The Creator
Yuki S., freelance character designer and concept artist based in Osaka, Japan, with a popular ArtStation portfolio.
The Situation
Yuki discovered that a commercial AI art generation startup had scraped her entire portfolio — 147 illustrations — and included them in a training dataset sold to enterprise clients. The startup claimed the images were “public domain” because they were posted on a public website. Worse, the AI tool was generating character designs recognizably derived from Yuki’s distinctive style.
The Problem
Yuki needed to prove: she was the original creator of each illustration, the illustrations existed before the AI company’s dataset compilation date, and the creation dates were independently verifiable — not just ArtStation upload dates, which the AI company’s lawyers argued could have been manipulated or backdated.
The AuthorHash Solution
For her ongoing work, Yuki now timestamps every illustration (and key work-in-progress stages) with AuthorHash before uploading anywhere. Each certificate provides a cryptographic fingerprint tied to an EU-qualified timestamp and blockchain anchor. For the existing 147 works, Yuki timestamped the original PSD files (with full layer history intact), establishing that these specific files existed before the AI company’s dataset was compiled.
The Outcome
Yuki’s legal team used the AuthorHash certificates alongside the PSD layer metadata to build an airtight case. The AI startup settled for $45,000 and removed Yuki’s works from their dataset.
"ArtStation upload dates weren’t enough — their lawyers tried to discredit them. The AuthorHash certificates were different. EU-qualified, blockchain-anchored, mathematically verifiable. There was nothing to argue about.
Key Takeaway
In the age of AI scraping, platform upload dates are not enough. Timestamp your original files before publishing anywhere.