PSA: Derivative infringement using AI

I recently documented a wedding photography situation over on Photo Stealers where some images appear to have been selectively altered with AI, likely Gemini, while still retaining the broad structure of another photographer’s image. Same composition, same background, same minor details down to the weeds and leaf placement, just changed up the couple (often to a comically incorrect scale) and a few details to be a “new” image.

So far DMCA’s have been hit and miss for takedowns.

This is a whole new level of copyright infringement swamp creature I haven’t encountered before and I wanted to post a general PSA about it so other photographers are aware it’s happening. If one fauxtographer is doing it I’m sure there’s others that are as well.