Topline
Getty Images shares surged in early premarket trading Monday, climbing more than 150% after the company unveiled a new partnership with OpenAI to bring its licensed image collections into ChatGPT, a notable development three years after Getty sued a separate AI firm over alleged copyright infringement.
Getty Images and OpenAI did not reveal the financial details of the arrangement, and it remains unclear whether OpenAI will be permitted to train its AI models on Getty’s image library.
Getty Images
Key Facts
In a brief announcement Sunday, Getty Images said it had entered into a “display agreement” with OpenAI that will make its licensed images available in “OpenAI search and discovery experiences within ChatGPT.”
According to the announcement, the partnership will allow ChatGPT to use Getty’s imagery when producing visual responses, though Getty did not specify whether the chatbot will be able to modify or transform those images.
The companies also left out key terms of the deal, including any payment structure and whether OpenAI will have rights to use Getty’s content for training generative AI systems.
Another unresolved question is whether the agreement applies broadly to all images submitted to Getty, including both editorial and stock photography, or whether contributing photographers will be given a way to opt out.
How Has The Market Reacted To The Deal?
Getty’s stock briefly jumped more than 200% early Monday before giving back part of those gains, later trading at $1.35 a share, up 123% from Friday’s close.
What Do We Know About Getty’s Previous AI Lawsuits?
In January 2023, Getty Images announced it was suing Stability AI, the creators of the popular AI image generation tool Stable Diffusion, alleging copyright violation. The suit came after several users noted that some of Stable Diffusions generated images would display a recreation of Getty’s watermark, a potential sign that the model had been trained extensively on Getty’s library. At the time Getty said: “It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright.” At the time Getty noted that it believes AI has the “potential to stimulate creative endeavors,” and it has provided “licenses to leading technology innovators for purposes related to training artificial intelligence systems.”
