Artist App Cara Scraped: Hacker Now Aids Defense

The artist-sharing platform Cara, established in early 2023, has become a sanctuary for approximately 1.5 million artists seeking refuge from unauthorized AI training. Despite implementing protective measures like the Glaze tool, Cara experienced three major data scrapes beginning August 13. These incidents significantly increased server costs and caused alarm among its user base.

The first scrape involved 12 terabytes of 12 million images, posted on Reddit by a user named MandarinDawnPoppy994. Following this, another scraper extracted 8.5 million links and metadata, uploading them to Hugging Face. A third incident on August 22 yielded 123,000 images, text posts, and user bios, shared on Academic Torrents.

In a surprising development, the individual behind the initial scrape, identified as 'Heft,' expressed remorse for his actions. He is now collaborating with Cara's founder, Jingna Zhang, on a new open-source tool named Lantern. This tool will enable artists to create a unique digital fingerprint for their images, allowing them to detect and request the removal of their work from AI datasets.

Zhang has launched a GoFundMe to raise $120,000 for legal defense against these scraping incidents. While acknowledging that no platform can be entirely un-scrapable, Zhang hopes the situation will prompt policymakers to address the regulatory vacuum surrounding AI data harvesting and artist protection.