Data laundering is the conversion of stolen data so that it may be sold or used by ostensibly legitimate databases. ZDNet has described the process as "obscuring, removing, or fabricating the provenance of illegally obtained data such that it may be used for lawful purposes".[1]

Notable cases

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LAION, Stable Diffusion and other AI image generators have been accused of data laundering by the artists whose work has been used to train these programs.[2][3] However, several court cases have ruled that the acquisition of these images for the purpose of training AI engines does not violate existing copyright law,[4][5] so the term data laundering in these cases is inappropriate.

References

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  1. ^ O'Neill, Rob. "Cybercriminals boost sales through 'data laundering'". ZDNet. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
  2. ^ Devansh (14 August 2023). "Data Laundering: How Stability AI managed to get millions of copyrighted artworks without paying artists". Medium.
  3. ^ Malig, Mary Louise (9 April 2023). "The controversy of AI art theft". The Amazing Artifical Intelligence (PDF). Systemic Alternatives.
  4. ^ Gennaro, Michael (30 October 2023). "Artists beaten back in California lawsuit against AI image generators". Courthouse News Service.
  5. ^ Griffin, Matthew (3 November 2023). "Artists' Copyright Claims Against Generative AI Companies Mostly Dismissed". 311 Institute.