Valve Blocks Games Using AI-Generated Content From Steam Due to Possible Copyright Issues - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 August 2023 / 3,427 Views
There have been reports Valve has been blocking games that use AI generated content from being released on Steam and the company has now confirmed this to be the case.
Valve in a statement to IGN said the reason for this is due to "current copyright law and policies."
"We are continuing to learn about AI, the ways it can be used in game development, and how to factor it in to our process for reviewing games submitted for distribution on Steam," reads the statement from Valve. "Our priority, as always, is to try to ship as many of the titles we receive as we can. The introduction of AI can sometimes make it harder to show a developer has sufficient rights in using AI to create assets, including images, text, and music. In particular, there is some legal uncertainty relating to data used to train AI models. It is the developer's responsibility to make sure they have the appropriate rights to ship their game.
"We know it is a constantly evolving tech, and our goal is not to discourage the use of it on Steam; instead, we're working through how to integrate it into our already-existing review policies. Stated plainly, our review process is a reflection of current copyright law and policies, not an added layer of our opinion. As these laws and policies evolve over time, so will our process.
"We welcome and encourage innovation, and AI technology is bound to create new and exciting experiences in gaming. While developers can use these AI technologies in their work with appropriate commercial licenses, they can not infringe on existing copyrights."
Valve added, "While App-submission credits are usually non-refundable, we're more than happy to offer them in cases as we continue to work on our review process."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Considering how legally shaky the entire realm of AI content is, this is a very reasonable decision. You don't want to get accused of selling stolen content if the laws about AI content ownership end up going towards that direction.
Chad Valve. Even blocked purchases with crypto and NFT games.
Good, AI generation is a lazy way to create games. Put the effort in.
Based
https://slang.net/meaning/based
Not sure in the context here though. A company removing AI generated content due to fears over copyright infringements and being sued isn't quite the correct context, imo anyway.
Since when has Valve taken responsibility for Copyright violation in games on their platform? Surely if Activision put a game on Steam, and it has an issue, then Steam take it down, and Activision get sued.
Sounds more like an attack on Epic's new Unreal Engine terrain auto-generation features?
Because it is a new technology, and the copyright act is still based largely on the 1976 version (with some amendments made). Amendments to the act will have to be made, or a new rule included altogether to include AI not being allowed to use copyrighted material or assets that are bought from another company without permission.
Hand crafting is still a money maker in this world, if you automate literally everything in life (literally), then you are going to run into a number of faults and issues with people from all walks of life.
Generated content is not the same as hand crafted.
