“Getty Images releases its own AI image generator”
After suing other generative-AI tools for training on Getty Images, Getty now reveals they have a generative-AI tool they’d rather you use, that uses all of their images.
I find this odd because Getty Images, on the back of crying foul for using their contributors’ works to train other AI, trained their own system –likely without asking permission of their contributors– but say (like Adobe) used pre-existing agreements for use as a reason for why they were allowed to train their own AI off of contributors’ submissions — even though they did not submit when AI training was even a thing.
May this also be a further lesson to all artists or contractors who sign contracts that have the phrasing “in perpetuity, for use in any and all media, throughout the universe”. Corporations don’t care about art; they don’t care about artists; they care about only one thing: making money for themselves.
I did fundraising for a film that focused on a niche mental health area. I reached out to a number of huge organizations seeing if there could be a partnership or even if they could send their network a link to what I was doing. The reply I always got back, even if it was a non-profit, was a variation on “Sorry, we only do fundraising to bring in money for ourselves, we wouldn’t want to dilute that by spreading word of your thing”. Never, “Oh, how can we pair up to help the cause?” or “We’d love to know more so even if we cannot help with funding or spreading the word before your film is done, we’d love to see it and maybe spread the word once it is completed.” Corporations care about one thing only, and it isn’t you, and it isn’t even copyrights, unless they own them. Getty Images has shown this greed loud and clear.
