Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery

From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shutterstock.com&#x2F;press&#x2F;20435?irclickid=UTywLoXV1xyITSM23oyBG2qwUkDVapU9Ey03WY0&amp;irgwc=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shutterstock.com&#x2F;press&#x2F;20435?irclickid=UTywLoXV1...</a><p>&gt; &quot;The data we licensed from Shutterstock was critical to the training of DALL-E,” said Sam Altman<p>So there was legitimate Shutterstock data used to train DALL-E. I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve read this before. The images with Shutterstock copyright watermarks were presumably scraped accidentally from the web.<p>The contributor fund is also setting a precedent that data used to train a model has a claim for payment.<p>&gt; Shutterstock is launching a “Contributor Fund” that will reimburse creators when the company sells work to train text-to-image AI models. This follows widespread criticism from artists whose output has been scraped from the web without their consent to create these systems. Notably, Shutterstock is also banning the sale of AI-generated art on its site that is not made using its DALL-E integration.

This is kind of funny because, long before DALL-E, you could Google:<p><pre><code> depressed office worker sitting on toilet, bright lighting site:shutterstock.com</code></pre> or:<p><pre><code> kangaroo riding a skateboard site:shutterstock.com </code></pre> For the casual user looking for surreal entertainment, this is a much more efficient method than going on the OpenAI waitlist, or whatever.

Sell creators content to train DALL-E without consent. This is worse than just scraping without consent. After earning money to help train DALL-E, you earn again by selling the output of it.<p>But no worries, an unknown part is shared with creators.<p>Two revenue streams without consent but they still present themselves as the ethical AI company.<p>And it&#x27;s not even clear what a customer is buying. As far as I know, AI art can&#x27;t be copyrighted.

&gt; When asked about these issues, a spokesperson for Shutterstock told The Verge that there were “lot of questions and uncertainty around this new technology, specifically when it comes to the concept of ownership,” but that the company’s stance is that “because AI content generation models leverage the IP of many artists and their content, AI-generated content ownership cannot be assigned to an individual and must instead compensate the many artists who were involved in the creation of each new piece of content.”<p>As far as I know, this is Shutterstock opinion and there is no judge rules or new laws addressing the situation.

How is this not just a marketing stunt to try and keep them looking relevant in a world where the most bargain basement stock photography is entirely commoditised?

I am waiting for the next brilliant stage of this plan... where we set up a fund to compensate all the artists whose work was used to train the artists that generated the art to train the AI. Every artist that registers for the Shutterstock compensation plan will submit a list of every artist whose worked they studied, talked about, obtained inspiration from, or even viewed. When they get compensated from the fund, a portion of their compensation will be transferred to the artists or estates of the artists on their list. For artists no longer with us with no estates the funds will be donated to the EFF.<p>I haven&#x27;t figured out how to compensate the artists that trained the artists that trained the artists that trained the AI. This gets &#x27;meta&#x27; pretty fast.

What happens I someone trains his image generation models with AI generated images? :-D

Guaranteed that company won&#x27;t exist in five years

Are the resulting images copyrighted in the name of whiever generated them? What proves that this generation happened first - Shutterstock upload?<p>What is to prevent someone from generating that same image with a prompt?<p>What would prevent them from simplu resharing that image freely with everyone, or undercutting shutterstock? If Shutterstock tries to sue, the courts may say AI generated images do not enjoy copyright protection !

Have been wondering how long before the Snapfishes and Shutterflys would monetize the enormous collection of images they’ve amassed.

Why would I buy when I can generate my own? lol

I bought aistockphotos.com when I first saw GANs starting to work but never pursued it myself.<p>I wonder if they or someone else wants to buy it?