Senay Boztas, The Guardian; Dutch far-right party pays damages to court artist after changing image with AI
"A Dutch court artist has received damages after an MP for the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) used one of her drawings without permission and manipulated it with AI to make the subjects look more menacing.
Petra Urban, a court artist for 19 years, was shocked to discover a drawing she had made last year of two Syrian brothers jailed for the murder of their sister had been reworked and used in a video on Instagram and Facebook by the party’s Noord-Brabant region...
Under Dutch law, creators are not only protected by copyright but also have moral rights to object to any distortion of their work that could harm their reputation. There was widespread shock in May after Urban shared the images with fellow court reporters, and the case had widespread press coverage.
Urban said that after her union issued a legal demand for licensing rights and damages, the PVV MP Maikel Boon called her to apologise and has now paid the damages – which have not been made public.
Since the MP had previously been accused of using AI to manipulate images for campaign purposes, she felt “no mercy” in demanding compensation. “I hope it’s clear that this is a worrying development and that we need to stay alert,” she said. “You need to be able to assume that journalistic work is written, drawn, photographed or filmed as neutrally as possible. If this is manipulated, then the flood gates are open. There’s no knowing where it will end.”...
The MP has publicly accepted responsibility and told De Telegraaf he had thought an altered image would no longer be subject to copyright but that it had been a “very stupid act”."
