Linearity is stealing my (and your) work

Ideas & Feedback
1

Hello, I’ve been a long term Vectornator user before it changed to Curves. 2 Weeks ago, Curves added Linearity Cloud, which has required us to create an account and agree to the Terms of Service (TOS). It also forced us sync our work to their servers, something which we cannot opt out of.

Part of the new TOS states that the content you upload will be used to train machine learning models. From the TOS itself, bold text added for clarity:

Linearity aims to provide the best user experience and uses use-tracking and machine learning to improve its Products. One of the main benefits of machine learning models is that they can be improved over time. To help Linearity provide and maintain the services, Customer agree and instruct that we may use Data (especially content uploaded to us) and technical information gathered as part of the Software to develop and improve our products and services.

Data captured in this form will only be used for Volume Checking, Time Clocks, and to improve Linearity Products and/or provide customized services to the Customer and/or User and will not be disclosed or disseminated to third parties except in an anonymized form.

Reading a TOS is difficult, so allow me to interpret: Any content you upload can be used to improve products. Machine Learning, also known as Artificial Intelligence or AI, uses large sets of Data to generate results.

In Linearity’s case, it intends to use Machine Learning AI to generate images, in a similar manner to DALL-E or Midjourney. This is clearly stated on the Pricing Page: Link. In other words, Linearity intends to use your (and my) art content to generate images for users on its upcoming premium plan.

As it stands, there is currently no means to opt out of this. If you’ve used Linearity Cloud, your work has already been uploaded, and will be used for this new Generative AI feature. Soon, people will be able to pay a monthly fee to be able to create work in your style, and you or I don’t get a say.

Whatever you think about AI Art, we can at least agree that there should be a system in place to not allow original or copyrighted work to be used in training these systems.

I have seen very few people, even in this forum, discussing this. As someone who takes pride in their own work and doesn’t want it to be used by other people for free, I am deeply concerned. This new policy is unacceptable.

I would like to see Linearity add a method to opt out of Linearity Cloud, allow us to have our data removed from any AI training sets, and provide a method for those outside of the EU to request our data be deleted entirely.

For those in the EU or Germany, you may be able to request your data be erased. See this page for more details. I request anyone affected by this to do so.

2

I had not seen the ToS update. Strongly agree.

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3

This is so crazy. Im desperately looking for another vector program I can get my files over to

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4

Came here to complain about being forced to use their cloud storage, had not read the ToS but expected something like this as their incentive.

I feel the right thing to do here is give users two opt-outs: 1. don’t use my documents for AI and 2. don’t force cloud storage. I think it’s naive of Linearity to think this will go down well with their users, or even think that we will pay to upgrade plan if these opt-outs are not available.

:-1:

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5

I’m a little surprised that they don’t make it both directions - if you want to use their upcoming (cloud) AI features on a free plan, then you need to opt-in to sharing your own data (i.e if you’re using a free plan, cloud will be mandatory, but ONLY if you want the AI features).

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6

Hi, everyone. Thank you for sharing your feedback. I’m very sorry to hear you are under such impression and I do hope to clear any confusion or misunderstanding on this extremely important topic. These are strong statements and I’m more than happy to bring clarity on them.

Firstly, I’d like to let you know that all our versions gets reviewed by the team back at Apple and we wouldn’t have passed the reviews if something was against their policy in the first place.

Secondly, we do no use anyone’s work without consent. At the moment, all our AI-powered features provide a mini toast (a :+1: or :-1: for you to rate how you liked the feature) to ask for feedback, and it is completely consensual. On top, the only data we use off of it is the accuracy of the specific AI feature, all done fully anonymously. We will be looking into the possibility of further clarifications to make this clearer.

About the statement below,

In other words, Linearity intends to use your (and my) art content to generate images for users on its upcoming premium plan.

I’m afraid this is misinformation that is rather hurtful for everyone working at the company. We do not mention anything about this on any place nor will we repurpose any user generated content for other services without explicit permission from the users. Our pricing page has been live for the past months and everything stated there remains the same.

Lastly, you will also find in the ToS that all our cloud services are linked to Amazon Web Services. Which then means all security measures are the ones from Amazon itself, which are proven to be industry standards. I hope this clarifies things better for you.

I’m here for any further questions you might have.

7

Thank you for the warning. I was also surprised by the log in requirement and have now stopped using this software.

I will let other people know that this is now an online software and will stop recommending it.

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8

Thank you for your response, I appreciate you taking the time.

Whether or not Linearity is currently using user generated content to train its machine learning algorithms is beside the point. The Terms of use clearly state that Linearity is allowed to do so if they chose, and acceptance of these terms is a requirement to use Curve. It is also a requirement that did not exist until recently, and one that cannot be opted out of. So yes, explicit consent is granted by Curve users – we have no other choice but to accept the terms and upload our content to continue using the software.

Again, it is irrelevant if Linearity is actively doing this or not. Regardless of what you say, the wording of the ToS and the fact that there is no option to disallow Linearity from using my work in this way is upsetting. Personally, I am concerned that Linearity will use my work to train generative AI, although it is clear that others have their own grievances with uploading their work to Linearity Cloud. It is telling of Linearity’s larger intentions, whatever they may be, that they are so firmly committed to forcing the cloud model onto their users. Linearity has been aware of user concerns around this for some time now, and has yet to provide any solutions to those who feel exploited or uncertain about the mandatory uploads.

Platform policy and wider security concerns are, while important, not a part of the conversation.

I, and many others, feel as though the time and effort we’ve spent creating with Vectornator and Curve has been unfairly taken from us. We are being forced to sign away our own art (“especially content uploaded to us”) to be used for however Linearity chooses so long as it falls in line with broad scope of the words “improve Linearity Products”. If these statements are so hurtful, then I strongly urge Linearity to:

  1. Clarify the Data Use policy to specify what you’ve outlined in this post (ie. only user satisfaction metrics and nothing else).
  2. Provide a way for user to fully opt out of Linearity Cloud.
  3. Officially release to the public a non-cloud version, or otherwise provide a method for users to access their work without providing their Data as was the case for all versions prior to the release of Linearity Cloud.

Until then, I cannot simply “take your word for it”. While it is nice to think that Linearity is providing unlimited cloud storage to its free users out of the goodness of their hearts, it is hard thing to believe. In my experience, such promises are too good to be true and there is always a catch. You may call the statement I’ve outlined misinformation, but as it stands, Linearity’s obtuse actions are cause for concern and one can only speculate about the companies true intentions, especially when what they’ve claimed are their legal rights are so clearly laid out.

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9

Thank you for the thorough response and I know you cannot take my word for it, nor I would ask you to. I am here to simply state the facts, moderate discussions and relay info. As for your requests:

  1. We will gladly look into making further clarifications.
  2. I’m afraid at the moment this won’t be possible. However, we are aware of the increasingly high demand.
  3. This ties in with number two and currently this is not in our scope as it requires quite a lot of development work.

Finally, we did mention monetisation arriving later this year and our pricing page has been live all along. Until then, yes, you are free to use up all the cloud storage as you please.

Thank you for being understanding and wording your concerns in a constructive way!

10

Yes I totally agree. I was quite surprised when I had to create an account to be able to access ‘my own’ work. And, stupidly, I have migrated my files. I think we should be able to opt out if we so wish. There are some things I do not wish to share, yet, maybe later, but it should be ‘my choice’.

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12

@caz I’m very sorry this took you by surprise and I can understand how you might be feeling. Rest assured, the work you upload is only there for storage and access by you and you only. We are unable to access your data without your explicit consent.

We are looking into how we can improve things but sadly I’m not in a position to promise anything as of now, I hope you understand.

13

my reply is to linearity: i’m sure you can agree that this is a very big topic for some users. don’t you think you’re brand would benefit from adding the capability of local storage? even just so the paranoid and cautious (like me) can continue to use your app and generate momentum instead of headaches.

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i suggest the next version provide a solution and a chance for users to keep their work locally and stop automatic app updates, and then release your current version with cloud only files again as you had planned

i’m happy for you to use the new system, but taking us by surprise like that was not cool. you can say you played by the rules but you still left us with no choice

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15

@yarns I understand your point and thank you for being understanding yourself. We are aware that we could have done better in communicating these changes and as mentioned already on the Forum, we will be making further improvements on how we communicate these and how we can do better.

Unfortunately I’m not able to promise anything when it comes to developing a local save only version and I do hope you can understand my position. Thank you!

16

yeah I know your position, I hope your getting paid by the hour :sweat_smile:

17

I think I used vectornator almost from day one… even talked with Vladimir and had an interview about my work….

As a professional illustrator, animator and graphic designer I use vectornator as an "inbetween”. Sketching in procreate, tracing with the (black) pen tool in vectornator and finishing (coloring) the illustration in Adobe illustrator on my computer. That has always been my workflow.

I use vectornator for it’s simplicity. I tried to create finished drawings in it but illustrator (on the computer) does the job 10 times faster, easier and better. Also tried it on my Mac but the program is missing to many basic features.

But for my needs it does a good job.

I have seen the program changing over the years… with countless errors and bugs … sometimes it was hard to find solutions due to deadlines. Sometimes bugs which were solved came back in the next update. But the last change to the cloud solution was a bit choking for me. Can’t find a reason for this other than money.

Illustrator on the iPad has the same “problem” although they have a feature called “make available offline always”

I have no need for the ai functions or the background removal tool. This is a vector program, if I want to remove a background I use Photoshop it wil do a far better job. I also don’t need templates (your a pore designer if you use them)

I have hundreds of designs which will need to be moved to your cloud. Can you tell me what will happen if the storage is full?

How can I be sure that you will not check my designs, use them for your ai training, or delete them because you find them “offending”? (Let’s say there are some bare breast in of them)

I think I used vectornator almost from day one… even talked with Vladimir and had an interview about my work….

As a professional illustrator, animator and graphic designer I use vectornator as an "inbetween”. Sketching in procreate, tracing with the (black) pen tool in vectornator and finishing (coloring) the illustration in Adobe illustrator on my computer. That has always been my workflow.

I use vectornator for it’s simplicity. I tried to create finished drawings in it but illustrator (on the computer) does the job 10 times faster, easier and better. Also tried it on my Mac but the program is missing to many basic features.

But for my needs on the iPad, it does a good job.

I have seen the program changing over the years… with countless errors and bugs … sometimes it was hard to find solutions due to deadlines. Sometimes bugs which were solved came back in the next update. But the last change to the cloud solution was a bit choking for me. Can’t find a reason for this other than money. (paying for storage for the rest of you life)

Illustrator on the iPad has the same “problem”. All files are stored somewhere at Adobe. It’s very difficult to know where they are exactly and to create a backup and If you stop paying you lose everything.

I have no need for the ai functions or the background removal tool. This is a vector program, if I want to remove a background I use Photoshop it wil do a far better job. I also don’t need templates (your a pore designer if you use them to much)

I have hundreds of designs which will need to be moved to your cloud. Can you tell me what will happen if the storage is full? At he moment I have done some migration. But the maps I made where not migrate. now I have to create them all over again.

How can I be sure that you will not check my designs, use them for your ai training, or delete them because you find them “offending”? (Let’s say there are some bare breast or adult content in them) same problem with Adobe …

You should be proud that designers use your software. But these day’s it feels like software companies (Adobe does it to) grab all designers by there throat and tell them that the designs are there’s because they are made with there software. Pay us for the rest of your life or we will erase that life.

It’s like a painter who has to pay every month for the paint he has used on his painting or else the paint supplier will erase his work.

Please, instead of paying every month ( which I find difficult in my administration) add a subscription for one, two or more years!

Greetings from Holland,
Stef Ringoot

ps; I normally speek Dutch sorry for the bad English.

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18

i have just looked at the documentation on what happened in update 5.2.4, and something jumped out at me.

i assume that your dev team works with an SVN. with such a system you always have to name the changes before you check it in.
with the build process, you can have a file output which of the changes have been used since a certain version.
why don’t you use something like this as a template? because then it would really show what has happened and not just: “This update includes bug fixes and performance improvements.” That information is so useless that you could leave it out. (yes i know, the phrase is more or less standard in the app store… but that doesn’t make it any better!)

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19

Thank you for the suggestion. This is indeed on our radar and we are hoping to be able to have resources from the content team to work on this. I do understand how essential this can be and I have stressed it internally. Rest assured, I’m hopeful we will be right on it swiftly.

20

Hello Stef! Goodness me we are lucky to have long-term fans like yourself and thank you so much for taking the time to compose your response in a very constructive and supportive way. I appreciate it. I will try to address your questions.

For the moment we don’t have any storage limitation to Linearity Cloud. However, with the subscription plan going live, this will likely change early '24. Rest assured for now, you can upload as many as you like!

We don’t have the right to “check” your content without your explicit consent. We do not use user artwork to train AI in any capacity as it stands.

We indeed will introduce long(er) term subscriptions! With very generous discounts indeed. :wink:

Thank you once again for your lovely message and attitude.
Medet

21

I noticed a few lingering questions in your answer, e.g.:

  • a current user registers with the cloud, his files of 13gb are uploaded to the cloud
  • in 2024 the decision is made: free user up to 10gb, for more than 10gb a subscription is required

what will happen to the 3gb?

  • will they simply be deleted?
  • will access to the files be denied?
  • what criteria will be used for deletion (date/last access to file)?

for an announcement of possible restrictions, 2024 is pretty damn soon! (I know it could be december 2024, but it could also be january!)