What about hybrid images? Say a photo of a hand holding a phone, displaying an ai generated image. Or a generated room interior, with a real framed photo hanging on the wall. There could be infinite ways to combine camera photos with 3D renders, ai images, and even hand drawn illustrations.

Quote from: Dog-maDe-sign on January 24, 2023, 12:48

I just hope that the customers could be opt out AI products in the search result 

why would they if AI images meet their needs?

And if it doesn't meet their needs? It is already hard to find something specific on stock sites, now on top of that they have to search through thousands of AI images.

Quote from: cascoly on January 24, 2023, 13:36

Quote from: Dog-maDe-sign on January 24, 2023, 12:48

I just hope that the customers could be opt out AI products in the search result 

why would they if AI images meet their needs?

And if it doesn't meet their needs? It is already hard to find something specific on stock sites, now on top of that they have to search through thousands of AI images.

as opposed to the millions they already have to wade thru? 

why do you assume that AI won'ty supply 'someth ing specific'? and if they don't they are no threat to existing portfolios -- you can't claim AI is replacing traditional and that AI isnt filling a need! (actually, i guess you can claim that,  but it doesnt make much sense)

AI eventually will replace the photographer, the contributor and the agency. And the customer will get his/her images for free. It is matter of time.

Quote from: ADH on January 25, 2023, 15:07

AI eventually will replace the photographer, the contributor and the agency. And the customer will get his/her images for free. It is matter of time.

You can already download millions (billions?) of files for free legally from many different platforms.

Why do agencies still exist?

True, but also sales are not even close to what they used to be. It is increasingly getting harder because all these reasons, free images, phone images, lower royalties, higher greed of agencies, now ai and who knows what else.

Quote from: ADH on January 25, 2023, 15:07

AI eventually will replace the photographer, the contributor and the agency. And the customer will get his/her images for free. It is matter of time.

You can already download millions (billions?) of files for free legally from many different platforms.

Why do agencies still exist?

Companies with legal departments (like Disney - ABC) require employees and contributors (often graphic designers or journalists) to have releases / permission for everything including downloaded visual content.  The unusual high royalty at Shutterstock is probably Shutterstock charging for the inconvenience of having their licensing terms expanded and re-written. 

David Holz, midjourney CEO, said less than an hour ago that he doesn't like midjourney-generated images being put up for sale through stock agencies. He said that he is seriously considering banning the sale of midjourney-generated images through stock agencies.

Where?

Quote from: ADH on January 25, 2023, 19:44

David Holz, midjourney CEO, said less than an hour ago that he doesn't like midjourney-generated images being put up for sale through stock agencies. He said that he is seriously considering banning the sale of midjourney-generated images through stock agencies.

I can't find any source for this.
And it would be a complete nonsense, if real: why in the earth Midjourney would donate this market to dozens of competitor?
Also from legal point of view it seems very hard to say "You have commercial rights BUT not for this specific market". David Holz cannot "ban" that market, at the contrary the market can "ban" midjourney, that has been already done by SS and Getty.

By the way... it's a strange world and anything it's possible I would like to read the original source with the words of David Holz

It depends on the company's Terms. Take for example the two biggest marketplaces for 3D models - Turbosquid and CGTrader.

Turbosquid doesn't allow images, generated from their models to be sold on stock markets, but CGTrader does.

Quote from: ADH on January 25, 2023, 19:44

David Holz, midjourney CEO, said less than an hour ago that he doesn't like midjourney-generated images being put up for sale through stock agencies. He said that he is seriously considering banning the sale of midjourney-generated images through stock agencies.

I can't find any source for this.
And it would be a complete nonsense, if real: why in the earth Midjourney would donate this market to dozens of competitor?
Also from legal point of view it seems very hard to say "You have commercial rights BUT not for this specific market". David Holz cannot "ban" that market, at the contrary the market can "ban" midjourney, that has been already done by SS and Getty.

By the way... it's a strange world and anything it's possible I would like to read the original source with the words of David Holz

I have no information about the accuracy of the quote, but of course it would be no legal problem to restrict the usage in this way.

After all, stock agencies do it all the time. They sell commercial licences for the usage of images, but certain usages require an extended licence and some usages are forbidden even with an extended licence, notably reselling the image at other stock agencies.

But Midjourney makes money selling access for commercial use, don�t they?

So if artists can sell their designs to a commercial client, how will they stop the licensing via stock sites.

In the end they are just webshops.

If true this would mean midjourney cannot become a plug in for photoshop. They would be missing out on the biggest  design market.

Quote from: ADH on January 25, 2023, 19:44

David Holz, midjourney CEO, said less than an hour ago that he doesn't like midjourney-generated images being put up for sale through stock agencies. He said that he is seriously considering banning the sale of midjourney-generated images through stock agencies.

Where?

Yesterday in a town hall meeting he organizes every Wednesday in discord from 12 noon to 4 pm. Pacific time
Very interesting meetings with David Holz, they also talked about the new /blend mode, with results almost of photography quality
Everyone can now use the /blend mode, it is amazing

@Lina

I doubt mj can restrict usage terms like don�t sell on stock agencies if mj just stole it all from the internet. They hold no usage right to the training files, so I doubt they can restrict the sale of the remix.

Looks like a feast for Getty Lawyers.

Maybe he is upset because the stock agencies are coming after him to legally license the content.

He seems beyond naive when it comes to copyright.

If he scraped the entire internet and then charges people to use his ai he is a true hypocrit.

There is right way to do this.

But Adobe must be working 24/7 on their own ai and that will put him out of business in the end.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/midjourney-founder-basically-admits-to-copyright-breaching-and-artists-are-angry?fbclid=IwAR2v3PRf1VzQXNQDxwgnjwj6vz_EYpEv9v-pUxHYVdT-U4fcmE4JsafEZMw

You and the author make a huge list of biased and leading assumptions. Without permission doesn't mean illegally and infringing. Her piece is angry and outraged and leads the readers by repeating her personal opinion as known facts. The headline itself "Midjourney founder basically admits to copyright breaching and artists are angry"? Does he actually admit copyright breach?

Without consent 5 times, "The fact that the Midjourney team "weren't picky" suggests that this data set has not been carefully curated and could be biased. ", cleverly spotted if your images have been used, is in fact The website searches the LAION-5B training data set, a library of 5.85 billion images, that is used to feed Stable Diffusion and Google�s Imagen. which isn't a secret at all.

"do you share the same rage as other artists and photographers on the subject?"  No I don't.

May 2022 - LAION-5B is released. https://www.infoq.com/news/2022/05/laion-5b-image-text-dataset/#:~:text=The%20Large-scale%20Artificial%20Intelligence%20Open%20Network%20%28LAION%29%20released,making%20it%20the%20largest%20freely%20available%20image-text%20dataset.

You can download the LAION AI set, with text and image matched results, for free. No one owns the right to the training files, they are public property.

I think you are right about SS and AS creating their own versions that will be reviewed and monitored and will attempt to be unbiased as well as culling out any accidentally included, infringing images. A more responsible approach.