A tribute cartoon of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry's Dr Frank-N-Furter heading to heaven went viral this month with a signature reading "BLOPER" in the corner. That is the mark of New Yorker cartoonist Brendan Loper, who never drew it. A Parton fan had made the image in ChatGPT and posted it, and the model had added the signature on its own, without being asked.
“I'm not a territorial person, but my name is my name. It felt very much like a violation of my personhood.”
Brendan Loper, New Yorker cartoonist, to Nieman Lab · futurism.com ↗
Nieman Lab looked into the image and found the same thing happening with other New Yorker cartoonists. Futurism lists Harry Bliss, Emily Flake, Joe Dator, Pat Byrnes, Peter Vey and Jason Adam Katzenstein among the names that have turned up on generated images.
Loper says it is not the first time he has seen his name misused this way. He was warned in May about another ChatGPT image that carried his name. He had expected his work to end up in training data, he says, but a faked signature is a different matter: to him it works as a certificate of authenticity and a brand.
Futurism ties the case to Getty's suit against Stability AI, where a judge found trademark infringement because the model reproduced Getty-style watermarks. The outlet does not report any legal action by the cartoonists.
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