Getty jumps on the generative AI bandwagon

It doesn’t seem so long ago that Getty was getting all in a flap and suing Stable Diffusion AI for its unauthorised use of their images. Well, as they say: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Getty has just announced that it too, will be offering the option of AI-generated images.

Generative AI by Getty Images was launched yesterday in collaboration with NVIDIA. “A new tool that pairs our best-in-class creative content with the latest AI technology for a commercially safe generative AI tool” says the announcement in a LinkedIn post.

The relatively short post explains that the tool works “seamlessly” with Getty’s existing library of images. Like Adobe Firefly, any AI-generated image from Getty will come with full indemnification and be suitable for commercial use.

I must admit that this isn’t really all that surprising since both Adobe and Shutterstock began offering AI generation months ago. But until now, Getty dug its heels in over this AI image generation.

In fact, it was only one year ago, almost exactly, that Getty banned AI images from its website. It appears to have done an about-face on this matter.

But judging by comments on the LinkedIn post, contributors to Getty stock aren’t going to be happy. Just as Adobe’s stock contributors couldn’t see how this AI move wouldn’t affect their sales.

More to the point, the US Copyright Office has iterated several times over in the past year that no AI-generated image has any copyright power. That makes using these images for commercial purposes rather haphazard.

Still, this seems to be the future in terms of AI generation. The stock companies can’t really compete without jumping on the bandwagon. If you’re a stock photographer and you haven’t diversified yet, I would seriously start making a move.

---