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[extriential-blog]

PSA: Your Comics Are (probably) Being Stolen!

Our team loves to promote ethical voice dubbing, so when I discovered a YouTube channel with over 1 million subscribers that posts near exclusively AI “dubs” of comics from Tumblr, I decided to inform the artists to make sure they knew that their work was being used by an AI creator.

Out of the artists who responded to my messages, exactly ZERO of them were even given notice or asked for permission to use the comic on their channel, including an artist that specifically disallows dubs without explicit permission from them. Additionally, all of them expressed distaste for the usage of AI, and some of them expressed that they would’ve been okay with it had they used real voice actors.

(this is just two examples, 6 artists total informed me they did not give permission)

On top of this, according to one of the comments from the “dubber” themselves, their shorts are MONETIZED, meaning that not only are they exploiting the work of artists for social gain, they are also exploiting it for monetary gain.

(portions of the comment are highlighted for emphasis)

To their credit, they have linked the blogs of the original creators of the comics, but to many artists that is not enough, especially considering they are using AI to dub the comics. And let’s be honest, asking the artist is the bare minimum before using their work in your videos.

What should I do?

If you are a comic artist (especially for the Deltarune or Vocaloid fandoms) I suggest you scroll through their channel to check if any of YOUR art is being used without your permission. If you don’t have the time or don’t want to spend your effort searching, please message me; I would be happy to check for you.

If you do find that one of your comics is being used and you wish for it to get removed, you have a couple options:

Contact them through their Discord listed in their channel description.

Report the video to YouTube under “Legal Issue” -> “Copyright Issue”

The second method is substantially more work, and will probably deliver a strike to the creator. I strongly suggest contacting them first for removal. However, the “dubber”’s work is most likely not protected under fair use as it is (a) commercial, as the videos are monetized, and (b) most likely not substantially transformative. So it has a decent chance of being removed if you make a claim.

OBVIOUSLY, do not use this information as an excuse to manhunt or attack them. While I do believe that they are using these comics unethically, that doesn't mean they should be threatened or attacked in any way.

To the “Dubber”, if you’re reading this:

Please, please use your platform of over 1 million subscribers to uplift and promote both voice actors and comic artists alike, rather than contribute to the slop that has filled the internet to the brim in the past few years. You have the opportunity to enrich these spaces of the internet, rather than damage them. You have worked with voice actors in the past, I know you are capable of doing it.

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what i do

hello tumblr! I lead a dubbing team that does comic dubs for various fandoms (we mostly do deltarune rn). We are real voice actors (NOT AI) and we always credit the original artists and our wonderful VAs!

If you get a message from us and want to check our credibility, the youtube channel is below.