Artists have always gotten the short end of the stick. Maybe it's a perpetuation of the starving artist cliché, too many poster contests, or the "it will be goo

Artists have always gotten the short end of the stick. Maybe it's a perpetuation of the starving artist cliché, too many poster contests, or the "it will be good for your portfolio" trope, but AI has taken it to the extreme. We're at a point now where the value of most artistic, creative work - the work that arguably most defines us as humans - is now being syphoned up and rehashed on behalf of entitled tech billionaires. And even if artists had some kind of legal defense, they could never afford it. They can't even afford to strike. The AI revolution came too quickly for artists to guard themselves against it - to prevent their work from being stolen... yes, stolen. When the music industry took off, sparked by advances in radio and recording technologies, the pioneers of Blues, Jazz, and Rock and Roll were taken advantage of. They weren't compensated with royalties or profit sharing while studios sold millions of their records - still in print to this day. We know better now, yet artists are still being taken advantage of. Now, an entirely new market has been created from their work, with zero of the proceeds going back to artists. Some good advice for young artists, "Always keep your publishing rights" https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/steve-vai-frank-zappas-advice-saved-me-literally-millions-dollars https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/steve-vai-frank-zappas-a...