasob007]

For me it's like this - monkey see necrit monkey do -

[@zema9401]

If i would get 1 Penny for every time Riot hired a 3rd party that uses AI for their promotional material then i would have 2 Pennies. Which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice.

[@jonathanvue6502]

So I just want to input something about the ridge on the shoulder piece. In Stable Diffusion, you can mask certain areas you want to edit using the AI. They could have masked the hand and tried to edit it out, but traced everything else like the face and shoulders.

[@DiabolicCrusher]

"Accidentally", more like they're sorry they got caught.

[@Rerags_]

if it was another gaming company, they would have taken it and thought about firing their art department if they haden't already... ¯-¯ the whole ai-art stuff is such a cancer for the world of art and how we consume and appreciate it... i'm not a big art fan myself, but the thought it was done by something that has no intention of telling you something or waking emotions inside of you with it, is fucking depressing

[@TheAHuman]

“Accidentally” hired a thief from a company that has literally never made an original game that isn’t just a VERY close derivative of one or two other games.

[@DG-LG]

Seen so much AI art that yeah, they both have very typical AI hints in them.

[@NoirArt.]

Another indicator is the ear being hidden behind the hair _AND that_ the hand was edited out. 🖖👀 When painting character icons, you will make recognizable features stand out more, so it makes no sense at all to hide that pointy ear

[@VengefulEggroll]

I just wanted to thank you truly for being on the side of the artists and creatives who are being stolen from. I've seen so many of the people i subscribed to happily using this regenerative tech, and it really sucks. I appreciate you and what you make even more, even though i stopped playing the game a while back, i still come back to watch your videos on the topic. ^^ I am a long time watcher, and I am just glad to have you on our side. Cheers!

[@tobywessling1282]

i think its different when it's just a youtuber using ai for their own content, since they simply don't have the budget to pay for artists. But in Riot's case, this is inexcusable

[@VonRibbitt]

@@tobywessling1282 so any taxi driver that doesnt own a car and cant buy one should steal a car, and its totally ok... Ai art is stealing, regardless on how much money you have kid

[@Mediados]

@@tobywessling1282You can use it for shitposts, but never to replace people. It's only acceptable if you wouldn't normally hire someone for a few private artworks that don't need the best quality.

[@Relevart9169]

​@@tobywessling1282don't have money? Learn to draw, simple. Stealing is stealing

[@emylikula9159]

I have a genuine doubt, for example, if I went to an AI like Dall E3 and asked for some art of a character without using any images as a basis, just normal word commands, would it still be considered theft?

[@Spicy007]

How do we have a 12 minute video without mentioning the Riot's ToS

[@igotjinxed2994]

AI i art is usually really really smooth just like when you compare the "WR" and normal you can see its sharper, also is missing the sharp shadows as if it worked only with soft brush.

[@timexyemerald6290]

Expensive ai art websites would patch that in a few months. Digital artist shoot themselves on the foot by supporting ai art. All it did was mediocre artists to steal other far more competent and deserved artists art and reshuffle it and drawn on it to disguise it and then end up taking far more deserved artists job.

[@captainMony]

Necrit has said "MMO" in almost every video since the idea has been mentioned.

[@feniu10]

I played with AI when it was new. I think it's quite possible those arts were tossed in and even without prompts they could've gotten several variants within a few seconds. Then maybe brushed up the results. Or not even. Quite a brazen move, not gonna lie.

[@rodcosta290]

my attention span is complete shit, but you manage to get me hooked to the screen for 12 whole minutes. good stuff

[@brendanbush2174]

"the eyebrows are literally the exact same" "Pixel perfect" my guy, thats like the only thing they changed

[@TheNork7]

Also on the Evelynn skin the purple headpiece's perspective is completely off, it looks like its on the way of falling of her head.

[@LokiToxtrocity]

One thing I noticed they made Coven Evelynn's head piece a separate thing, when her headpiece is part of her face.

[@schokomieze9696]

You forgot the probably most important part about why this is probably AI: An artist who can color THIS GOOD would not need to trace a simple portrait pose... probably easier to draw it yourself than to trace

[@therealzahyra]

No way Riot did this intentionally. They know how important intellectual property it, and if they trial outsiders, using AI like this would fuck up the whole trial system because of a lack of trust.

[@thatonegirl1007]

I am a graphic designer so I do not worry about AI as much as traditional artists since it poses much more of a threat to that side of the art community but I do every much dislike AI and how people claim they are artists using it. I still think it is AI due to the smoothness of the art and slight errors, the only reason I would not think it was traced is because if their art is that high quailty is would be a low chance of them making a mistake like that. There is no way a practiced artist would make such an obivious mistake, minor maybe it happens, but never one that could be noticed like that espcially by other artists.

[@monelmonelmonel]

1:45 Riot lost their last case against Mobile Legends, the California court said if they want to sue them again they should sue them in China.

[@magmachicken4402]

A lot of videos lately, this is awesome

[@Alone-SF]

"Right now, as you're watching this video" People coming to this months later: *press X to doubt*

[@TheRival-_-]

They should’ve found and hired the og artist 😭💀

[@zankonkuna]

I think ai is more bad than Tracing because for me I learned a lot in tracing and now I draw by my own now without using any artwork below it... But I don't usually go like tracing the outline instead I will trace using shapes and boxes just to match the poses

[@mojyoqueen350]

At least they are trying to solve the problem instead of saying "What do you mean? We did nothing wrong!" like Disney did.

[@capitanspoiler7393]

no no Necrit, AI is actually worse than tracing because, with tracing, AT LEAST YOU ARE PICKING UP A GODDAMNED PENCIL

[@piratetsuki5552]

MLBB is actually currently bigger than Wild Rift here in the Philippines, Most Mobile Legends fans are actually calling Wild Rift the "Mobile Legends Ripoff" , and its actually blowing my mind on how weird that whole debate on Who copied Who is.

[@marielcarey4288]

Because im pretty sure they're all copying eachother lmao And ML just has a much better gameplay than WR, even if the characters and lore are absolute trash compared to LOL/WR

[@geoimage]

my guy Necrit can be the voice of Brook from One Piece.

[@raeste.claire7093]

I never imagined Brooke with that voice but yeah lmao it’d be perfect

[@riachan1024]

as a game design student specialized in concept art who wants to work at Riot, this makes me so upset and disappointed. I hope the company does something about it.

[@DIRTkat_ofc]

Can AI art even be called art when it doesn't have effort, emotion, nor the human touch to it?

[@acrylics.7]

I feel like people tend to forget that Riot is basically an international company at this point. There's only so much they can do to keep track of what is fraudulent and what is fake. There's a big difference between balancing the game, which is likely done with at least 20 people, and a marketting area with hundreds or thousands of artists and marketting staff making it easy for a couple of works to make it through as AI generated. TLDR: company big, stuff like this bound to leak through once and a while without notice until release.

[@VeylmanTheRock]

It shouldn't.

[@PicassosCat]

I think this a fault than excuse, I could bring up the fact they *are* a big and successful company, that you'd expect them to atleast have a good quality control.

[@lightsalami5057]

its giving: nobodys gonna know. they gonna know.....how would they know...

[@juliannorton100]

I just realized on the thumbnail.. their putting in a short red line on the lower left side (That looks like the play bar on a partially started video) to make you think you were already watching the video so why not finish... lol

[@troyp9155]

If I look at a twig and draw the twig is that theft? If I look at someone else's drawing of the twig and draw that twig is that theft?

[@raynerarias2064]

Riot has to pay

[@Saru-Dono]

It's very likely you did not see any blobs of pixels, because the image you've downloaded was not the source quality and was compressed, which indirectly hides those artifacts.

[@Noggo]

i hope the original artists icons get put in the game in replacement of the stolen art, and that the OG gets a ton of cash as an apology

[@MrNimbus420]

I think that the TOS says every piece of fan art belongs to riot.

[@voidazru]

tbf mobile legends has more creativity in making new unique Champions than league ever had since 2020

[@cloverring]

Evelyn’s face sparkles on her cheek is NOT something in the original splash art. It’s illogical to accidentally get it in another fan art. I strongly believe it’s AI art.

[@hrhqueenfox605]

3:19 we still don’t have the skins. We’re waiting for them to release sometime either this patch or next.

[@spectralspooky]

I instantly knew that the 2nd one was ai not traced, because if youre skilled enough to make the colour and shading look that good, then you probably would be good enough to not need tracing

[@Kazmatic]

AI supports inpainting, which makes so only specific selections of an image are adjusted.

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

It's really easy to see if something is AI or not especially the bigger the art is, just zoom on it, if there are no imperfections like strokes or color blends and it's just flat surfaces and vector curves then it's 99% AI, the remaining 1% are artist that are mad and go way too fare into details that nobody will ever see

[@gardenvarietyghost4801]

The way Eve's gold neckline strap widens by the edge of her shoulder is also strange, its also a bit that her hand is covering in the original. It doesn't wrap around symmetrically, or match the model.

[@kyleshoto]

A lot of misinformation regarding the riot vs. Moonton because Riot has never won a lawsuit against moonton both times they filed on. The case was dropped in the Americas twice and dropped again back in china. The only time Tencent successfully sued moonton wasn’t even related to copyright infringement.

[@aquadactyl136]

So? It was Mobile legends that changed the splash art of their own characters while the case was going on. The court ignored this. Moreover, do you really think that the courts are experienced and competent enough in these game cases

[@kyleshoto]

@@aquadactyl136 There are special courts for these type of situations. They obviously went to a game court for this dispute. I do hope you realize Riot was trying to sue Moonton over the color purple and an umbrella 💀. The second lawsuit was dropped even quicker than the first one 7 years ago. They only changed very minuscule things regarding the splash arts the color scheme and other effects stayed the same.

[@JinKolmak_TaKo]

​​@@kyleshotodon't forget the green tank filled chemical stuff, random Facebook comments with some players trolling about mlbb to copy some league stuff and their response we're mainly by a bot copypasting the same comment of appreciating their suggestions and copyright claim over a song that was apparently them but it's literally a mlbb song. The lawsuit itself was bullshlt if there was non sense stuff and error like this wich proved it was a desperate move to slow down moonton because wr went in bad direction

[@JinKolmak_TaKo]

​@@kyleshotothe only thing they got right was the animation of Paq and Summer skin trailer the rest was a desperate move although they literally had plenty of source to make that lawsuit sense.

[@kyleshoto]

@@JinKolmak_TaKo This is why i think the lawsuit was 100% just a performative stunt because they knew Moonton is about to have rights to release MLBB back into the china market. But it’s hilarious how bad it backfired and even tencent is legally required to release a public apology for sabotaging a MLBB tournament a couple years ago. And it’s really just hypocrisy because if LoL can get away with saying its not a copy of Dota because former devs worked on it then MLBB should also have the same privileges because the moonton CEO is also and ex tencent manager.

[@NeedHealer]

"Highiest budget year for League of Legends", and it must be this year, of all years, that art theft happends *sigh*

[@synchronicityprod]

The Zyra one is easily Ai because if her look at her right eye, it’s all bugged out and weird.

[@omegalettexyphonophore3111]

Obviously its the work of Vel'koz trying to imitate human art

[@timexyemerald6290]

Society and copium artists: ai will not ruin artists. It will actually make your job easier. Current artist affair~😅

[@DrakZhull]

imagine having the opportunity to have your work pushed to such a huge audience and using AI for it...

[@damaranthwastaken]

Zyra in the stolen AI art has an ear, which is unsettleing to say the least

[@bull9728]

there is no active lawsuit between Riot Games and Moonton. Riot Games lawsuit was dismissed by a california judge twice. ripping off defend of the ancient asset is fair in the law lmao

[@jinentwistle4964]

This is far from the first time riot’s done this, and there was a huge scandal a few years back as well. Sucks they didn’t learn

[@-w-Trix]

👋 Lifetime artist here -- The second one is 10000% ai and not traced. - AI doesn't always make a variation in face angle, its actually more rare for that. - If it was traced and painted, there would be literally no reason to do so --- as the skill of the painting itself is top tier. If you can create perfect shading, then you can create a basic face sketch. - Tracing also is mostly done with works that originally have lineart, or the traced art in the end will have lineart. This is because you cant trace shading, so tracers tend to stay away from any shading because they don't have the skill to do so without it looking awful. - You also can see a lot of hits for the saturation trick around the hairline.

[@XexustheSilver]

Soemthing I'd like to point out in case no one has yet, is that increasing saturation is not indicative of an AI generated image. Generally the reason you get that weird blobby color look is due to the image file type. For example, a JPEG image uses "lossy" compression. This means that when you compress the image, it loses much of its data when it's compressed. This makes it a more compact file type. Alternatively a PNG image has lossless compression, where it doesn't lose any data in compression. This is why if you were to try and enlarge a JPEG vs a PNG, you'll find that the JPEG pixelates when you change its size, while the PNG does not. The same would occur with saturation. If you increase the saturation of a JPEG you'll get what you saw in that image, whereas if you increase the saturation of a PNG, you won't. It's of course also dependent on the image's contents itself, but that's a whole other can of worms.

[@cracheadkai]

the only reason was MLBB still has a platform is because Wild Rift wasn't a game back then, and in asia they wanted a 5v5 mobile game.

[@Kristyybug]

Riot told people that the art interviews had in person tests soooo how did this even work…

[@randomname8616]

Another way to pretty easily tell something is AI art is that often it will have this weird vague/smooth look to it

[@zebnemma]

I saw someone who claims to be a profesional artist defend AI once, saying it could make alot of their work for them. Okay buuttttt what he's basically saying is that his boss should just fire them and replace them at that point. A worker who wishes to be lazy for no reason is gonna find themselves replaced eventually. Don't be a lazy hack or don't be surprised if you lose your job.

[@TheUbberman]

Holy molly, but... who has time in their day to actually find, spot and check such things. I imagine maybe the artist themselves, but that doesn't always seem to the case at all. A Win for the genuine and talented artists.

[@MSusername69]

You would be surprised at how many people do this. I know some people whos whole personality is just hating AI art and thats all they do, comment and whine about people posting AI art.

[@nechocat1234]

after looking at it mor closely the original zyra one may be also ai or tweaked by an ai, the earings don't match and it's not just a different angle one of them has 10 faces and the other has 8 faces, that shouldn't happen if drawn by a person

[@DizzEwok]

So is no one gonna point out the AI Evenlynn icon image has a window in the background as if she's indoors?... The OG art had tree branches, the AI saw the branches and thought "yup dats a window mhm" lmao.

[@SpectralSound.]

I've heard something about this,but the question is....does someone cares about it? 🤔

[@kirameki7331]

You know you are the real thief? Moonton

[@TheDapperDragon]

'These eybrows are pixel perfect the same thing!' -Shows Eybrows that look nothing alike-

[@marupan_desu]

I can't believe i actually saw that line Necrit mentioned at the end and was like "Huh...that looks weird." AND I WAS RIGHT i feel so powerful now i'm gonna pick up my pen and actually draw for once....... ok maybe later.

[@mrl2126]

Evelynns AI art headpiece is what sold it to me

[@robertrubas2634]

Yeah it's extremely unlikely these kind of things are traced, if you are skilled enough to achieve that level of coloring, it is unlikely you are so bad at drawing that you need to trace something else. Most times the scam it's in both of the 2 elements, or in none.

[@willow_thea]

i love your videos necrit, and for the most part this is another banger. but beware of saying "who would do that" when it comes to paying more for higher quality AI programs - clearly it got someone hired at riot, there is incentive. good catch on the last bit, these are the things we need to be looking out for. thanks for pointing it out the rest of this comment is mostly to share info to other commenters. please read. as an artist, ive had a front row seat to AI becoming significantly more rampant over time and pretty much any popular artist you find has had work stolen and unethically replicated without their consent. too many people view AI as a way to get cheap art, or worse, use it to lie about having a skill that takes years of effort to develop to these levels. in both cases, it robs real human artists of their livelihoods - either by directly bypassing the need to hire them through theft, or by taking the jobs that these artists dream about (like the subject of this video). they've also flooded the market, so its much harder to sift through the muck they've made and find the original artists. it was only a matter of time before they got hired by big companies like riot, intentionally or otherwise. and while tracing is also an ethical issue similar to AI, id argue that AI is significantly more likely to happen - rather than spending the time to individually trace work, its much easier and faster to just plug an original into AI and get 400 end product variations to choose from. anyways, hire artists !!! ok bye

[@LunaDarklore]

It could be someone tracing, I've seen people claiming to be graphic designers with the GFX tags. Their work was traced to that degree and they didn't understand the basic art concepts. It showed through their work. Now with AI being a tool they can abuse, woof. I don't even want to jump down that rabbit hole.

[@poundsofslothcigars]

crazy how im watching all this league drama stuff but havent played in a solid year

[@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli]

The best result from this would be Riot buying the rights to use the fan artist's cropped art as icons, and them charging back the freelancer and sending it to collections if need be. Easy.

[@thejpshow15]

I use AI a lot for my own personal DND games but i could never imagine actually trying to sell it as my own work to a company like….you will be caught and end up having gotten nothing from it….what’s the point? Whoever is behind the hiring process or the out sourcing should be trained better at noticing AI art vs real art especially for such a big company….I’m just glad the actual artist got their due and hopefully money in the end

[@Mediados]

It's funny how many of the recent thumbnails had this "Concerned Czech" face.

[@Relevart9169]

First the "Coven" skins have nothing Coven about them, then they make the only good Coven skin a LoR exclusive and THEN they put ai icons for Coven Eve and Zyra in wild rift

[@Dixvtvods]

The reason the hand was removed in that AI piece is because AI's can't do hands. The AI would have messed up the hand so bad that it would have been 100% noticeable that it was AI.

[@thelord7478]

Necritism: making a long video, based on a short story. Might need to think more about the name...

[@ShinyFood]

the expressions of the original are so much better too

[@chillNinjaLowSkill]

at the beginning we were all saying that ai art will never take over human art and that its goofy and bad looking anyways...well just one year later this is happening on a scale of billion $ company being fooled by ai art, this is honestly scary

[@IIIIIIIIIIIIIWOWIIIIIIIIIIIIII]

So they don't do background check, man i now feel like my account may be at risk.

[@shadowcrushers]

mobile legends: bang bang is like twice the age of wild rift

[@CuriousLumenwood]

Companies like Riot that hire freelancers REALLY need to start crediting the artist. For one it's just basic fucking decency. For another, it blast the plagiarizers and thieves so they never get more work from then on. Imagine if Riot actually credited the artists so we KNEW who the person behind these icons was.