Shutterstock is one of the world's largest stock photography, video, and music platforms. It partnered with OpenAI and DALL-E to offer AI-generated image generation directly on its platform.
Shutterstock created a Contributor Fund to compensate photographers and artists whose images were licensed to OpenAI and other AI companies for model training, though the payout amounts have been criticized as minimal.
The fund distributes payments based on a contributor's historical download rate as a proxy for the impact of their work in the training dataset. Critics note the amounts are small relative to the licensing revenue.
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Report a SightingShutterstock integrated DALL-E 3 directly into its platform, allowing subscribers to generate AI images alongside stock photography. Shutterstock has also licensed its image library to OpenAI and other AI companies for training.
Shutterstock's arrangement with OpenAI is bidirectional: it licensed its stock library to train DALL-E models, and in return integrated DALL-E into its product. This deal was disclosed as an industry first for a major stock platform.