An artist friend reached out: her work showed up in an AI-generated gallery online—without permission, without credit, and definitely without payment.

This isn’t rare. This is the internet now. And it raises the biggest question in digital ownership since the days of Napster: who owns what?

AI models need training data. But at what point does “training” become theft? If my code, my art, or my voice becomes part of a system I can’t opt out of—what rights do I have?

It’s time for tech and policy to catch up. My suggestion? Push for watermarking standards, data provenance tagging, and opt-out registries. Because if we don’t draw lines now, we may not get the chance later.