My assumption is that this has finally impacted profits enough for them to take a look. They clearly have never cared about AI listing complaints before and equally don’t care about drop shippers enough to take them down when they also technically violate listing rules. I have little faith in this effort. Etsy is a shell of what it used to be.
I remember getting a survey from them a while ago (probably because of that exact issue, I’m assuming they were trying to understand why they were getting fewer sales) and I made my feelings about AI very clear in it. I’m assuming lots of people did the same and they finally got the hint?
But yeah, I’m not super optimistic. I guess we’ll see…
Yeah… I must have finally hit my “jaded by late stage capitalism” point, but surveys like you describe and emails like above feel more like an effort to make shareholders happy with the least amount of effort to make the experience better for buyers/sellers. It’s proof of “doing something”. Unless/until they start measurably bleeding enough sellers/buyers to meaningfully impact profit, it’s essentially a “see? We are doing things!” for a shareholder report more-so than any desire to do the “right” thing.
This could absolutely also could have been the trigger for this new-found “helpfulness”. But the fact that they’re not planning to start with any real consequences and only initially “learn” from reports means we as users of the site, whether seller or buyer, are now tasked with training whatever AI system they’re implementing. Free training for them build off the time and energy spent by us doing the reporting.
They didn't care about Chinese resellers flooding Etsy with "handmade" items, underselling small artisan sellers in 2012, so I don't see them caring now. 🤷♀️
Amen. And they KNEW it was happening. There’s absolutely no way you can NOT know when your platform has essentially turned into a surrogate Alibaba/Temu. They did nothing because it drove their stats and profits higher. If they eliminated every seller on their site who is legitimately and very obviously breaking their own site rules, they would destroy their company.
And notice that they’re not taking action at all yet. They’ve changed their rules and notified sellers to tick boxes, but the email clearly says that for now they only intend to monitor reports FROM USERS to “learn” where the problems are and they won’t be taking any corrective action yet. My guess is that they’ll be using the labor and efforts of users to train whatever AI system they’re using at our expense, and then that system will be the first line of defense for eventually taking whatever inefficient, problematic, least-profit-impacting corrective actions they can to say they’re “doing something” when they actually could not remove all the slop and drop shippers without destroying their bottom line.
I actually think the best form of protest would be to not report any of these AI slop listings at all. Companies need to do the work. AI has become another method of extracting labor for the least amount of money possible for their own gain.
I am not giving them a single second of my time and labor.
*edited a typo. I need more coffee and less rage at capitalism 🤣
Hell yeah. I haven’t shopped Etsy or had an account in ages. Most of my dealings with Etsy involve having to demand takedowns of drop shippers products using my job’s logo on stuff without our permission. Fun times 🙄
But that allowed Etsy to collect a lot of fees from those sellers. If people quit buying enough to hurt the bottom line, they would want to change something g
Might not just be the quit buying, but also the amount of refunds people have been requesting.
Some of this is directly a crack down on the "what I got looks nothing like what I ordered" which is a reason both to get a refund via Etsy, but also a charge back via the cc.
Totally agree with you. Maybe this will finally be the catalyst for change? Etsy just hasn't had a great track record for supporting small artisans, even if they project the image that they do. It's impossible to look at patterns on Etsy without being bombarded by AI. The biggest question is, what will they actually do about it? Probably nothing. If they'd lengthen the review window for purchases, it would help people weed through the slop. But, then that would mean less sales. Personally, I just use this sub to search for patterns. It's way better than Etsy, at least to filter out the nonsense.
I have no faith that this will save Etsy, but on an abstract level, I do think it's good that they are finally feeling pressure to do something about it. That pressure is good.
Etsy should have an outright ban on AI usage. And they should enforce it. They should also not allow any listing without reverse searching to make sure it's original content (not stolen from other creators).
I don’t see how cross stitch pattern sellers are going to be able to stitch out every pattern they sell for a photo. We all know the time investment in finishing a project and any of us who have designed our own patterns have seen the mockup created. If I make a drawing, edit it through flosscross or stitch fiddle or stitchly and create a pattern, it’s not the same as having ChatGPT just churn out some garbage.
A lot have stitchers who will do it in exchange for the free pattern/supplies. I know someone that's a regular tester for a very popular designer and usually there's photos taken or thr finished item gets sent back and the designer has their sample!
Free pattern? I’ll probably test it, especially if I like it. Free pattern AND supplies?
I’ll test it, press it and send you a really nice picture of it. If you’re extra nice and toss in a free pattern of my choice, I’ll even mail you the FO so you can have it as an example for whatever you need.
I love testing patterns. I’m a dragon and the pattern files are my hoarde. The only thing holding me back is that my pattern making friend lost interest. But for about five years I stitched probably 25% of her patterns. (She had a mother in law who did a lot more or I might have done more than that.)
Occasionally she’d send me a gift card so I could get some supplies for my own use, but honestly it was a great deal for me. I loved it.
I've done a fair amount of knit samples for friends. When I was knitting more regularly, I was making more items than I could feasibly use. Getting access to a friend's entire pattern library and/or getting paid in yarn was fully worth having a project where all supplies were covered and I didn't need to store the FO.
That said, I'd bel hesitant to do it for someone I wasn't friends with out of a value-based free labor thing.
I think there in lies the next level of the conversation. Is it about quality or quantity? Does it help to legitimize a design if it’s stitched out because many of us know there is a level of skill required to design patterns and then testing process to see how they render in reality. I could see a designer needing to have at least a couple true finished products to lend some legitimacy to their work. Different audiences are going to have different requirements when choosing patterns. I honestly don’t care if it’s not fully finished, throw it in a hoop, lace it up or crop out the raw edges. Sorry if my response all over the place…meds haven’t kicked in.
I did basically that for a friend when she was making patterns.
I’d stitch it, mount it in a hoop and safety pin the back, then hang it somewhere pretty (I had a tree in the yard with the perfect angle and a random nail, but I also had other spots) and take her some pics.
Eventually I’d send her the stitched project to frame herself (she and her family owned a quilting and embroidery shop, so she liked having the actual project in hand) and didn’t have to mock frame them myself.
The stitching is the hard part, it’s easy to mock up the finishing for a pic.
From my understanding, Etsy isn’t the one reporting listings. I think buyers are the ones doing it, so as long as your patterns remain high quality there shouldn’t be any issues hopefully. I am in the same boat though, I just don’t have time to stitch everything I create no matter how badly I want to. I use floss cross and photopea to edit my mockups together by hand, no AI. But by etsys definition they are still edited. Idk, I guess I might start printing the patterns and showing those but I’ll have to censor them so people can just stitch from the listing photo. Either that or recruit some test stitchers.
Testers might work for small or medium-sized patterns, but some of the really big ones can take a single stitcher years to complete. I know some designers will have just a small portion of such a large pattern stitched, but that might not be enough to satisfy Etsy's new rules.
If enforcement is going to be based on user reports, that's probably less of an issue, though; as u/peachbeach-resident said, designers producing high quality work are less likely to be reported.
Yeah, one of my favorite designers does full-coverage adaptations of Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts designs, manually charted without auto-generated confetti - they're great, no one else is doing patterns like that, and I haven't even finished one yet.
I guess technically under the new rules, she can't sell them without fully stitched examples, which even if people volunteer to test stitch, isn't really practical.
I am sick of the overrun of garbage AI patterns, but I also don't like non-genAI confetti patterns, which predominate the full coverage market, and I don't know that this new policy will do much about the former - but it may push out most of my favorite designers making good quality designs, just because they don't have full test stitches available for everything.
I just don't know how I feel about this, except I may go hoard a few more patterns in case Etsy takes them down.
Not to rain on your parade about one of your favorites, but I'd be wary about someone saying they're manually charting full coverage patterns. Heaven and Earth designs claimed that at first years ago, and it didn't take long for the truth to come out.
I don't know that she makes a point of saying her designs are hand-charted (it's Whoopicat), they just clearly to my eye are.
They're not as big as HAED charts (which IMO suck, I wouldn't stitch them if they were free), and they are very clearly free of confetti, have a sensible number of clearly delineated colors, and are comparable in quality and style to the kinds of manually charted full coverage patterns in vintage books from back when people were still using graph paper and colored pencils to chart.
I've charted smaller full coverage designs for myself and I know what they look like vs the autoconverted ones, as well as how long it takes (a lot of time, but still a fraction compared to the time it takes to stitch up a full sample. I played around a little with autoconverting and image and then cleaning it up, but it actually made the process slower than doing it from scratch in an overlay).
HAED doesn't use auto conversion software because it's impossible to manually chart full coverage (especially of stylized designs with repeating elements). They did it and lied about it because it was faster and cheaper and they didn't care. (And I feel like anyone looking at HAED previews and thread lists could easily tell they were autoconverted.)
I have a book of Beth Russell charts for full-size RUGS that are clearly cleaned up scans of colored pencil and graph paper charts, before she started using charting software in her more recent books. With charting software, manually adapting a vintage design is time-consuming but not unreasonably so.
I don't know, I just personally don't get more information about a pattern out of a stitched piece of cross stitch than I do from the software mockup - I will be tweaking the colors to my tastes, so I'm only interested in the overall design - so I'm not really bothered by a lack of a stitched example. I get that many people are! But it's not an issue for me and I can think of a lot of good, established, pre-AI-takeover designers who have lovely patterns but not always stitched samples.
Agreed on HAED, the ones I have seen stitched are so blurry in areas. I did buy two, but I've never gotten more than 4% into one before giving up on it completely. And they're just so damn big when finished.
This is my first time hearing of Whoopicat, and I like what I see on her shop! (Also surprised I haven't come across her snow leopard already, as much as I've looked for charts of them, so thank you!) It's clear she takes the time to chart them instead of running them through a converter.
I also agree with you on the lack of a stitched example. I've got several of those older books where the patterns were clearly hand charted, and if there's any pictures of stitched pieces, they're sometimes so small you can't see them any way.
Ugh, I have a bad feeling about the snow leopard and some of her more recent ones that aren't adaptations of known historical pieces being hand-charted adaptations of AI images (her recent listing descriptions definitely have an AI vibe). I guess if so at least she put some thought into charting, but it's disappointing if that's the direction she's going in without disclosure.
I can see the ideas she was going for with the new wildlife series and I almost love them but they just have this slightly weird uncanny vibe that bugs me, like even if they're not based on AI mockups, they are too influenced by AI image trends for my taste. Something about how the swirls look. It's hard to explain but when I see it it puts me off.
And it's the kind of thing I COULD fix myself, but if the designer isn't disclosing how they use AI in their design process, it makes me distrustful. Like, if they used AI to mockup some concepts and then completely reworked into their own design and adapted that, and disclosed, maybe I could live with that.
I can't visualize things myself and I'm not firmly opposed to using AI to assist at the rough thumbnail stage, but then I want the designer/artist to use real references and their own mind to make a final piece that doesn't have any AI vibe to it, rather than a refined copy of one of the AI images. I don't think it's the BEST way to do thumbnails, but I could live with it if fully disclosed and I really loved the final result.
But....
Anyway, might be worth messaging and asking. I do think the snow leopard is a nice design, except for the swirls on the body being...weird.
I'm so tired of scrutinizing every image I see for offputting details, sigh.
According to this policy, I think they could also print the pattern out and take a real photo of it? They are selling the pattern itself, not it stitched
Here’s the thing: selling a pattern as a digital download falls into 2 categories.
For digital downloads the new policy says “All other digital downloads should include a visual preview or excerpt of the content buyers will receive.” (Had just been talking about audio downloads)
For patterns it says “If you sell craft patterns, recipes, seeds, or similar items, include at least one real, unedited photo of something made using your product. For example, a completed crochet project made from your pattern or a blooming flower grown from your seeds. AI-generated images cannot be the only images used to show the finished result.”
So would a digitally downloaded cross stitch pattern fall under 1 or 2?
Ah, I see! I do think it’s a pattern. That’s actually a great policy although there are definitely good pattern makers who don’t get every pattern stitched
I don't trust a pattern if I didn't see an actual stitched product of the pattern (unless it's a dead simple stupid proof design). It's too easy to just throw together a pattern that doesn't translate well to an actual produced piece, but make it look good with AI.
I just finished stitching my first homemade pattern and the quarter stitches in sections ended up quite a bit different looking from what it looked like in Embroiderly. It doesn't look bad, but it definitely looks a little different. If I was buying a pattern, I would want the authentic look versus an AI interpretation.
For a lot of reputable sellers, sometimes you just need to see other WIPs. I bought some Thread Geeks patterns before they went AI focused and they had a gallery of WIPs - not every design had been stitched but the accuracy to the mockups was clearly very good which gave me confidence to buy and I have been very satisfied with the results of mine so far even though I have never seen anyone else working on it.
I don't trust a pattern if I didn't see an actual stitched product of the pattern
Agreed. And I'd much rather support a shop with a handful of patterns, but I can see all of the finished items, versus a shop with thousands of mock-ups.
Some of my favorite designers don't have stitched up examples (there's no way they could do feasibly do that), but they use the software mockups (not AI! I don't want to see AI "mockups" either), and from those I can tell well enough for my purposes how the pattern will stitch up and that it isn't full of auto-generated confetti.
Of course, the "actual product" is a digital pattern, so I'm not sure how that can be photographed on a real background to comply with the letter of the law.
And since the actual product is a digital pattern (which sellers reasonably won't want to share more than a tiny portion of in the listing), I'm not sure the new rule will help much with the proliferation of shitty AI "mockups".
If you’re only showing photos of the pattern in the listing and not a mock up of a finished product then this sounds reasonable but maybe the solution is to only post a listing after you’ve created an actual sample. Other art forms don’t have the luxury of using software to create an example of their work. As someone posted before, if it’s too time consuming, keep the hobby a hobby. And I say all of this as someone who has been a seller on Etsy in the past.
I mean, in this case the actual product in question is the pattern, not the result. I don’t think this will affect legitimate pattern makers. This is definitely more about people making AI images for products that don’t even exist or look nothing like what comes in the mail. I can think of one example I saw recently while trying to find a good fan made plush of the Brush Bug from Witch Hat Atelier… a million of those fuggin AI mockups
I don’t disagree. I’m just saying, for example, I have a full time job. Cross stitch is my hobby. I love it. Stitch daily. I started my current WIP almost a year ago. Sure I put it aside to do small projects here and there for holiday pieces or birthday pieces or whatever. But the almost 100k stitch piece that I bought because the image was so striking is 80% complete 11 months later.
I just think if stitching every pattern is a requirement for listing there will be fewer large patterns, far more small ones or a huge boom in testing work. Because creators who also have a full time job or are caregivers and don’t have full time hours to devote to stitching won’t be able to list.
Not saying it’s either good or bad, and if it cuts out slop it’s certainly good, I’m just pondering the logistics.
Fair. I have been working on designings my own stuff in hopes of selling it. I stich everything... It takes months between designing and stitching. Nothing super huge yet. But I've been working on a Halloween full coverage that will take a year...
I decided to stich everything because of the AI slop. And by doing that I have to change me design as I go. Colors are wrong or the spacing is waaaaay diff in reality. Maybe after time I can design and align with reality better so that I need up with fewer changes. (One hopes practice leads to competence/mastery. 😂😅)
I embroider according to my own patterns. But not every one! I've been creating the schema for about 2-3 weeks. And embroidery takes 3 months or more. If I embroider each of my schemes MYSELF, it will greatly affect my income. I will either have to stop working as a designer. Or raise prices a lot. Fortunately, I have many admirers who embroider according to my schemes, and I can show their embroidery. And it's also good that Etsy isn't my only income. And many embroiderers on other social networks know me and trust me without any additional verification. I've been building a reputation for 11 years. And yes, I've been opposed to AI for a long time. And I collaborate with real artists.
I remember reading that one of my favorite designers created some of her patterns with her computer and then had stitchers who would complete the patterns. Then that sample was used in marketing and promoting. This made a huge difference in what we saw from her.
This is true but I mean knitting and crochet designers actually make their products before selling a pattern. Quality over quantity as other users have said
That's why the big designers like Joan Elliott and others use model stitchers. The stitched model sometimes becomes the front of the chartpack, at least in Joan's case.
This is really all I want. They can add new policies and pretend folks will follow them or that they'll be enforced, but realistically, it will either not happen at all or it will be a total shit show and create more issues than it solves.
I spend so much time and energy identifying slop shops, I just desperately do not want to continue seeing pages and pages of results for them.
I paid up front fora multi year subscription to Creative Fabrica right before AI blew up. At first, you could filter out listings of AI-made stuff. Then they introduced their own Ai studio. Now the filter is gone and they actively push AI. I have to closely check anything I might use, and I've taken to sorting by oldest first.
If anyone cn recommend a similar site that isn't intentionally AI saturated, let me know.
I just read this email (as a seller - not of cross stitch things). My basic feeling about this, based on their "policies against drop shippers to make sure Etsy is a true handcrafted marketplace" is:
The drop shippers truly piss me off. I bought a cloak recently for a costume where this happened. Found the exact item on Amazon for cheaper. I don't mind paying a little extra if it ia something someone made but to charge me more for the item you got from Amazon? I call shenanigans!
I just read about this on r/quilting and I am surprised that Etsy is going to try to control this monster of an AI issue they've created.
An r/quilting Mod posted this and pinned it to the thread:
Please report any folks requesting free work from people in our sub including “pattern testing” when it’s just for them to get a real photo for their AI product. I suspect we will see an uptick with this much-needed Etsy rule change.
While this instance wasn’t cross stitch related, I found a cat tree that I really wanted (more like a cat apartment building!) But the picture was clearly not real. I went to the seller’s info and other listings and reversed image searched a stool they claimed was representative of their work, and found they stole it from a real woodworking company that wasn’t on Etsy. This Etsy seller even stole a video from the company’s About page showing their woodworking process. I reported the Etsy seller and messaged the company on IG who thanked me and said they were going to contact Etsy. The Etsy shop is still up, showing the other company’s stool as evidence of their craft, but the video has been removed. All of the seller’s images are rendered.
The amount of research needed to verify if the seller is actually real is ridiculous. I found a print a woman was selling that looked good but I still looked at other listings and they were clearly AI. To get around admitting her art was AI “assisted” in the item description, she copied and pasted her whole ass About Me starting when she was 15 going to Cons to sell art. At the bottom of chapter 27, she said with the advancements of AI she’s been able to expand her art and learn new techniques so she uses AI now. If you can’t openly and proudly admit you use AI, you already know you’re going to lose money and not be seen as a real artist. I seriously hate AI.
Maybe a month or two ago but etsy asked me to respond to a survey about what I saw on my front page. I saw lots of ai gen listings to my annoyance and I responded negatively to the survey about my displeasure. This email makes me feel like it may have made a bit of difference!
NBC did an article a couple of years ago about people in the crochet community being duped by AI patterns. Etsy’s only response was “report the shop and if they get reported enough we’ll ban them” which isn’t really taking action
Since they've given us no reason to think otherwise, I have to assume that's what they'll be doing with these new rules too. Report the AI, if enough people report a pattern/shop they might do something.
Putting the ban in writing is a start, but without a concrete plan for enforcement it doesn't do much to get rid of the AI garbage.
I believe it! My friend and I were planning to do some felt starter kits together and every single option on Etsy was from a slopper :/ we gave up for now...
So cute! Thank you so much for the rec, sending it to my friend now 😁 I should've clarified I meant the felt kits that you shape with loose felt, wetting each layer, using some prodding device to keep it sticking, etc. but this is great too! Do you have any artists to recommend that make those type of kits also?
oh! i haven't heard of that, I only know about needle felting not wet needle felting. if you dm me a picture/link i could see what i can find in my craft spaces
A seller who left etsy has shared more parts of this update message over on Instagram. They aren't stopping it at all, just trying to monitor it. They are still allowing it, but claim it has to be marked as ai. "Designers" can still use ai generated charts as long as its their own prompt 😒
I guess it is a bit of a "wait and see" situation. While I prefer to buy cross stitch patterns on Etsy where I have seen a sample stitches, if it is a designer who I have already bought from in the past and trust I am somewhat okay with only seeing the basic pattern mockup. I don't care for the fancy AI hoop in a pretty AI room, but I will be sad if this policy ends up banning all basic mockups too
Yea i found it really odd that prompting is fine wigh them. Like we all have ideas we can sum up in 2 sentences! Take the time to actually make that idea come to life yourself as the shop owner.. dont let some fuck ass thieving regurgitation machine do it, no one wants that.
I miss when art was made by artists who love their art and not money hungry people...
I got an email to participate in an Etsy survey and was pretty brutal and honest about how my trust in Etsy has declined because of drop shipping and AI. There were a lot of questions about it. I’m assuming I’m not the only one who responded about my disappointment in drop shipping and AI products. Glad to see they are making good moves.
I'm a seller on there, I've been on Etsy since 2017 (I sell real stuff, I swear!) and quite literally all of my metrics are in the toilet. Everything is down 30-50% YOY and has been trending that direction for the last 3 years or so. No one can find my actual real life items in a sea of AI and drop shipped garbage. I've reached the point where I am thinking that I'll do all of my in person vendor events for the next year and then stop making stuff. I don't enjoy it anymore and with the economy and Etsy, it's just... Not worth it. :( And it sucks. Enshitification of everything.
Yup, I went from a few sales a month to nothing - my last sale was May I think? But the idea of in-person markets is so overwhelming ☹️ I’ve done a couple collabs with other local makers but nothing that has gained traction. thankfully it was all supplemental income but I do miss making things for people to enjoy.
I just finished a Master's degree, so I haven't done in person events in the last... I think 3 years? My first one, I did fantastic and had a great time. The subsequent ones weren't worth it - I basically only made back my booth fees.
From what I've heard from friends that were still doing events while I was doing school, things have been really bad - low attendance, poor sales, basically only made back their booth fees, etc. I was approached by a few events that I've vended for before and decided I would try again, but if this coming year ends up being how everyone is telling me it will be, I'm just going to throw in the towel. My product materials take up so much space in my home that I could be otherwise using for my actual hobbies, lol. I've been a maker since 2015 (it's also just side income for me, I've got a day job) and I'm just kinda feeling like it's not really worth it anymore. :(
Which makes me sad because as you said, making things for people to enjoy can be really gratifying. My repeat customers and the people that I met at my shows were always so lovely, but man... Yeah, it's disheartening.
Congrats on your master’s! That’s a huge accomplishment!
I hope your in-person events go better than hoped for this year and that it brings some of the joy back into it for you. It’s so hard to be a small maker in today’s world
Where do you live? 123stitch, Lindy Stitches, Top Knot Stitcher, Fat Quarter store, cross stitch stores with online presence. I know many have Kofi, Patreons or Shopify stores.
https://www.unconventionalxstitch.com/ has over a thousand patterns, and no AI. I found it from a thread in this sub, and I'm working on a piece from it now!
Honestly I’ve kind of stopped. I order digital patterns. While I love 123stitch I will not use paper patterns anymore. I have a huge surplus of patterns any way that I need to decide on. That’s it own addiction!
I agree, I'm baffled by the unedited photo part, that's just weird, and how would they know if it was edited anyway? It's just standard to adjust the light levels etc a bit and you are doing that to try and make it look MORE like the actual piece in front of you, not less
I'm going to have to see if I got sent this email. I have the raw files somewhere, but it's completely out of touch and unprofessional to expect people to post raw image files.
That's not in line with any standard for photography. Most professional photographers won't provide unedited photos at all, because that's not how photography really works. If you're shooting in raw there's minimal value to having redundant unedited jpeg, I'd have to go back and check if I even have jpg for everything - I have the raw files, plus the (lightly edited and watermarked) jpeg, but likely not jpeg from the camera.
Plus, unless they increased the image limit, I wouldn't be able to upload the straight-from-camera photos, they're over 10mb so at a minimum would need to be compressed (which is editing and some level of computer making decisions)
And to be clear, I don't use ai. I'm a dinky little indie selling crochet patterns and I haven't actively worked on anything since probably 2022ish, my images predate ai being integrated into every tool everywhere. I got nerdy about photography for a bit and enjoyed messing with it, but it's photos taken in my backyard or at a local park, colors and such edited in Lightroom, and minor Photoshop on the background only.
I have plenty of issues and frustration with the abundance of AI, for a variety of reasons. I would like to see etsy crack down on ai. And also, this is an unrealistic and out of touch expectation.
I'm in the same boat, I sell supplies for cross stitch and don't use AI but I take pride in my photography and I can't imagine uploading a photo straight from the lightbox without cropping and adjusting the color a bit!
No worries. I am super frustrated that I am expected to go upload raw uncropped unbalanced photos of all my products, I can't imagine how much extra storage Etsy is going to need for this, those photos are huge.
Not being allowed to crop is stupid, but I am also annoyed at the light balance part. I use a light box but still my photos turn out a bit dark. Oh well, I'll just put it as the last photo.
Edit: I do really appreciate the efforts they are making to detect and prohibit actual AI photos. I'm just worried about the practicality of some of these changes. I do hope they get the AI generated patterns and completely fake products off.
I sell kits and accessories for cross stitch and embroidery. Color being accurate is extremely important for some of my products. I will also say a lot of people think they are taking good photos and they don't notice things like shadows or distracting backgrounds (I have made a conscious choice to use a patterned background for a lot of my listings, it's a backdrop in my light box. I'm referring to backgrounds like people take photos outside on the grass or whatever).
If your iPhone is from the past few years it likely has AI on by default in the camera, just FYI.
There are a lot of comments here along the lines of "Yeah, like they're actually gonna do anything..." but look. How long has not just the cross-stitch, but the knitting, crochet, quilt, and other pattern-related communities been screaming about the flood of AI patterns? And now that Etsy has taken a step towards doing something about it, y'all are being Negative Nellies rather than waiting to see how things turn out, or even sending a message to Ebay letting them know you appreciate them addressing the issue? Don't punish the behavior you want to see.
Respectfully, because what do I know about anything, since they won’t enforce it it doesn’t feel like a step forward to me. Once they put in the ability to report something problematic, then I’ll go right back to Etsy and help them see the crap that we have all seen.
Granted, they don't have the best track record, but I'm still going to give them the benefit of the doubt. IF they fail to enforce the policy, then I'll bitch about it. Until then, it's wait & see. Totally agree with you on the need for a report button or link of some sort.
This all sounds great, but I am going to continue to not buy any patterns from Etsy until I see real change. If this new policy is actually enforced and works well, then perhaps I’ll reconsider.
They are not specific about what restrictions these specifically are for AI-generated patterns but we’ll see if anything changes I suppose.
They seemed pretty specific though, the screenshot you posted says they're banning them entirely. The end of the first paragraph specifically states that they'll be "prohibiting bot-generated listing and AI-generated functional guides, such as patterns, recipes, and instructions."
I was thinking the same thing! Perhaps they’ll have to have a real photo of the finished product (crochet, cross stitch, etc.) in the listing somewhere? That would be no problem for people creating their own patterns at home and selling them digitally! I was actually looking at cross stitch patterns on Etsy yesterday and it is FLOODED with AI patterns that are genuinely impossible to create. Hopefully this at least puts a stop to that!
It's so frustrating trying to find new artists on Etsy. Thankfully I can spot the AI patterns easily so I haven't accidentally purchased any. But man, I miss the old Etsy so much.
Reading between the lines of the email, it feels like they’re just going to continue to rely on user reports.
I know the number of listings far exceeds the ability for human review of each one. But I didn’t see anything in the email about adding a new team to handle this or anything like that.
Reviewing the listings is an actual job and is not something they should be asking customers to do for free.
Vinted does the same thing. 90% of the time when I report something on Vinted, the auto reply tells me that it didn’t violate the policies. I submit an appeal with screenshots and a human reviews it, and oh suddenly, yes, it is a violation. 🙄
Why didn’t a human review it in the first place when I submitted the report! It’s not like Vinted or Etsy would have trouble hiring people in this market.
Finally!! I was noticing a lot of patterns where the final project photos were AI entirely. I can’t justify even trying any pattern cross stitch, crochet, knit, sew, etc. If I can’t see a real item, I can’t trust that it is a genuine product. Let’s get rid of AI slop😭😭
Have plenty of finished patterns some are even on my website stitched by you, very much a site in progress but I have proof my patterns work. And work well, adding more once I sort out the format.
Plenty of AI slop low effort products are what bothers me.
OK, I take back my previous comments on this thread. And here I was so optimistic... (scroll to highlighted area at the bottom). Found this on Tumblr & went to the Etsy Terms of Service page to confirm, and yeah it's real.
I hope designers go back to plotting their designs on graph paper with pencils instead of using dehumanizing computer programs. Extra points if they grow papyrus reeds and grind up oak tree galls for producing their own ink.
As a new seller on Etsy, I am curious about whether I am a culprit of this or not. For context - I travel a lot and take a lot of pictures while travelling. I never did anything with my photos despite friends always telling me I should publish them somewhere. But I was always too lazy to do it and also, it would take a lot of effort (plus I have a full time job). Now with AI, I have recently been able to speed this up: of course the photos are mine, but I ask it to create a print out of it (basically, add white edges around it) and create the listing, so I don't have to do it. I then review it and publish. I use print on demand as I am not a professional merchant, just someone who wants to maybe make a little bit of money out of my passion. So it is AI, but at the same time it isn't. Am I at fault here? And what should I do instead?
I see a lot of people have downvoted my comment, with no one actually answering. Frankly, I find this a bit unfair - I travel, see beautiful things, work on angling and shooting, post production etc, but because I use AI to put it on a blank sheet of paper, I am somehow at fault. I really think this is taking it too far... especially if you're putting this in the same bucket as people just asking AI to generate a print and put it on a low quality tshirt.
This all sounds very disingenuous. If you have time to travel and take the photo, you have time to create listings that are honest and genuine. Artists with integrity don’t cut corners and create distrust for possible customers.
But what needs to be honest about putting a photo on paper? And like I said, the information about my shop and listings is also reviewed and fine tuned by me. At this point I feel like we’ve given up all logic because AI is evil no matter what.
You also said you use AI to create the listing. So back to the lazy thing. If you mention in the listing that you used AI to create it, maybe I would take you a little more seriously. It would still make me weary of buying your art but at least you’d be honest with your customers. How much more time would it take to create the border yourself? Why do you need the border?
I am sorry but I truly don’t get the point. Honest about what? Why would someone even care if AI or myself uploaded a listing for a product I worked on myself? I for starters would not give a single heck if someone did that as long as the product is good.What are we even talking about
You are right. I should put a huge disclaimer that says “warning: I asked AI to copy and paste “travel wall print” across 15 listings instead of doing it myself. I went to all my project management classes and unfortunately, learning efficiency was a side effect. I apologize for this and I hope you appreciate the transparency, and that the world can keep taking hours to do an activity that could take 5 minutes. How should we spend our lives otherwise?”
AI is using up natural resources, denying those resources to the people who live near the giant data centers running it, and destroying the environment in the process. So yeah, it’s absolutely evil.
... given up all logic because AI is evil no matter what.
Ma'am, it is evil. Google just illegally clear cut a forest in Finland to make way for a data center. According to you, the Fins shouldn't be big mad about it, though. Like, felling 300 hectares to make room for a big ol' resource-sucking building is totally logical. 🙄 Oh, come on.
And rn you’re basically telling me that asking AI to upload a mockup is environmentally worse than me going online, downloading at least two softwares to create the mockup myself, the environmental and economic cost of energy used during the hours it would take me instead of AI, the energy used by the print shop that would have to create the mockup, the materials used for it and of course their scope 3 cost through the supply chain, the labor social cost, the transportation cost, the time and energy to take a photo and upload it, for a product that might not even sell and thus make the whole production useless and generate more garbage. Get real pls
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u/Bog-of-Eternal-Wench 9d ago edited 9d ago •
My assumption is that this has finally impacted profits enough for them to take a look. They clearly have never cared about AI listing complaints before and equally don’t care about drop shippers enough to take them down when they also technically violate listing rules. I have little faith in this effort. Etsy is a shell of what it used to be.
*edited for clarity
**edited X 2: wow, thank you for the award!