We covered the Wacom Yuify following our meeting with Wacom CEO Nobutaka Ide at The VFX Festival in London. This new blockchain platform from Wacom is designed to protect and record ownership of artists' work permanently and can even set up rights and licences. Basically, if you're art is used by an AI you can trace it and monetise it, which should see more cautious use of art found online.
The big news is Wacom Yuify can now be used by everyone as it's just launched in open beta. The platform is already available as a plugin for Photoshop, now supports Celsys’ Clip Studio Paint, which is becoming more popular ever since Adobe AI tools were added to digital art apps like Photoshop, and soon Rebelle will be supported. (Read our best Clip Studio Paint tutorials to get up to speed with this painting app.)
Wacom Yuify was officially launched by Wacom at DoKomi 2024, Germany’s biggest Anime and Japan Expo, where both Wacom CEO Nobu Ide and Celsys’ president Kei Narushima joined together to make the announcement. Both stressed the importance of authorship and copyright protection for artists as AI takes hold.
"In a digital and decentralised world, we want to focus on the artist as the source and origin of any artwork," says Heidi Wang, senior vice president of Wacom’s Ink Division. "Especially for creatives who are just starting on their professional journey, it is often difficult to protect their rights. With Wacom Yuify they now have a powerful tool to secure their authorship."
Here's a breakdown from Wacom of how Yuify works.
- Secure micro-marking Wacom Yuify adds unique invisible watermarking to images, injected as pixels into a photo or artwork. The micro-mark remains intact even if an image is altered.
- Permanent record of authorship The platform created a permanent link between an artist and the artwork, recorded on a decentralised blockchain so proof-of-authorship is immutable.
- Authorship discovery Wacom Yuify offers a reverse search feature so an artwork can be traced back to the owner and creator.
To sign up visit the Wacom Yuify website where you can also find more details of this new anti-AI platform. This works with all the best drawing tablets too, you don't need a Wacom. But if you are looking for a new tablet, read our guide to the best Wacom drawing tablets.
