Shutterstock will sell AI-generated art and 'compensate' human artists

Artificial intelligence-generated images will be sold by Shutterstock. DALL-E 2 software will be used to power the images. One artist describes the move as "sewer water leak into the drinking supply".

Several photo agencies began removing art from their archives due to the use of artificial intelligence. The company would continue to ban people from uploading AI-generated art to its platform, but that it was trying to embrace new technology in an ethical way. The companies will give royalties to artists when their intellectual property is used, according to a Shuttershock spokesman.

They said that when the work of many contributed to the creation of a single piece of AI-generated content, they want to ensure that the many are protected and compensated.

Read more: Who should own the copyright on AI-generated artwork?

OpenAI didn't respond to a request for comment, but a Shutterstock spokesman said that a deal had been struck in which the artificial intelligence that produces the pictures has been trained only on images from the company's archives.

They didn't say what percentage of revenue would go to contributors or how the contributions would be divided, but they did say that contributors whose work was used to train the models will receive a share of royalties from artificial intelligence sales. It's hard to determine what data was used to create a single piece of output.

Adrian Alexander Medina, editor of literary website and magazine Aphotic Realm and a creator of book covers, has lost three potential clients to artificial intelligence. He doesn't think that selling artificial intelligence-generated art is a good idea.

A lot of my work is photo manipulation. Fees are paid for using royalty-free images. It will be like having sewer water leak into the drinking supply if websites that offer licensed assets for graphic design use begin allowing artificial intelligence into their libraries.

He is not sure about the company's plan to distribute revenue to artists. He thinks it's a feeble attempt to justify the stealing of millions if not billions of intellectual property.