The Creator of “This Is Fine” Says an AI Startup Stole His Art to Sell Its Product

The most well-known burning-room dog on the internet just became the poster child of a copyright case no one wanted. The cartoonist that created the meme This Is Fine in 2013, KC Green, publicly accused AI startup Artisan of using his drawing without permission in a subway advertising campaign. 

One of the posts of the Bluesky company appears to be an ad in one of the subways featuring the art of Green, overlying a message to prospective passerby’s to Hire Ava the AI BDR! Green response was direct and to the point. He said that he was having more and more people telling him about the ad, that it wasn’t something he consented to. He said that his ad was stolen like AI is stolen and told his followers to vandalize it if they see it around. The irony and timing on this one is just too crazy. Artisan made headlines not long ago with a controversial billboard campaign focused on instructing businesses to “stop hiring humans” so their AI agents could take jobs.

This time around, the same company is being accused of basing their own marketing efforts on robbing a human artist. When TechCrunch contacted Artisan about the ad, the company responded saying: “We have a lot of respect to KC Green and his work, and we’re reaching out to him directly. In a follow up email, the company claimed to have set some time to talk to him. Such a reaction fell far short of an apology or a recognition of a wrong. This is by no means the first occasion Artisan has walked the fine line of controversy. 

The founder and CEO of the company Jaspar Carmichael-Jack earlier defended the stop hiring humans billboard campaign by insisting that the message was about a type of work, rather than humans in general.The defense could not convince many people back then and it is questionable that the art theft can be brought down any further. The “This Is Fine” comic was first published in the webcomic “Gunshow” by Green in 2013 and has since become one of the most long-lasting memes of the past decade. Green has over the years developed a business enterprise around it, licensing his work to be utilized by legitimate commercial enterprises, selling merchandise and prints. 

The illegitimate use is not simply a violation of the copyright law. It steers its slice into the incomes of a productive artist. The claim is hit right on its mark since AI firms have been subject to increasing legal scrutiny in relation to their training data practices. Artists, writers and other creators have brought forward a train of law suits and claims that AI models were trained using copyrighted materials without their consent or knowledge. OpenAI, Stability AI and Midjourney are all represented in court defending their billion-dollar business on the shoulders of stolen creative work. 

Green wrote TechCrunch that he will retaliate. He said he will be “looking into getting a lawyer in that I feel like I need to, but added that it “sucks the air out of my sails” that I have to spend time dealing with the American court system instead of putting that back into what I am passionate about, which is drawing comics and stories. 

His last comment on Artisan was to the point: “These no-thought A.I. losers are not untouchable, and memes simply do not come out of thin air. There is one thing that he is correct about. The This Is Fine dog has been more than ten years old and has served to represent the very human response of smiling and not doing anything when everything starts to burn all around you. That an AI startup purportedly stole it, without leaving any message, to promote a product that is claimed to replace human workers.

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