full title: Community Talk Episode 6 | Terms of Service and Privacy Policy posted 2.14.26 Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've done one of these, so the structure will be slightly different. Pre-Talk Blurb: This is an episode of my series of "Community Talks", where I talk about anything that's going on that I think will affect somebody who is in the community of Scratch. I write these to try to get information out to people and to help the world become a slightly better and kinder place. Earlier episodes: E1 | internet safety rundown ) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/893027665/ E2 | hate & advertisement ) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/898514792/ E3 | Splattercolor Screen (Splatoon 3) ) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/935043649/ E4 | AI / Artificial Intelligence and Art ) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/935258312/ E5 | The Situation with Jackpot (Splatoon 3) ) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1114998434/ E6 | Terms of Service and Privacy Policy ) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1270339556/ (here) You can request a topic on my profile if you like! :) Sources listed at the bottom. PLEASE keep in mind that this is my best interpretation of the Terms of Service. I am not a lawyer and I don't know how to read official documents but I'm doing my best!! Introduction: On January 22nd, Scratch updated their Terms of Service (ToS) and Privacy Policy (PP). Thousands of people, artists or not, put in their country, state/province, clicked "agree", and moved on. Mere hours later, user @CupieMaster (project linked below) posted a project that blew up talking about the mentions of AI. The way I, the author, understood the ToS, Scratch is essentially preparing their terms and policies for the implementation of AI. I have a community talk on AI linked above for those who haven't read it. I recommend reading it or being otherwise educated on the topic before continuing. AI has been all the rage for the past few years. The technology has improved significantly since it was first developed, but with it has risen many questions, most relating to ethics. So...What's going on? Since Scratch has made changes to their Terms of Service, a variety of communities have exploded with projects about AI. Coders are angry that they could be replaced by Scratch's AI, and artists are angry that their work is being fed into AI. However, in the Terms of Service, there is no mention of training an AI model with user content (what we post on Scratch being used for a Scratch AI). This is under section 8.2 of the ToS. However, under section 8.9, there is mention of a possible AI that will use only what YOU put into it. You cannot select other people's content for a possible AI to interact with. The disclaimer in section 8.10 says that because Scratch is a copyleft and remix based platform, others could use your content through remixes. Two days later, on January 24th, Scratch came forward with an announcement as a follow-up to the Terms of Service change. In the announcement, they talked about how they aren't using user data individually or tied to Scratchers–it's all anonymous. They then talked about their guidelines for any AI anything they could posisbly build. At the end, they said: "right now, we are not training any AI models on Scratchers’ data". Conclusion: All in all, what's happening? Essentially, Scratch has the rights to your content, and so does everyone else who has Scratch–especially if Scratch makes itself an AI model. Right now, *rumors* are that Gen AI (an AI that GENerates content) will not be on Scratch. But this is a statement made by a Scratch Team member in 2023; it's been three years. Right now, they don't have any AI model available and aren't training anything on what we post on Scratch. We're all safe–for now. My advice, as an artist: Keep creating. Connect with your friends and fellow artists–and this applies to coders as well. Art and coding is incredibly difficult, and can only be efficiently and effectively and meaningfully done by humans. Keep going. I know it feels impossible, but I think that in the end, the right side will win. If you don't want your stuff being used for AI, then share it privately. Go make something better. Because AI can't, and won't. SOURCES: [1]: Scratch Terms of Service: https://mitscratch.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/4000219182-scratch-terms-of-service [2]: https://mitscratch.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/4000219339-privacy-policy [3]: [4]: credit: thumbnail & writing: other sources credited tags:
