Getty Images, one of the world's leading stock picture providers, will begin eliminating images generated by artificial intelligence from its website and will no longer accept submissions of AI-created works.
"We've already started removing content, but this will be an ongoing effort from our teams," Craig Peters, Getty Images CEO said. "For our creative content library, we require signed model and property releases and biometric releases for entities contained in the imagery and we continue to leverage our content review processes and technologies."
Popular AI picture producers like Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney will no longer be permitted on the platform, according to PetaPixel.
According to Peters, AI content in its library is already "extremely limited," and "there were already significant controls for our editorial offering."
Peters would not clarify whether Getty had already run into legal issues with AI-generated content. The corporation is collaborating with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity to develop filters for AI-generated content, and it is urging users to report anything that gets past.
The move isn't surprising. While utilizing artificial intelligence to create an image is not inherently illegal, generators frequently sample images that may be copyrighted. Getty and its clients may face legal consequences for effectively stealing and profiting from art. There is also the possibility that governments will create laws and restrictions restricting the usage of the technology.
There is no guarantee that the ban will be effective in practice. As The Verge points out, it's not difficult to locate AI-generated images on Getty right now. However, we doubt the corporation would change its tune unless it discovers AI systems that are guaranteed to generate totally lawful images.
While the designers of prominent AI picture synthesis models argue that their products generate work that is protected by copyright, the issue of copyright over AI-generated photographs has not yet been fully established. It's worth noting that an often-cited Smithsonian piece titled "US Copyright Office Rules AI Art Can't Be Copyrighted" has an incorrect title and is frequently misconstrued. In that case, a researcher attempted to register an AI algorithm as a non-human owner of a copyright, which was disallowed by the Copyright Office. The owner of the copyright must be human (or a group of humans, in the case of a corporation).
According to reports, Shutterstock, another stock photography provider, appears to be following in Getty's footsteps and has begun eliminating AI-created pictures from its site as well.
