A Simple Solution to Your Picture-Copyright Problem on Medium
It‘s Been Working for Me
I caved. I admit it. I changed my mind about using AI (Artificial Intelligence) for my stories. No. No. No. I don’t mean that I will use it to write my stories. You can read about my issues with the ethics of being paid for material you did not write in my article - AI-Generated Writing — Should it be Paid the Same as Human-Generated Writing?
However, I have learned that I can use AI in a different way that won’t compromise my integrity as a writer. I’m sharing it with you because I believe it is useful and helpful for everyone — it’s a solution to an up-to-now unsolvable problem for ordinary, technologically limited Medium writers like me.
It’s the damn pictures. The bane of my writing existence on Medium. Second only to producing a spectacular, unique, attention-grabbing headline is finding a dazzling, eye-catching, exclusive picture that will entice the reader to click on my story.
Oh, darn, did I forget to mention that this picture has to be free of those pesky copyright restrictions? Anyone who uses pictures to accompany their text is legally prohibited from using pictures that another person, company, newspaper, or magazine owns. Unless you can prove that you have paid an exorbitant royalty fee to use it.
That restricts us writers to free picture-sharing sites such as Unsplash and Pexels or pictures we have taken ourselves.
The problem is that in my experience, free picture sites have, for the most part, boring, uninspiring pictures that don’t match my headline.
If I do find pictures on those sites that are eye-popping, high quality, and are a good fit for my headline, they are so overused that readers often skip over them, thinking they have already read the article.
For a while, I had some luck with Pinterest. What is Pinterest if not a site that allows and encourages sharing of pictures freely? Their entire business model is based upon “exchanging Pins”, which is a fancy way of saying sharing everyone’s pictures.
Recently, Medium Publications’ editors, for their own protection for which I am not faulting them, started rejecting many of my Pinterest photos. To their credit, these editors are sharp — the good ones know who owns the rejected photos and cite them in their rejections.
The pictures I have taken with my camera are always accepted, but let’s face it, I’m no Annie Leibowitz. I have hit a few home runs with my pictures, but generally, a good photo taken by me is one where everyone’s head is visible and not cut off in the middle of their face.
High-quality pictures of celebrities sell articles. Mention a current, hot, trending celebrity in your article title accompanied by a killer picture of them and you are guaranteed clicks.
Except that most celebrity pictures are protected by airtight copyright ownership. Medium editors will immediately reject any picture, celebrity or not if they think there is a hint of copyright infringement.
Strict copyright law was evidenced by an experiment I conducted for this article:
Harry Styles is hot stuff at the time of this writing. He won the top prize at the 2023 Grammys — Album of the Year.
I wrote Harry Styles’ name in the search section of Unsplash and I got — a picture of a bookcase, another of an owl, and one of someone in a field.
Then there’s Beyonce. She is one of the most famous women on the planet. I typed her name into Unsplash and got a lovely picture of an Indian woman in a traditional dress, a picture of a cup of coffee, and a picture of a bouquet of flowers.
I gave it one more try and typed Patrick Mahomes’ name (the quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs 2023 Superbowl LVII winners) into Pexels and got — multiple pictures of Irish guys dressed in green t-shirts and hats, drinking green beer in pubs on St. Patrick’s Day. According to my research, Patrick Mahomes has an African-American father and a Caucasian mother. No mention of any Irish background that I could find.
Being the sharp cookie that I am, I figured that pictures of ultra-famous people like Harry Styles, Patrick Mahomes, and Beyonce are locked up in copyright protection tighter than security at Fort Knox.
Besides killer headlines, spectacular pictures are the lifeblood of a Medium article. A picture can determine whether or not a reader clicks and you pay your bills for the month. They are that important.
So what is a frustrated writer who can’t find a picture worth clicking to do?
The solution came in the form of a technology I had railed against in the article I referenced at the beginning of this story— Artificial Intelligence.
My article discussed my opposition to what I consider the unethical use of AI to produce “A” graded writing projects for students who did not write them, and content creators getting paid for what they didn’t write.
But creating pictures with AI? It definitely seemed like an idea worth pursuing. As of this writing — February 2023 — Medium allows the use of AI-generated pictures if you clearly cite that AI was used to create them.
Kristina God’s article from December 2022 discusses that Medium’s CEO, Tony Subblebine, is considering adding DeepAI, an AI picture generator, to Medium writers’ options for choosing pictures to accompany their articles in 2023. I have not read anything more about this, but if anyone has additional information, please tell us in the comments.
It’s also important to know that editors of Medium Publications can make their own rules regarding AI content, so check with them before you submit an article with an AI-generated picture.
I chose the simplest free-trial version of a picture-generated AI site (aptly named Simplified) that I could find and started playing around with it.
As with all AI technology ( Arguing with Alexa ), there was a bit of a learning curve involved in how to write precisely what picture I wanted it to generate, but once I caught on, I was thrilled with the results.
Here are two examples of pictures my AI software produced that were perfect for my stories with no worry on my part about rejection for copyright infringement. As I previously mentioned, if you cite that you used AI to generate the picture, it’s acceptable to Medium.
I used the same Simplified AI software to produce the following pictures. I have not used them for any stories yet, but they are examples of what can be generated by a technology simpleton like myself. There are multiple enhancements that can be made, but for now, I’m satisfied with SIMPLE.
After spending multiple frustrating hours trying to find the perfect picture that is free from copyright infringements and failing miserably, I’m on board for utilizing AI software to generate ideal pictures for my stories and I would recommend that you try it. It will save you a lot of aggravation of editor rejection, and a lot of work trying to find free pictures without copyright restrictions.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that after a free trial, yes, AI software programs do charge a fee. However, upon investigation, I have found that they are much cheaper than paying copyright charges for the use of one copyrighted picture.
What do you think? Do you want to give it a try? If you have tried it, what is your opinion?
IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE: As is normal for new technology, the laws have not yet caught up with AI copyright issues. As a result, copyright laws related to AI-generated images are complex and confusing, still being debated, and vary from state to state. However, the consensus from my research is that if YOU created the AI image, using your word prompts, you can legally use it and don’t have to worry about violating any copyright laws, as long as you clearly state that the image was AI-generated and by which company. The situation is different if you use AI images created by someone else, but that is NOT what I am talking about in this article.
Resources:
Generative AI Copyright Concerns You Must Know
Can You Use AI-Generated Art in Your Digital Marketing and Content Efforts?
©Joan Gershman 2023
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