Getty Images Bans AI-Generated Content Over Fears of Legal Challenges

Getty Images has banned the upload and sale of illustrations generated using AI art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. From a report: It's the latest and largest user-generated content platform to introduce such a ban, following similar decisions by sites including Newgrounds, PurplePort, and FurAffinity. Getty Images CEO Craig Peters told The Verge that the ban was prompted by concerns about the legality of AI-generated content and a desire to protect the site's customers. "There are real concerns with respect to the copyright of outputs from these models and unaddressed rights issues with respect to the imagery, the image metadata and those individuals contained within the imagery," said Peters. Given these concerns, he said, selling AI artwork or illustrations could potentially put Getty Images users at legal risk. "We are being proactive to the benefit of our customers," he added. One of Getty Images' biggest competitors, Shutterstock, also seems to be limiting some searches for AI content but hasn't yet introduced specific policies banning the material.

If they can't own it, they don't want it.

[Holi]

Since a work meets the requirements of copyright protection only if it is created by a human author, all this AI generated art ends up in the public domain. Getty does not like hosting images they can't charge a fortune for.

Re:

[splutty]

More likely the problem is when posters want to sell these AI generated images, which they do not have the actual copyright/ownership on.

Re:

[MightyMartian]

I don't think who exactly owns any AI-generated art has yet been established. This appears to be a pretty muddy gray area, so I can understand why some organizations and companies might not be the one who ends up being the first to be hauled into court over copyright infringement. Even if they win, it's costly and time-consuming. Let someone else be the judicial guinea pig.

Re:

[splutty]

Yep. That would cause all sorts of nasty stuff, I'm sure.

And it's fairly established at the moment, through a number of court cases, that AI art is not copyrightable at all, so it basically belongs to no one.

Selling it as if it were your own might not be a fantastic idea in that case. Once the buyer finds out it's public domain, they might reverse the charge/demand the money back/whatever.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Yep. That would cause all sorts of nasty stuff, I'm sure.

And it's fairly established at the moment, through a number of court cases, that AI art is not copyrightable at all, so it basically belongs to no one.

Selling it as if it were your own might not be a fantastic idea in that case. Once the buyer finds out it's public domain, they might reverse the charge/demand the money back/whatever.

The problem isn't that the art it creates isn't copyrightable, but the source art may be copyrighted.

A lot of the art is

Re:

[splutty]

Never even really thought of that. That's a great point!

At what point is it or isn't it a Ship of Theseus.

Re: If they can't own it, they don't want it.

[PPH]

This could be a real problem for AI "No Code" [slashdot.org] generated software. At some point, the machine generated content will cross some threshold and the DMCA (and copyright) will no longer apply.

Re:If they can't own it, they don't want it.

[Paxtez]

Yeah, I thought it was already ruled that AI/animal generated art doesn't get copyright protections?

To me this seems like they are just trying to stem the tide of this AI generated works thing. Stock image sites will be useless in a couple of years. Why pay a stock image site when you can just go to one of the AI pages and type "Woman laughing while eating a salad."

Re:

[war4peace]

I wonder what "Salad laughing while eating a woman" would yield...

Re:

[luis_a_espinal]

Since a work meets the requirements of copyright protection only if it is created by a human author, all this AI generated art ends up in the public domain. Getty does not like hosting images they can't charge a fortune for.

This opens some very interesting questions. What if an AI tool is used just as a tool wielded by an artist, using content he/she owns as a "seed", guiding the generation process along the way? Sure, the AI ultimately generated the content, just as a pivoting platform generates splash patterns in abstract art. The artist is the one driving the tool (or tools) according to his/her artistic vision.

I see AI no different from a GIMP filter that adds "texture" or "distort" or "enhance" according to how I tell i

Re:

[Visarga]

First of all, I don't think we can overlook the substantial human work involved in the creation of AI art. Someone has to pick a topic, then choose his words, then iterate 100 times, sometimes branching out, creating variations, masking out portions, collaging, drawing guides, inverting images to concepts. Even after all that we might still throw the whole lot in the bin. Even if the human just did the final filtering of AI images, I still think that counts as work put into that piece. So the image copyrigh

Re:

[Holi]

This has been litigated and a simple search would get you the answer.

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[RightSaidFred99]

Yes, but that's not true at all. The AI owner owns the copyright, just the same as they own the copyright if they use Photoshop to make an image.

Re:

[Holi]

So you didn't look it up at all I see. AI created art cannot be copyrighted according to the US Copyright office.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com... [smithsonianmag.com]

Problem is the AIs are stealing the art

[jhecht]

The problem is that the AI's are skimming copyrighted images from the web and using them in the art they create. The artists are getting rather annoyed and calling out the lawyers, and Getty is not the only one banning the uploading and sale of AI-generated art. Judging from the way they companies are bailing out, the original artists have a good case for damages from anybody selling the art, and probably from the creators of the AI who are trying to sell the art as well. The AIs turn out to be pretty damn

Re: Problem is the AIs are stealing the art

[topham]

Not how it works.

Re:

[pacinpm]

This art is still created by the human. It requires text input. AI is just a tool. Similarly to image created in Photoshop.

I guess they can't figure out how to steal it

[Revek]

Getty images is full of images they don't own but claim.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

If they violate copyright on one "normal" image then they've only violated copyright once.

What if the image is deemed to also constitute violation of copyrights on other works?

Why Not Use Open Source Images

[zenlessyank]

For content creation by AI. Seems like it would solve a lot of problems. There are lots of sites that host open source images.

Re:

[radaos]

Open source images are fine for a photo of a landscape or something. A request for 'A dancing rabbit as painted by Dali' is not going to work unless there is an set of Dali's art in the training data.

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[lsllll]

Just last night I generated an image in Stable Diffusion based on "two cats playing chess in picasso style". The results were rather convincing, but, like you said, it is trained on Picasso's art.

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[zenlessyank]

Probably a dumb question... Why not just take a picture yourself of the image? There can't be a copyright on a self taken picture of something, that would seem ridiculous, and you would have a data set.

a photocopy is a copy

[raymorris]

Take a picture of someone's picture?

Copy rights are literally the right to produce copies.
Using a camera or Xerox machine to make copies doesn't somehow skip copyright.

Re:

[zenlessyank]

That is stupid. If I take a picture of my Ford Grenada and post it up on my wall, I haven't broken any copyright, even though you can see the Ford badge.

I thought we had fair use and pictures that YOU have taken can be used in any dataset for whatever the reason. If there is a law against that, well, all I can say is change the law or ignore it like everyone else does. Every picture taken in this country would pretty much violate that stupid law. Except maybe a picture of my own nutsack.

Re:

[lsllll]

Of course you can take a picture of your Ford and put it on your wall. You can even take a pictures of a Ford you don't own. You can even take a picture of Dali's latest work (which is still under copyright) and put it on your wall. You actually would have copyright to all those pictures.

The bigger question is what if you were to make money off those pictures. Of course if you're a newspaper publisher and you print a picture of Dali's work in an article, that would be considered fair use. But what if y

A Ford isn't a copyright protected picture

[raymorris]

A Ford Grenada isn't a copyright protected work.

If you right a book, I can't photocopy your book without your permission because a book is copy right protected. Meaning you have the right to decide who makes copies of your book.

Re:

[lsllll]

Interesting. Taking a photo of a painting that is copyrighted is itself copyrighted and is considered derivative work. So I can see that you taking a picture of the image and then using that would grant you the only copyright. But obviously taking an actual photo, even with a high quality camera, of something on the screen turns out very crappy. The question we need to find the answer to is does your pushing "Print Screen" and saving the file constitute taking a photo or not.

No standing for AI to defend a copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

AI can't claim copyright on its output. It isn't trying to express anything and has no standing in a courtroom in the US or really any part of the world.

We haven't codified exactly how copyright might apply to AI generate images. And the default assumption that everything is copyright by the creator breaks here. Does the copyright belong to whoever ran the program first? (maybe)
Whoever created the AI software and data set? (no)
Does it belong to the public domain? (very likely, until the legislature in vario

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Precisely my feeling. This is a new area that neither courts nor legislatures have really delved into. Even if the creator of the AI software explicitly releases the output to public domain, that's not to say that some other software might have more restrictive licenses. Whether any of these licenses, implied or overt, can stand scrutiny is ultimately up to the courts, unless statutes are passed. For the moment, it's left up to copyright law, and how judges and/or juries decide to apply it.

Re:

[Holi]

"We haven't codified exactly how copyright might apply to AI generate images. "
Copyright law, at least here in the US has a human author requirement. this is based on precedent set by Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 56 which defined copyright as “the exclusive right of man to the production of his own genius or intellect.” among others.
According to the US Copyright office AI generated art is ineligible for copyright. Heck the same goes for art created by animals.

This

Re:

[HappyAmoeba]

This is not true. The decision you're linking and referencing is about an AI that generated its own image with no human input at all. It was designed that way specifically so that the person who owned the AI could attempt to claim copyright over the generations merely by ownership of it. DallE, Midjourney, etc etc all use human input, so would not be covered by the same decision or rationale. It's not been tested with a government agency or the courts yet, but the assumption is that the human input of

Re: No standing for AI to defend a copyright

[teslar]

None of that is the problem here. The problem is that the training sets of all these ML algorithms contain tons of copyrighted images, which might well mean that any image generated by these algorithms is infringing copyrights, e.g. because it replicates a significant part of a copyrighted image in its output.

Re:

[PPH]

the training sets

I wonder how that might apply to all those (copyrighted) engineering textbooks I used to obtain my degree in college.

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[RightSaidFred99]

An AI doesn't need to claim copyright. If I use photoshop to create an image, I own the copyright. If I use an AI based tool, I own the copyright. There are already image generating sites and online digital editing tools. Who owns a video I take of myself with some cheesy ass ducklips generator?

This is nothing new, and AI is just another algorithm and tool.

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[vux984]

". If I use photoshop to create an image, I own the copyright."

If you take my photo, and use photoshop to modify it a little. You own the copyright on the new image, but I still own the copyright on the source image, and you can't just do whatever you want with the derivative work.

If you take 3 of my photos and use photoshop to overlay them, same thing.

If you take 300,000 of my photos, and tell an AI to 'make a picture of a house' and it looks my 300,000 photos, amalgamates some subset of them in some way,

NP=P

[CAIMLAS]

The problem is no longer NP, and we are able to appreciate Natalie Portman in all her gritty AI glory, now.

Re: NP=P

[TuringTest]

Finally someone solved the NP=P equation:
Natalie Portman=P0wnd

You Know It's Serious

[Your Anus]

when the furries are banning it.

Its almost like

[Bahbus]

Copyright law is fucking stupid to begin with.

Showing my age here but...

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

So from what I gather, there is no reason to create art, take artistic photographs, or choose colours anymore, because "AI". The last reason to get off the couch and DO anything seems to be upon us.

I have questions. What is the use case for AI generated art and colour pallettes? You did not create/do/learn anything by issuing a command.

Reminds me of all the wankers that told me "I'm a graphic artist BECAUSE I dropped $25,000 on a Mac computer". Afaict, AI generated art is pointless other than being the

Re:

[Gibgezr]

Yes, you are really missing the point.
I have worked as both a professional photographer and graphic artist over the years. Nowadays creating "art" is just a hobby. I am having a total BLAST with Stable Diffusion, using it to create all sorts of content to amuse my friends. I keep getting the same comments from people who are also trying their hand at this stuff: "your images always look so GOOD, it's obvious you are an artist and understand this stuff". Yes, yes it is.
AI image generation is a lot more than

Re:

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

Thank you for your fulsome explanation of your point of view. I remain completely unconvinced, you really just confirmed that typing "trump and pelosi smoking marijuana together" into a web prompt is assuredly not "art". It's just a six word phrase in the English language. Why don't your friends go to that website and type in a few words, then they'll be artists too? Are you really a "better artist" because you inserted the word "together"?

I will continue to expand my own horizons by actually making my o

Haha

[groobly]

Haha. They will have to use AI to detect it. Takes one to know one.