By MARCIO MORETTO RIBEIRO*

The lack of protection threatens artistic creation, as artificial intelligence models feed on collections produced by human artists without compensation or consent

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Over the past week, Studio Ghibli’s visual style has taken social media by storm—not through new Japanese animations, but through an avalanche of AI-generated images. The handcrafted, dreamlike, and subtly melancholic aesthetic of Hayao Miyazaki’s films has been captured—or rather, simulated—by systems trained on vast amounts of visual data, in many cases without any consent from the original artists.

It is worth remembering that Hayao Miyazaki is notoriously against the use of artificial intelligence in artistic creation. Even so, the viralization of the so-called “Ghibli effect” generated enthusiasm among users, who enjoyed seeing their own photos transformed into the visual style of the Japanese studio. At the same time, the phenomenon caused concern among illustrators, who denounced the unauthorized use of personal styles as yet another step in the predatory automation of culture. Thus, the episode rekindled an old debate: how to protect artistic creation without stifling technological innovation?

To begin with, it is worth going back a few decades to put the debate into perspective. During the 2000s, the open digital culture movement expressed a broad critique of the way the entertainment industry used the legal apparatus of copyright to contain innovation and preserve declining business models. The nascent internet culture – made up of blogs, forums and wikis – depended on the freedom to transform existing works into new creations.

The defense of the unrestricted circulation of content was not just a rebellion against the old media world, but a bet on the emancipatory potential of networks. In this spirit, authors such as Yochai Benkler saw in digital interconnection and the abundance of computational resources the basis for a new form of value generation: social production in networks. Just as the wealth of nations had been explained by market exchange, the new wealth of networks would come from the voluntary collaboration between connected individuals.

Projects like the Wikipedia and the movement “with “free” showed that people motivated by social, emotional and intellectual values ​​could produce and distribute relevant cultural goods outside the logic of profit. This form of organization optimized the use of technical capabilities, expanded individual autonomy and democratized access to culture and information.

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In that moment of techno-optimistic enthusiasm, the big villains were the lobbies from the entertainment industry who were pushing for stricter regulation of copyright and intellectual property. These lobbies were seen as conservative forces trying to stifle innovation in order to protect declining distribution models and power structures. The prevailing rhetoric was that regulation – especially that focused on copyright – impeded the free circulation of knowledge and threatened the very foundations of the new digital economy. Resistance to these attempts at control was, at the same time, a defense of freedom of expression and a commitment to new forms of cultural production and distribution based on collaboration and sharing.

It is important to remember that copyright It is not a form of property in the traditional sense, but a regulatory tool created to encourage cultural production and diffusion. Since ideas and creative expressions are not rival goods, their use does not exclude use by others – therefore, copyright is a temporary monopoly artificially conferred to stimulate creation.

This mechanism, however, has historically been distorted by the entertainment industry, which has used the copyright to block reinterpretations and prolong monopolies. Ironically, today we see the opposite movement: it is the lack of protection that threatens artistic creation, since artificial intelligence models feed on collections produced by human artists without compensation or consent. Without minimum guarantees, the risk is to discourage cultural production and impoverish aesthetic diversity.

The belief that digital networks would expand individual freedom and strengthen democracy peaked in the early 2010s, with mobilizations such as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street and, here, the protests of June 2013. Social media were seen as instruments of horizontal organization and renewal of the public sphere, capable of circumventing consolidated power structures.

But this optimism soon gave way to skepticism, as the same platforms became dominated by strategies of disinformation, algorithmic manipulation and polarization. What once seemed like a space of emancipation has become an environment marked by radicalization and erosion of democratic consensus.

In both historical moments, the problem is not simply technology, but the use of power to operate complex systems for one's own benefit. In the first case, it was the entertainment industry that mobilized the legal apparatus and state mechanisms to reinforce copyright in a more restrictive way, trying to contain the digital transformation that threatened its business models.

In the second, we see far-right populists operating the digital communications system created by the platforms – an ecosystem designed to maximize engagement, not to promote public debate or the common good.

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Faced with these challenges, individual responses – such as civil disobedience that challenged the copyright in the past or the boycott of ChatGPT today – are proving insufficient. Atomized criticism, however legitimate it may be, cannot confront forms of power that operate in an organized and strategic manner. Repeating the bet that digital platforms could, by themselves, organize communication and culture fairly would be to repeat the mistake of the techno-optimists of the early 2010s.

We rely too much on the technical architecture of networks and neglect the role of institutions. Protecting culture requires a collective response, based on explicit rules and democratic legitimacy – not a spontaneous movement guided by symbolic gestures.

Artistic production is a matter of common interest. It enriches public life, shapes collective memory and even inspires the artificial intelligence systems that today attempt to simulate it. But artificial intelligence does not create from scratch: it relies on a vast base of human content. Without adequate protection for creators, this cultural base risks becoming impoverished or even exhausted.

Protecting those who create does not mean stopping innovation, but ensuring that it continues to exist in a fair, plural and vibrant way. If we want a future where culture has room to flourish, boycotting is not enough. We need to regulate.

*Marcio Moretto Ribeiro is a professor of Public Policy at EACH-USP.

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