Can I stop AI companies training on my photos and video?

AI companies learn from pictures and words they collect from websites. Many makers do not want their work used that way, and they are right to ask what a website can do about it. The short answer: you can say no clearly, and bernard helps you say it in every way that counts. Nobody can guarantee that every company listens.

Your two switches

Open your Media Library and choose its first tab, Protect your work. Each site has two switches:

• Protect images and video: say no to AI companies learning from your pictures and films.
• Protect page content: say no to them learning from the words on your pages.

bernard has already made a guess for each site. It is on if your site shows or sells your own work (a portfolio, or a shop selling art, prints or handmade things), and off if most people find you by asking. Change either switch at any time. It saves at once.

The trade-off. Protecting your images and video costs you nothing in search. Protecting your page words may mean AI assistants that answer from memory know less about you, and mention you less. Search engines, and AI assistants that look things up live and link to you, stay welcome either way.

What is live today

• Your choice is saved for each site, and bernard follows it as each step arrives.
• “Not for AI training” in your photos. While Protect images and video is on, bernard writes “not for AI training” into the photos you have marked as yours, beside your name and copyright line. It goes into the copies bernard stores after you mark a photo; copies already on your site are brought up to date by an update that is coming. See Does Bernard keep my name on my photos?.
• Private details removed from the photos you upload, and your untouched original kept privately, with its fingerprint and the date it arrived. See Someone copied my photo. How do I show it is mine?.
• You can see who came. The Protect your work page lists the AI robots counted on your site in the last 30 days, one line per robot, and says what each one does. The AI traffic report says more; see Is AI reading my site?.

What is coming

These are not live yet. Do not rely on them until the Protect your work page shows them as live.

• A notice in your site’s robots file. This is the file AI companies’ robots are meant to read before they collect anything. It will tell training robots to stay out of what you protect.
• Training robots turned away. When a training robot that says who it is asks for what you protect, bernard will refuse it.
• Your rights page. A page on your site that states your terms, which your photos will point to.
• Video. Keeping the untouched original of films you upload, and writing your name and your choice into them, come in later steps.

What the law says in the UK

UK copyright law has one exception that lets someone copy work for text and data analysis: it covers non-commercial research only. Today UK law has no opt-out for you to switch on. So when bernard writes “not for AI training” into a file and, later, refuses a training robot, that is a clear statement of your choice, made in the ways AI companies say they read. It is not a new legal right. Whether a particular use of your work is lawful is a question for a solicitor. What do ‘digital rights’ and ‘DRM’ mean for my site? and What is copyright, and do I own my photos? say more.

What no setting can do

Nothing can stop a robot that lies about who it is, and anyone can copy a picture from a screen. bernard does not lock files, because no open website can; it states your terms, removes your private details and keeps the evidence.

Once every step is live, this is the promise: “We say no in every way the law and the big AI companies recognise, we turn away the robots that admit who they are, and we keep the evidence.”

For the longer story, read Can you stop AI companies training on your work? and Hey AI, you can show me in search results, but don’t steal my work.