Last updated April 18, 2024
On October 25, 2022, Shutterstock announced its action plan to launch its AI-generated content capabilities in a manner that is responsible and transparent for its customers and contributors. In expanding its partnership with OpenAI and LG, as well as launching the Contributor Fund to compensate artists for their contributions, Shutterstock is committed to unlocking this opportunity for our customers and contributors in an ethically responsible way.
What is responsible AI?
Our mission at Shutterstock is to be every storyteller’s superpower by providing world-class content, tools, and services to effortlessly bring any idea to life. With AI-generated content, we believe creators and businesses everywhere can push the limits of creativity and scale their content faster and smarter. We’re committed to unlocking this opportunity for our customers but want to do so in an ethically responsible way.
With over 20 years of experience in the creative industry, we’re uniquely positioned to bring AI-generated content to the commercial market responsibly. We already have safeguards in place to flag and remove offensive content from our library. We have strict DE&I guidelines to ensure that people are depicted in ways that honor their identities, and we reject content if the proper permissions aren’t in place. And we recognize and reward the artists, photographers, and the featured subjects who made it all possible.
How was the Shutterstock AI Image Generator developed?
Our AI-generated content tool is powered by the best technology from our partners, which was trained using datasets licensed from Shutterstock. By partnering with OpenAI and LG for training their AI models for their content generation tools, we are ensuring that the new technology coming to our platform was created in an ethical and responsible way, which compensates the contributing artists whose original content was used in developing this tool. You can learn more about data licensing and the Contributor Fund here.
How is the Shutterstock AI Image Generator being used?
One of our key business priorities is to ensure that our customers, both now and in the future, have access to a market-leading, best-in-class creative platform. It is important that we continue to evolve and enhance the technology and tools we offer our users and creators. Our AI Image Generator enables customers to instantly generate images based on the description they type in. We'll be leveraging the best technology to ensure creators can bring their creative visions to life. This content will be made available for downloading to the customer who generated it and also added to Shutterstock’s vast collection of content to be licensed by other users.
Does this mean Shutterstock now accepts AI-generated content from contributors?
No, although we developed an AI tool that generates images, Shutterstock will not allow AI-generated content to be submitted by contributors for licensing on our platform. At first, this may seem contradictory, but there are several reasons behind this policy:
As per our Contributor Account and Content Submission Guidelines, we want to ensure contributors can prove IP ownership of all submitted content. Since AI content generation models leverage the IP of many artists and their content, AI-generated content ownership cannot be assigned to an individual.
We also want to be confident that artists are properly compensated if and when their work is used in AI training models. Given the availability of various AI content generation models in the marketplace, we are unable to verify the model source for most AI-generated content and therefore are unable to ensure all artists who were involved in the generation of each piece of content are compensated. You can learn more about our content policy here.
What is Shutterstock doing to ensure artists are properly compensated if their work was used in AI training models?
We have established a Shutterstock Contributor Fund, which will directly compensate Shutterstock contributors if their IP was used in the development of AI-generative models, like the OpenAI model, through licensing of data from Shutterstock’s library. Additionally, Shutterstock will continue to compensate contributors for the future licensing of AI-generated content through the Shutterstock AI content generation tool. Earnings that resulted from the OpenAI datasets, also known as data deals, were first issued in Q4 2022. You can learn more about the Contributor Fund here.
Will AI-powered tools be applied to the original content I submit to Shutterstock?
In our continuous effort to simplify our customers’ journey in search of the perfect image, in August of 2023 we began introducing AI-powered editing capabilities directly on the image detail page. Previously, if a contributor’s original image did not perfectly suit what a customer was looking for, they would likely move on to search for another option if they are not skilled in sophisticated post-production techniques. Now, through AI augmentation, an image can be modified to perfectly match what the customer is seeking with just a few clicks. These new tools, such as the ability to expand an existing image by generating more visual content around it, empower our customers to quickly augment an “almost perfect” image to the “exact one” they need without having to rely on complicated editing software.
Providing access to these powerful editing features prior to downloading will simplify the customer’s decision to license your content by enabling them to visualize the exact variation they were looking for right on the spot, eliminating the need to search for alternatives. Customers get exactly what they want, while contributors receive royalties for the licensing of their original content! Just as with any other images that are ultimately modified by the customer, any resulting edits made to the original image will be available only to the customer who downloads it and will not be made part of our content library.
Shutterstock’s AI-powered editing tools are all built with the same ethically responsible approach as our AI Image Generator. We are implementing the same guardrails and protections to ensure customers do not generate edits that are not covered by our licenses, and compensating contributors for the license made against their original content. Because the AI-generated content produced by these tools is largely based on the original image created by the contributor, all the royalties from licensing that image go to the original artist and not to the Contributor Fund.
Innovation has always been at the core of our mission and we look forward to bringing new technology-driven solutions to foster the success of our contributors while empowering our customers to create with confidence. We believe these tools will unlock new potential for contributor content in our library, expanding the reach to more customers.