For context: Cara is an artists social platform that gained traction after Instagram made you agree to let them use your pictures for whatever purpose (train AI most likely). The platform has a firm stance against the use of generative AI and even has Glaze built in (a tool to poison pictures for when they’re fed to AI).

Only recently I saw a post here on Lemmy about someone scraping all of Cara and posting about it (https://lemmy.world/post/50643500). Apparently it’s been already three times.

These people really have no shame. Fuck them.

Jingna Zhang is now collecting funds to support Cara in taking legal action. Here is the official post:

https://blog.cara.app/blog/cara-needs-your-help

Cara needs your help. We have been scraped a third time. This is now a targeted attack meant to cause artists pain.

Scrapers know we’re a volunteer project with no financial means to respond. So they say it’s legal, believing themselves untouchable.

We’re taking action.

I believe artists who want to share their work with the world should get to do so without people violating their consent. We won’t be forced into making Cara members-only because some people think “consent isn’t always valid”. You don’t blame victims after harming them.

These scrapers feel safe because they know we’re small team of volunteers, that we have no way of affording help.

So I’m asking our community, will you come together? Please help us take legal action.

Other platforms may not care because artists are easy targets to bully. No one really stands with us.

But I care because it is my home, our home. I won’t let them trample over the hearts of everyone. Our team may be small, but we want to defend Cara.

I have a lot on my plate and my body is falling apart from all I’ve taken on these past years. But I always think, when we’re alive, we should do what’s right.

People who think they can harm others because it’s “legal” shouldn’t get away with it. I refuse to give up.

I don’t want this to become encouragement for open season on artists just because we seem powerless.

So I want to take legal action and find out just what we can or cannot do. I want to know what I need to do next, to make this twisted world change. To hold people accountable.

If you can, please consider donating whether it’s $1, $10, or $50 to our legal fund. This will help us seek counsel for legal options for both Cara and its artists, and in carrying out necessary legal actions.

Please help us stop scrapers from targeting artists.

https://gofundme.com/f/help-cara-legal-fund

Jingna Zhang
Founder, Cara