Flying Dutchman Shirt - An Update

Hello everyone!

We have seen the threads from yesterday regarding the potential use of AI in the generation of the Flying Dutchman shirt from September. We wanted to go ahead and share what we have uncovered and the path forward. Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

First off, thanks to everyone involved in getting this heads-up to us. We love that our community has standards that match our own and that you are proactive in keeping those standards.

As to the shirt in question, we checked into this immediately last night when we saw these threads. We feel like we have gotten to the bottom of things and wanted to share that information as well as next steps moving forward.

• This shirt was put together by a new freelance designer engaged by one of our partners, due to our normal folks being tied up on other projects. While we didn't know it was AI assisted at the time, we have since confirmed that - while elements of the design are human generated - AI has been used for this shirt both as a basis and for assisted elements. Essentially the artist in question generated something in AI and then redrew a lot (but not all, clearly) of the elements.
• Clearly, this is not acceptable - and while we have never instructed anyone to use AI for anything (nor would we), we also never explicitly banned it in things like contracts and the like. We just assumed it was an unwritten rule that everyone understood.
• This was reviewed - as all merch items are - before release and we missed it as well (so that’s on us and we sincerely apologize - clearly catching AI in pixel art is a skill we need to enhance)
• To be very clear, our merch partner is as upset as we are here (it slipped past them as well), and they are 100% behind actions to make this right.

So all that said, what are we going to do about it?

• The shirt in question has been removed from the store and delisted from terraria.org
• We are proactively refunding all purchases of this shirt - even folks who are not aware of this information and/or still like the shirt. They are welcome to keep the shirt of course.

How will we prevent this moving forward?

• AI art is ONLY to be used as needed in things like “promo art” backgrounds - like the dock scene used in promo images for this shirt. This too is strongly discouraged and should be avoided - and only intended to cover the event of any stock photos used unknowingly containing AI elements. Any such accidental incidents should be addressed to remove AI once discovered. AI may not be used for the design or production of products in any way. (EDITED THE ABOVE FOR CLARITY AS IT WAS CONFUSING)
• Our merch partner has updated external/freelance artist contracts to explicitly forbid the use of AI in product design to match those guidelines. This formalizes the previously unwritten rule. All past/current and future artists working with our partner will be required to sign this.
• Our merch partner has reviewed all other past and planned products to ensure that this is the only incident - and they have confirmed that this is the case to us this morning.
• We will be reviewing this with our other merch partners so that our standards here are very clear.

Again, please accept our sincere apologies for this incident on behalf of both our merch partner and Re-Logic. It’s not acceptable, but we hope everyone is good with the steps we are taking to make it right and prevent any repeat occurrences.

Thanks again for your attention to detail and for letting us know!

Hello everyone!

We have seen the threads from yesterday regarding the potential use of AI in the generation of the Flying Dutchman shirt from September. We wanted to go ahead and share what we have uncovered and the path forward. Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

First off, thanks to everyone involved in getting this heads-up to us. We love that our community has standards that match our own and that you are proactive in keeping those standards.

As to the shirt in question, we checked into this immediately last night when we saw these threads. We feel like we have gotten to the bottom of things and wanted to share that information as well as next steps moving forward.

• This shirt was put together by a new freelance designer engaged by one of our partners, due to our normal folks being tied up on other projects. While we didn't know it was AI assisted at the time, we have since confirmed that - while elements of the design are human generated - AI has been used for this shirt both as a basis and for assisted elements. Essentially the artist in question generated something in AI and then redrew a lot (but not all, clearly) of the elements.
• Clearly, this is not acceptable - and while we have never instructed anyone to use AI for anything (nor would we), we also never explicitly banned it in things like contracts and the like. We just assumed it was an unwritten rule that everyone understood.
• This was reviewed - as all merch items are - before release and we missed it as well (so that’s on us and we sincerely apologize - clearly catching AI in pixel art is a skill we need to enhance)
• To be very clear, our merch partner is as upset as we are here (it slipped past them as well), and they are 100% behind actions to make this right.

So all that said, what are we going to do about it?

• The shirt in question has been removed from the store and delisted from terraria.org
• We are proactively refunding all purchases of this shirt - even folks who are not aware of this information and/or still like the shirt. They are welcome to keep the shirt of course.

How will we prevent this moving forward?

• AI art is ONLY to be used as needed in things like “promo art” backgrounds - like the dock scene used in promo images for this shirt. This too is strongly discouraged and should be avoided - and only intended to cover the event of any stock photos used unknowingly containing AI elements. Any such accidental incidents should be addressed to remove AI once discovered. AI may not be used for the design or production of products in any way. (EDITED THE ABOVE FOR CLARITY AS IT WAS CONFUSING)
• Our merch partner has updated external/freelance artist contracts to explicitly forbid the use of AI in product design to match those guidelines. This formalizes the previously unwritten rule. All past/current and future artists working with our partner will be required to sign this.
• Our merch partner has reviewed all other past and planned products to ensure that this is the only incident - and they have confirmed that this is the case to us this morning.
• We will be reviewing this with our other merch partners so that our standards here are very clear.

Again, please accept our sincere apologies for this incident on behalf of both our merch partner and Re-Logic. It’s not acceptable, but we hope everyone is good with the steps we are taking to make it right and prevent any repeat occurrences.

Thanks again for your attention to detail and for letting us know!