Today I learned of Tumblr's plan to begin (or continue) selling user content to OpenAI and Midjourney, which is the last straw for me and my presence on the site. Regardless of their claims that users can opt out of this, I frankly just don't believe them.
I've used Tumblr since 2010 when I started photography, and this blog is the largest existing archive of my work on the internet. It's a liability for me to continue to allow it to be hosted on a site that is now actively contributing to the theft of art, directly from artists. I know my photos have already been stolen, repurposed and claimed countless times over the years from Tumblr and other sites, but I have to draw a line here. I will unfortunately be removing all my past work from this blog, perhaps something I should have done when the suspicions first arose about Automattic's greed.
Many aspects of my creative career have been negatively impacted by AI already, I just see this as one less path in which to be exploited.
That being said I want to thank all of you for the support over the decade plus I've been active on here, I stuck around much longer than most because of my appreciation for a website that was a huge influence to my early creativity as a kid. I still think it was the best format for social media, and I really am going to miss Tumblr and the creative community it used to be.
I will still do my best to utilize this blog as a place to make announcements about any new projects, such as my upcoming book I aim to release at the end of the year.
You can still find me and my (Glaze/Nightshade protected) work elsewhere on the internet at Instagram, Twitter, and my website.
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