San Martín de la Vega used AI to create book fair poster copying Paco Roca's design
The municipality of San Martín de la Vega in Madrid reportedly used generative AI to create a book fair poster that closely copied a design by artist Paco Roca created for Valencia's book fair. Roca publicized the apparent plagiarism and announced he would refer the matter to his copyright management organization, while the municipality removed the poster from its social media.
What happened
The municipality of San Martín de la Vega in Madrid created a poster for its book fair using generative AI that closely copied a poster designed by artist Paco Roca for the 60th anniversary of the Fira del Llibre de València.
Roca posted a side-by-side comparison on social media with the comment 'What is AI? AI is you... but without payment.' The municipality removed the promotional image from its social networks after the complaint became public.
Reported impact
Roca stated the plagio violated copyright rights of creators and said the municipality should not have commissioned or approved AI-generated content that infringes authors' intellectual property.
Roca noted that while his poster was recognizable enough to identify the copying, other creators may have experienced similar plagiarism without reporting it, and that the technology particularly harms professional designers, illustrators, and emerging creators.
Index analysis
The artist described the plagiarism as 'so blatant it's laughable' and characterized the AI use as generating images from others' work without compensation.
Roca warned that generative AI is frequently misused by institutions, companies and media to copy creative work, and argued that human-created illustrations and designs have more value than AI-generated images.
Governance controls
Roca announced he would refer the case to Vegap, the copyright management organization of which he is a member.
The president of the Valencia booksellers' guild stated his intention to communicate the matter to Cegal, the Spanish Confederation of Booksellers' Guilds and Associations, to establish legal protection for authors' rights.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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