Quoting Agent Smith, it's inevitable: AI image generation has already settled among us, and as expected, the desire to monetize that content is growing on several levels. Until now, the main option for those interested was to roll the dice in the chaos of NFTs and cryptocurrencies, but some platforms focused on stock photography have announced methods and mechanisms to commercialize AI-generated images… under certain conditions.
The Lensa AI app jumped to number 1 in the 'Photo & Video' category on the App Store, and everything seems to indicate it will stay there for a while. Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion continue their advance. Debates about the scope of this technology multiply, and in some cases they are quite rough. However, AI image generation is like the genie that escaped the lamp. Anyone who tries to force it back in is wasting time.
What's next on the list? Logically, one of the most conflictive points: commercialization. So far, money has changed hands through the purchase of credits that enable computational power, but if you've considered the possibility of selling your own AI-generated images, there are two developments you should follow closely.
Shutterstock AI
Both Getty Images and Shutterstock maintain their prohibition on AI-generated images, however, Shutterstock announced in the last days of October a special collaboration with OpenAI (the creators of DALL-E) to integrate an image generator. What does this mean? That in the coming months, users will be able to sell generative images on Shutterstock as long as they use its official tool to create them.
At the same time, Shutterstock will create a 'Contributor Fund' that will seek to compensate artists when their material is used in the training process, and for image royalties. The relationship between Shutterstock and OpenAI is closer than it seems: Shutterstock sold images and metadata to OpenAI in 2021. If you want to know more, you'll have to join the waiting list on the official site.
Adobe Stock
In the last few hours, Adobe dropped a real bombshell: Its Adobe Stock platform will begin accepting illustrations made with artificial intelligence. Through an announcement on its official blog, Adobe confirmed the creation of guidelines (not to say 'regulations') for uploading generative images. The company "has considered deeply" all the doubts and questions surrounding this technology, but believes that with its new policies it will be possible to guarantee "responsible use".
In addition to maintaining the standard procedure for uploading material, Adobe Stock warns that users must not share works that represent real places, identifiable property, or famous characters (whether photorealistic or cartoons). They must also avoid tools that facilitate these results, upload each and every image as 'illustrations', add the terms 'Generative' and 'AI' to titles and tags, and describe the images as fictional and generated. The rest of the warnings and recommendations can be found here.
The next step
Shutterstock and LG AI Research have already joined forces for the development of a new generative platform called EXAONE. Microsoft presented a tool named Designer, with DALL-E 2 integrated. Apple confirmed the publication of optimizations that improve Stable Diffusion's performance on its silicon. Selling AI-generated images is just the tip of the iceberg, and we expect more news in the coming weeks.
