By D. D. DEGG
Editor’s note: This story was originally published on DailyCartoonist.com. Pedro X. Molina also contributed to this story.
It seems a fairly new YouTube uploader is taking cartoonists’ original cartoons, “re-imagining” (read: swiping) them through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and then passing them off as their own.
Pedro X. Molina noted and provided samples:
“I found this online and thought you might find it interesting. I have no problem with the ethical use of technology, but what I am attaching here is… well, something else. There is someone who goes by the name of ‘AmeriSatire’ and/or ‘ToonAmerica’ who is stealing our cartoons, ‘redrawing’ them with AI, signing them and uploading them to Social Media.”
AI has changed the drawing a bit while leaving the basic layout and perspective, but the plagiarists mostly leave the script exactly the same.
Molina asks, “If AI can block words to avoid some kinds of abuse, why can’t it block the (ab)use of other people’s art? I don’t know if AmeriSatire/ToonAmerica are the only ones doing this or if YouTube and TikTok are the only platforms they are using; but, if there aren’t more right now, there will probably be more in the future. This is one more reason to reject the unethical use of AI.”
Cartoonist Rights Facebook has picked up Pedro’s post and spread the word: “Please report and block these accounts on YouTube: Amerisatire and ToonAmerica.”
I have to think that YouTube doesn’t yet know about the wholesale theft of intellectual property being posted on its site for the past month – the sites seem to have started in April 2025.
A group of cartoonists are gathering to put an end to the offenders and should shut them down quickly.
Terry Anderson, Executive Director of Cartoonists Rights has replied to Pedro’s message:
“… the cartoons are invariably poorer to boot. Not just the obvious typos and such mistakes. The storytelling in yours is completely lost, for example.
“Don’t know about TikTok, but YouTube does not allow misleading channel descriptions.
“ToonAmerica says that after ‘deep research’ it uses AI only to finish ‘manually sketch[ed] unique, raw cartoon concepts’ an obvious lie.
“AmeriSatire is trickier, but it does mention ‘freshest takes’ which implies originality.
“I suggest all affected cartoonists report these channels on that basis.”
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At a Hogan’s Alley Facebook post, James Allen contacted Daryl Cagle about this shifty business.
“We’ve sent many DMCA take down notices to YouTube when the infringer, who goes by different aliases and resides in Turkey, was posting our cartoons in their videos without alteration. YouTube took down some of their channels and many of their videos, but not all. They put up new channels when other channels when YouTube deletes channels in response to the DMCA notices.
“It is more difficult for us to identify the infringed cartoons that are redrawn by AI, and we haven’t sent DMCA notices to YouTube yet regarding the AI cartoon infringement. We’ll need to identify a batch of cartoons and see how YouTube reacts. Right now, identifying the cartoons is the problem.”
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