At BackerKit, our team is passionate about people’s passions. For ten years, we’ve supported creators in their journey to launch projects and build thriving creative practices and businesses. We’ve developed deep relationships and respect for the people who breathe life into crowdfunding projects, and we are committed to defending their well-being on our platform.
That’s why we are announcing a new policy that aims to address growing concerns regarding ownership of content, ethical sourcing of data, and compensation for the process of creating content.
Creators invest significant time, effort, and resources into their projects. BackerKit’s Trust & Safety team aims to safeguard these endeavors, creating a respectful space for projects and interactions between creators and their backers.
As part of this consideration, BackerKit has committed to a policy that restricts the use of AI-generated content in projects on our crowdfunding platform.
This policy goes into effect on October 4, 2023.
AI-assisted writing, image generation, and video technology are advancing rapidly, as are the discussions surrounding their creative applications. It’s important for us to recognize both the immediate and long-term adverse effects they may pose to the creators and creative communities we serve.
At BackerKit, we’re driven to ensure creators are fairly rewarded for their hard work and creativity. Due to concerns about AI tools using content without proper compensation or permission, we’ll continue to limit their use on our platform until there is a system that can guarantee fairness in sourcing, permission, and compensation.
Example of restricted AI-generated content for an art asset
Image courtesy Simplified
This policy emphasizes that projects on BackerKit cannot include content solely generated by AI tools. All content and assets must first be created by humans.
This doesn’t impact content refined with AI-assisted tools like “generative content fill” or “object replacement” (image editing software functions that help blend or replace selected portions of an image), other standard image adjustment tools (saturation, color, resolution,) or AI language tools that refine human-created text with modifications to spelling, grammar, and syntax.
Software assisted by AI, such as transcribers or video tracking technology are permitted under these guidelines. However, software with the purpose to generate content using AI would not be permitted.
Example of permitted AI tool assistance for an image asset
Image courtesy fxguide
Content on BackerKit that’s solely AI-generated or lacks a minimum requirement of human input may lead to the project being temporarily or permanently denied during the review process. During a review, our Trust & Safety team may contact you to help provide verification that your content is within these guidelines. Violations of this policy after a project has launched could result in content removal, project suspension, or the project being removed.
BackerKit is dedicated to supporting creators, their collaborators, and their communities.
We are committed to building a helpful list of directories and databases to help you find content creators to support your projects. As a starting point, here are some resources sourced from our community: Directory of Illustration, Cartoonists of Color database, Queer Cartoonists database, Disabled Cartoonists database, Women Who Draw.
As part of this policy, BackerKit will also automatically exclude all content uploaded by our creators for their projects from AI training.
By default, BackerKit will hide content from AI data scrapers.
As AI-generation tools evolve, so will the discussion surrounding them and their permissible use. BackerKit puts its creators first, and we will continue to gather feedback and refine our policy and processes in order to help foster a supportive community of creators, artists, and backers.
If you have any questions or feedback about our new AI policy, please contact our Trust and Safety team at [email protected]. If you are unsure if the content for your project meets these guidelines, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our team at [email protected] so that we may assist further.