Shutterstock is one of the largest online sources for stock photos and illustrations. Now, customers can create their own AI images. The company announced in October a partnership with OpenAI. The deal results are now in beta testing, and all Shutterstock subscribers can access them.
According to a company press release, the new platform is available in “every language the site offers” and can be included with existing licensing packages. Each text prompt that Shutterstock receives results in four images. These images are supposedly tailored to your request. The site offers unrelated glimpses into this void at the bottom by suggesting “More AI-generated images from Shutterstock Library.”
Be careful before you leap on the opportunity to replace your stock images with AI constructs. The idea of artificial intelligence being used to create “art” is becoming more divisive. The world of generative AI presents many ethical and legal challenges.
Recent lawsuits against Stable Diffusion and other AI generators were brought for copyright infringement. There is no clear precedent as to how these cases should be handled.
Getty Images, one of Shutterstock’s major competitors, said it wouldn’t be diving into the murky waters of AI anytime soon. Getty Images banned AI-generated photos from its platform. Craig Peters, Getty CEO, said that he thought the technology was dangerous. It’s not responsible, I think. It could be illegal,” he said in an interview.
AI draws its inspiration from real people. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where and when AI generators stole from visual artists. Interpreting artistic style can be subjective. However, AI’s acts are more obvious but not more serious. If not viewed carefully, artificial intelligence could lead to a theft crisis within creative fields.
Shutterstock claims it uses datasets from Shutterstock to train its DALL-E- and LG EXAONE-powered AI to avoid concerns about artistic ethics and copyright law. Shutterstock claims it will pay artists whose work is included in its AI generation. Shutterstock will do this through a “Contributor Fund.”
The fund will “directly compensate Shutterstock contributors” if their IP is used to develop AI-generative models, such as the OpenAI model, through licensing data from Shutterstock’s database. The company explains this in the FAQ section of its website. It further states that Shutterstock will continue to pay contributors for future licensing of AI-generated material through the Shutterstock AI Content Generation Tool.
At the close of the last quarter of the 2022 fiscal year, the first payment to contributors was set to be made in December. It is unclear how many contributors were paid in December and how much was distributed.
Shutterstock also includes a smart caveat in its guidelines for AI images. The company states that the generated image must not be used to infringe or misappropriate any intellectual property rights or other rights of any third parties to generate spam or false, misleading or deceptive, harmful, or violent imagery. Although I’m not a lawyer, this clause seems to place the responsibility on the customer to avoid getting into trouble.
You can try the tool from here: Shutterstock AI Image Tool
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