Update from steam:
As I understand it, you need to now disclose use of AI and have all the appropriate rights to content in your game. Plus gamers will have now options to easily report games with infringing content.
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This is good news. However, Steam’s policies are still somewhat unclear on what constitutes AI-generated content.
Is bot pathing that samples data from a neural net AI? What about dialogue lines lifted from ChatGPT?
I would guess that Steam is mostly concerned about liability that might arise from platforming A.I. generative content.
Unfortunately, there is still no way to easily filter out the deluge of generated PNG assets. I don’t understand why it makes sense to flood the Epic marketplace with these zero-effort packages. Some authors are even getting clever and generating thumbnails that closely mirror the look of an environment asset pack screenshot.
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This is good…for steam. I think all it does is protects steams from potential liabilities. Though I do hope that steam will be better at providing filters than ue marketplace in this regards.
I absolutely hate all the AI-flood on the marketplace nowadays.
Like, if I needed that, I could just hop over to linux and run stable diffusion.
And to make things even worse, we arent allowed to use AI-Assets we “dont have all the rights for” on steam - so, nowadays, every single texture on the marketplace that was recently released might be AI-generated (I saw some basic wood-textures and stuff that are AI-generated…)
All this AI-flood did is: made me ignore the marketplace entirely, it simply has become a liability because now I dont only have to check if some assets were stolen (yes, happened) but also if it is AI generated.
And dont get me wrong, I am not against AI, after all I have SD here myself - its just… way too early to put it on the Marketplace without clearly labeling it so that we can sort it out.
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Agreed.
This is whole problem with current state of Ai generated content (this and sausage fingers). If Ai was trained on Leonardo paintings, it was tool on 3rd party website (that i bought tokens from), and my prompt was: “make mona lisa paining, but she stands on Hawaii beach” would i have full copyright to such “art”? What if for any AI my prompt generated image that is very similar to some copyrighted content (that authors of that AI trained it with).
ps.
my recent hobby with AI is digging out ancient “high res” wallpapers (1024x768) and up-scaling them to 16x9 4k. Some of those old pics are great again. Like old starcraft Kerrigan face wallpaper, but rendered as photorealiistic one.
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At the moment it seems you have no right to the image generated by AI, as it was… generated by AI (i.e., human is needed to copyright laws even take effect). You might have rights to the prompt, depending if it fits sufficient creativity definition of your local copyright law. Not a lawyer though, so ask your lawyer if in doubt 
… as for valve, they now allow most stuff with AI on steam after you disclose and promise you didn’t infringe: Valve opens the door to more Steam games developed with AI - The Verge
So even if i bought AI time/tokens from AI creator (so bought service of creating content) I do not have copyrights to it, so neither owner of that AI has. Law is weird.
I am interested, because i need few backgrounds for menus etc, and AI does great work for generic background (just watch for fingers and extra legs).
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In many states, (including here in Canada) you don’t own the copyright of any artwork commission unless the artists specifically sign over their rights to the work.
It’s also important to understand that an agreement isn’t the same thing as a law.
A company can write anything it wants into a usage agreement, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it grants you a right recognized by law.
Look at it like this, that agreement/TOS isn’t there to grant you rights. It exists to protect the company. Most larger companies will spend big bucks on lawyers to protect themselves but don’t necessarily care about protecting you from liability.
This is where you, ideally, hire a lawyer to instruct you on what you can and can’t do.
I would steer clear from using AI outside some very specific use cases. I find AI useful for some minor texture upscaling, or for speeding up brushwork in Photoshop. Image/video generation is a huge can of worms right now and shouldn’t be used for professional production. There is value in having an artist create custom work, and I think that value will only increase as we are flooded by generic-looking AI content.
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I just need some generic backgrounds for menus, in sci-fi theme. I think i render rough spaceships interiors (maybe even build some levels in unreal) then just upscale them with Ai.
However according to what you wrote, even buying assets (not AI) on Epics marketplace does not cover my ■■■ from liability.
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This is unfortunately true. I think most of it is safe (e.g., my stuff is 100% safe 
), but there were instances where stuff ripped off from games were sold (or given away in free for the month). And if you use those things in your game - you are liable for it if someone sues you. As @Uncle_Fred said it’s even more complicated with AI systems, where you don’t even know what data was used to train it outright (e.g., Adobe Firefly or Midjourney) or you know it’s been trained on all the data, including data that trainers didn’t have license for (Stable Diffusion). And aside from (AFAIK) Japan, the ‘fair use’ excuse of trainers is being disputed in courts at the moment or even said it’s outright infringement (UK, https://twitter.com/ednewtonrex/status/1753231242127081595 ).
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Anything in your game is a chance to tell a story. If the story is A.I. “generic sci-fi background,” then I’d argue that’s a poor use of your product’s canvas. Consider changing your approach. Generic items add up to a generic game over time. Craft something interesting and it will help you stand out from a million other bland throwaway works.
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Can we at least put AI generated stuff into its own category on the marketplace?
90% of what gets dumped onto it is low-effort AI stuff, and I pretty much completely stopped caring for the marketplace because of it just being a landfill now.
Having stolen assets on the marketplace already was bad enough, made me cautious… but now, blah, unusable.
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I honestly don't understand why Publishers are spamming the marketplace with AI generated content when it can not be copyrighted.
US Copyright Office Youtube Playlist
Copyright and Artificial Intelligence | U.S. Copyright Office
No, AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted under US law if it was created without any human input. In August 2023, US District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C. ruled in favor of the US Copyright Office’s position that AI-created art is ineligible for copyright registration because the AI itself is the only creator and cannot hold copyright. Howell’s decision came in response to an application filed by computer scientist Stephen Thaler for copyright protection of an image created by his DABUS system. Thaler’s attorney, Ryan Abbott, said they strongly disagree with the decision and will appeal.
The office will allow an image to be copyrighted if it can be proved it was “the result of mechanical reproduction,” such as a text prompt. It would also be eligible if they reflect the creator’s “own mental conception.”
Thus, AI Spam is not protected from free duplication and distribution. So you could literally copy these spammed AI images directly from the Marketplace Pages and use them. Secondly, anyone can use Generative AI System to generate their own Images from the spammed AI Images! I think I’m starting to see AI generated music now. Same rules apply.
I loathe Publishers who participate in this disrespectful behavior. This AI Spam is akin to a DDOS Attack in my opinion. Perhaps its even deliberate to destroy the integrity of the UnrealeEngine Marketplace and its ethical Publishers. I silently boycott ALL products of AI Spammers, especially their non AI-generated products which probably have a higher profitability price point.
But, I think its time for Epic to step in and take action to protect the integrity of the UnrealEngine Marketplace, its ethical Publishers. I hope things are different with FAB.
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The Marketplace has become unusable to me (just looking at it again reminded me of this topic), especially when it comes to finding new things I might want to buy.
It usually goes like this:
opens Marketplace
sees a page filled with AI Music and icons
page 2 also is filled with AI-images and backgrounds no one would ever buy or need, given how easy it is to make them with SD (even I, using an AMD graphics card, can produce tens of thousands of those per day, or hour, depending on size… so what?)
starts to become annoyed
page 3 also is like this
closes marketplace
And it will get even worse, soon we will be spammed with AI-Meshes too… its only a matter of time.
And especially with the music… isnt this like walking between DMCA-Landmines when this was trained on popular songs etc? (Imagine you use this in your games, and then your players get strikes for uploading gameplay… sounds fun, eh?.. and you have nothing, aside from the fact that anyone can just take the soundtrack because its AI and cant be copyrighted to begin with, afaik… which makes me question the whole idea of selling that stuff to begin with, especially since many Stable Diffusion models dont even allow it with their license.)
Maybe this is what Epic wants: us not spending money in the marketplace anymore, idk - fine with me, I guess.
EDIT: While I am at it…
What is with the 5000 Assets that look like straight out of Genshin Impact with slightly changed model and AI retexturing?
All posted under different accounts
They are sometimes SO close, that I immediately recognize the very exact tree, and where to find it in the Game… for some, the leaf textures are 95% identical, but ever so slightly different that I cant 100% match it -.-
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As far as I'm concerned, AI Generated Content is Free to use as its not protected by Copyright Law.
But I honestly don’t need any 2D or pre generated music. If I do, I can use AI to generate it myself. My design philosophy is to use only 3D and procedural/adaptive/modular/ music in my interactive experiences.
I concur and fear 3D Meshes are the next media to be targeted by AI spammers.
My design philosophy for meshes may offer some protection, I only acquire modular mesh kits/kitbash that support design-time and run-time construction / customization / destruction.
I also only purchase from specific publishers like Stocklancer that have discord communities and show their works in progress.
If I need generic meshes, I’ll look for free meshes in various marketplaces, modify existing mesh, or use AI to generate it myself.
The Marketplace just needs advanced user filtering options.
I have to admit Unity Asset Store has very good User filtering. I’ve used Online Apps with very advanced filtering allowing users to create/save/load/delete/rename their own filters with conditional logic for categories, description keywords, tags, price, publishers, price, dates, and more. I don’t know if the current unrealengine marketplace will get new filtering features. My hopes for Fab is very high.
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wow, I just looked at music category on UEM… 2nd category is now dead due to gen ai 
Well, it feels more like UMS (Unreal Music Store) sometimes:
A single seller shouldn’t be able to occupy more than 60% of the Browse/New Releases section, and especially if the product is something completely irrelevant to Unreal Engine and something that can be easily generated without needing any actual talent or skill. (In general. I’m not referring to the music packs in the image above specifically, which may not be AI generated.)
The Unreal Engine Marketplace should be sanitized and moderated as soon as possible; by sanitized I mean the removal of all AI generated content, and by moderated I mean actually organizing product releases, actually noticing and taking action against malicious behaviours, like sellers manipulating prices, sellers writing fake reviews to themselves literally the same moment their product was released. Sellers releasing their products for $5, letting their friends buy it, change price to intended price, then let friends write 5 star reviews. It is so easy to detect such patterns. At least 4 sellers do this so regularly it is very strange that nothing has been done about it so far. But well, I have not heard of a single incident where a malicious seller was banned, even those who sold other people’s work on the marketplace.
Why should AI content be removed? because it doesn’t add any extra value to the Unreal Engine Marketplace, it doesn’t have any actual value to any serious developer, it can be generated by anyone, it makes browsing the Unreal Engine marketplace a horrible experience, it invites scammers, it screams low-quality, it screams low-standards, it excludes and pushes away real artists, who happen to be human who must you know, eat and drink and pay their bills.
If this continued, if no clear action was taken, I don’t think the release of Fab will fix it.
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This seller doesn’t mark them as ai generated (which he is technically required) and had some releases before gen ai ‘revolution’. So maybe, it’s not generated. But I looked at a few of this recent packs and they all have ai generated thumbnails and ai generated description (chatgpt has so very recognizable and dry style). In cases like that I assume that everything is ai generated.
This has been going on for 2 years now. First for 2D category, now to Music. I seriously doubt it will change or will be improved with Fab release. I only have sliver of hope that Fab will allow to filter out low-effort ai generated stuff.
For me what is one of key point against that stuff is the legal status of ai generated things (the other is ethics of training). It was always a risk that a seller you bought from was a scammer and was selling ripped off asset from some game (there were cases of this in the past). But with ai generated content it is much, much worse. The content is not copyrightable by default (so as a dev my IP would be weakened by usage of it). And what’s worse there are multiple court cases ongoing against ALL of the major generative ai companies focused on copyright infringement by them. Ie. this stuff is simply very unsafe to use in a game (or anything else).
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Let’s assume Midjourney (or any other AI company) hired thousands of artists to create the ultimate dataset of 2D art which they now own legally, thus removing the possibility of any legal complications in the future… still I will be extremely against allowing generated content to be sold as commercial products.
Using AI generated content for game development makes absolutely no sense and defies the purpose of creating a video game, or being a video game developer or an artist. Creating video games is an art form, the journey of thinking, prototyping, iterating, creating placeholder assets, creating production assets, selecting specific music for a specific scene, designing unique 2D art that fits the game’s theme and style, improving and learning …etc this by itself is a very unique experience that naturally produces unique results, and helps produce even better results in future projects. One can streamline or speed-up aspects of this journey, but to think that one can just replace the process of making music for their game with a $5 AI generated music pack, or to replace the creation of 2D art with $5 AI generated 2D packs, this I can never understand, but what completely blows my mind is that Epic is welcoming this and allowing AI assets to flood the marketplace when this shouldn’t have been a problem to begin with. After all, this is a marketplace for Unreal Engine assets, my brain suffers from a memory leak whenever I think that currently, 2D and music “products” are ruining it.
What is the message Epic is sending here, I’m wondering? How can asset flipping be bad, but this be ok? Wouldn’t allowing thousands and thousands of AI generated assets automatically create results similar to asset flipping? isn’t the problem with asset flipping that the end result is not unique? Who are the target audience of such products, Epic? and what are they expected to do with them?
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As a music composer, I often get questioned whether my music is AI-generated. I want to clarify that I produce all my music entirely from scratch, without using any third-party samples or external influences. Every piece I compose originates from my own creativity, without following any other artist’s work for inspiration. I simply place my hands on my MIDI keyboard and let my mind guide the composition.
From the buyer’s perspective, those interested in purchasing original music from an artist or composer often question the authenticity of my work. To address their concerns, I offer video recordings as proof of how I composed the music for any package they choose to buy. Some buyers even request live video sessions or Zoom calls to verify the authenticity in real-time. I always accommodate these requests to ensure transparency and trust.
Additionally, I have tutorial videos on YouTube that demonstrate my music composition process. In the past, when AI-generated content was less prevalent in platforms like Unreal Engine, I didn’t have to take these extra steps to prove the originality of my work.
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