Should Bloggers Protest AI?

WPBarista has been catering to bloggers since 2008. As that recession hit America, more people fled to the internet to begin this ‘blogging’ thing. It was lucrative and fun and full of hope and community. Recently however, the mood has been changing.

The change is, in large part, due to the widespread use of Artificial Intelligence chat bots. I’d like to look historically at a few technological advances to see if we can learn how to manage these types of changes in a positive way. I’d especially like to know how the ‘old tech’ users adapted to ‘new tech’ so we can take lessons from their experiences. But first let’s get on the same page to start – what exactly, are the issues with AI?

The Impact of AI-Generated Content on Bloggers and Online Creators

AI is producing articles, blog posts, and SEO optimized content in seconds. The ease of creation and sheer amount of content, has lowered the price of gig work. The prolificacy of information has increased the competition to gain traffic and attention.

AI is affecting search engines as well who are losing their users to AI Chatbots. This is forcing them to rethink how they direct traffic vs. answering questions directly. For now, we see Google and other search engines display AI-generated answers instead of sending readers to the answer, further diluting the chances for traffic.

Recent data shows AI chatbots send 96% less traffic to publisher websites compared to traditional search (source).

The AI LLM (type of AI) themselves are also ‘trained’ without permission on most of the internet’s contents – including yours. And to add insult to injury the AI-generated answers look an awful lot like your copyrighted content.

In practical terms, if Jen asks an AI chatbot, what ingredients do I need for chocolate cake?, Jen will receive a list. Jen will never visit the recipe author’s site, where that list originated. That means lost page views and ad revenue for bloggers, whose earnings depend on web traffic.

In short, AI is reshaping the content landscape, and bloggers are grappling with what it means for their careers.

Content Creators’ Reactions: Current Landscape

Content creators have employed a range of tactics to protest or mitigate the impact of AI on their livelihoods. Let’s take a quick look at where we are now:

Legal Battles

Numerous lawsuits have been filed by writers, artists, and other creators challenging AI companies’ use of copyrighted material.

Right to Refuse: Under traditional copyright law, we must first ask permission (opt-in) before using a work. Currently, AI has been ignoring this and has adopted an “opt-out” approach. This means creators must proactively block AI bots, which is not the intent of the copyright laws.

• The Authors’ Guild sued Open AI earlier this year – 2025(source)
• Getty Images sued an AI firm for ingesting its photos
• an education company (Chegg) sued Google in 2024, claiming the search engine’s AI answers were taken from Chegg’s materials

Copyright Law: Current copyright law doesn’t recognize AI as an author, and any AI-generated text or image has unclear copyright status, which complicates matters (source)

Labor Strikes and Collective Bargaining

Some examples of unions representing groups of creatives.

• Writers Guild of America (WGA) — the union representing film and TV writers — rewrote the agreement to reduce the reach of AI in the relevant work (source).
• Some news media unions and journalist groups are pressing for policies on AI in newsrooms.
• While bloggers and small-scale freelancers don’t have a formal union, they’ve formed online alliances and advocacy groups (for example, the Authors Guild in the US, which includes many freelance writers, has been vocal in lobbying for AI accountability)

Fair compensation. The argument is this: if their copyrighted blog posts, articles, or images are used to train profitable AI systems, they should get a fair share of the benefits.

Social Media Movements and Public Campaigns

Much of the creator resistance has taken place online.

• Digital Artists at ArtStation staged a ‘No AI Art’ campaign that saw thousands of artists participating, causing ArtStation’s front page to be covered in protest images.
• In mid-2023, an open letter from over 8,000 authors and creators demanded tech companies respect copyright and seek consent for using creative works in AI (source).
• over 1,000 musicians (from Kate Bush to Paul McCartney) joined a campaign and even released a “silent album” protest, arguing that using their music to generate AI content without paying them is essentially “legalised theft.”
• 2025, the UK’s House of Lords voted down a permissive policy for AI and instead added amendments requiring AI firms to obey copyright law and inform creators about the use of their work

This is where we are – now let’s see if we can pick up some tips from tech advances in our history and how those affected adjusted to the changes.

History Lessons: Napster & Music Industry

History shows us that when new technology emerges, it can disrupt entire professions – but it also shows how workers adapt (or fail to) and how industries eventually find a new equilibrium. Let’s look at what we can learn from Napster, in the 2000’s.

Napster, launched in 1999, was a file-sharing service that let users ‘share’ MP3 music files for free. It became wildly popular almost overnight, providing unlimited access to free music. Napster upended the decades-old model where fans bought music, as albums, and provided royalty income to artists.

Artists and record labels fought back hard. Metallica and other artists (like Dr. Dre and Madonna) won court injunctions, and by 2001 Napster was forced to shut down.

On the surface, this looked like a victory for creators’ rights – an illegal service was stopped. But the technology had changed our behavior around the purchase and use of music. We wanted single songs, and we wanted them digitally.

The recording industry’s revenue continued to decline in the early 2000s. Apple’s iTunes launched in 2003, selling songs for $0.99. A few years later came streaming services (Spotify, etc.), These services were legal and generated revenue, but the economics for artists changed drastically.

Did the industry adapt?

Musicians had to adapt their expectations and business models: income from selling records dropped, so many artists became more reliant on live concerts, merchandise, and licensing music for commercials or movies.

The industry eventually stopped shrinking — global music revenue began rising again in the 2010s, largely thanks to streaming — but much of the profit goes to tech companies and labels, with artists often receiving only tiny fractions of a cent per stream.

Today’s AI startups may be taking a page from that playbook, deploying AI widely and fast (using whatever data is available) to become indispensable before regulations kick in.

Musicians tried to stop the technology with lawsuits, and partially succeeded. But the technology changed the underlying demands of consumers. Likewise, even if creators win some court cases against AI, the technology will change the way we consume and demand information.

History Lessons: Photography and Artists

Before cameras, portraiture was a major source of income for artists. In the mid-1800s, however, photography became accessible to the masses. This had a profound impact on portrait painters.

Artists of that era responded in different ways.

• Some portrait painters shifted to other subjects to survive. They started painting landscapes, still lifes, or historical scenes where photography of the time couldn’t easily compete.
• Others embraced photography as a tool. For example, famous painters like Edgar Degas used photographs as references to improve their drawings of human figures, essentially blending the new technology into their artistic process
• entrepreneurs went straight into the booming new field of professional photography

Not surprisingly there was considerable backlash in the art community. The famous French poet, Charles Baudelaire in 1859 worried that if people valued exact likeness over creativity, it would degrade the artistic spirit. He essentially accused photography of being a craft for those “too lazy” to do real art. Sound familiar? 🙂

Did the industry adapt?

• The whole thing nudged the art world toward impressionism instead of realism! It had a huge impact!
• We also see a bit of industry consolidation. The new technology increased demand, which was met by enterprising entrepreneurs who put artists, developers and photographers together.
• Some who treated the camera as a tool or moved to creative interpretation continued to find work

As we face the AI revolution, I believe truly insightful pieces, storytelling and creativity will stand out and draw a unique and passionate audience.

Conclusions & Lessons Learned

Lesson #1: AI is not going anywhere

In all cases – whether it was the camera, or Napster-like digital distribution – the technological innovation ultimately became widely adopted because it offered some clear advantages to consumers. Efforts to halt or reverse a major tech advancement rarely succeed long-term.

Lesson #2: Expect Difficulty

The introduction of new tech often causes immediate pain for workers in the old model: portrait artists lost clients, musicians lost album sales, and now bloggers may lose traffic.

However, in the long run, many displaced professionals find adjacent or evolved roles. Painters explored artistic styles that photography couldn’t do; many musicians doubled down on live performances and novel distribution channels.

You took on blogging as an entrepreneur when success wasn’t guaranteed – and I believe you have the grit and determination to weather this storm. You’ve got this!

Lesson #3: Differentiation is Crucial

Historically, when cheap mass-produced options appear (printed books vs. handwritten manuscripts, photos vs. paintings, AI content vs. human writing), there remains an appetite for the human touch – though often at a different scale.

In the same way, human-written content may not compete on every front with AI-generated text, but there could be a premium on content that clearly has a human voice, creativity, and trustworthiness.

Offer something AI cannot.

• investigative journalism that requires human judgment
• humorous personal essays
• highly original research and opinions

Lesson #4: Consider Consolidation

Past shifts often led to consolidation in some form.

• After the printing press, printing shops and publishers became powerful, whereas individual scribes largely disappeared.
• In the music world post-Napster, a few big streaming platforms now dominate distribution, and record labels merged or shifted strategies.

The blogging and freelance writing industry might consolidate, with fewer viable independent creators and more content coming from a handful of tech-enabled entities. As the future unfolds, consider opportunities to join with like minded creators.

Lesson #5: Legal Ramifications

Another lesson is the importance of new rules and norms. After Napster, new laws and digital rights management tools emerged; after early photography, eventually copyright laws were extended to photographs as well (ensuring photographers had rights too);

In the AI context, the fight for legal protections and norms now will shape the environment in which bloggers operate. If creators succeed in securing their rights, then the future might be a more balanced one where independent creators still have a place.

Lesson #6: Grit & Resiliency

Time and again, artists, writers, and creators have found ways to coexist with new technology. AI is undoubtedly a disruptive force for blogging and content creation, but it could also spur a renaissance of creative forms.

We might see bloggers finding new creative niches because AI handles the routine stuff. Just as printing presses eventually led to more writers and more reading public, AI might lead to more content overall and new kinds of content roles.

Can Content Creators Survive the AI Revolution?

The impact of AI-generated content on bloggers is profound, echoing earlier technological advances. By learning from the past and engaging in the current debates over AI and IP, small-scale creators can improve their chances of finding a place in the future content ecosystem.

There is still room for your voice.

Just as the printing press didn’t eliminate the need for authors, and photography didn’t kill art, AI won’t eliminate the need for human storytellers and experts. It will, however, change the tools and economics.

Creators who understand this – and leverage their unique style and voice – stand the best chance to survive in the next chapter of digital content creation.