Navigating the Risks of AI‑Generated Images in Stock Photo Libraries 

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When sourcing images for your business, you should feel confident that what you're licensing is safe, reliable, and free from hidden risks—but with AI‑generated content flooding many stock libraries, that promise of security is in jeopardy. To be clear, there's nothing inherently risky in AI‑generated imagery, but when it makes up a significant percentage of search results or its not properly vetted,  you can mistakenly use a generated image without realizing it.

AI imagery increasingly found in some stock photo libraries

Adobe Stock, in particular, has added a huge amount of AI imagery to their collection—approx. 225 million images to date (and growing), which accounts for over 1/3* of their entire library. Image search results are often dominated by AI‑generated images, making it easy to potentially license this content unknowingly.  

Is AI imagery in stock libraries a reason for concern?  

Users should be concerned by the presence of AI‑generated images in a creative library, because without proper safeguards those visuals can originate from tools like Midjourney, which use web‑scraped content and data (often without permission) to generate their results**. This dramatically increases the likelihood of those images containing unauthorized  copyright material— as well as other unauthorized intellectual property such as recognizable characters, logos, and more—and therefore, if it does, it will not be safe for commercial use. Any business using them in their advertising or marketing will be taking on real legal risk. These issues should raise a red flag for any business that uses stock imagery in its promotional materials. 
 
And it's not just Adobe Stock. Shutterstock has also been quietly introducing AI‑generated images into their creative library. While they don’t allow contributors to upload AI‑generated content directly, they do recycle images generated by their customers using Shutterstock’s AI tools back into their library. According to their own policy as of the time of publication, “All images created with our AI‑generated content tool are added to our image library, so other customers can search and license it as well.” However, a quick search, again at the time of publication, reveals that the image library contains more than the creative imaginings of their customers. You can also find AI‑generated imagery that includes popular trademarked characters, branded products, and other elements that could create legal risk if used commercially. 

What's the risk of having AI‑generated images in a stock library?

Imagine investing time and money into a campaign, only to find out that an image you've used infringes on another creative’s copyright or contains another company’s intellectual property like a trademarked character or logo.   
 
For example, at the time of original publication, Shutterstock had a range of AI‑generated images you could license that included trademarked content, from obvious IPs such as Lego minifigures and beloved characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, to the more subtle but no less dangerous instances, like logos on products (e.g.i.e., a glowing Apple logo on the back of a laptop). Shutterstock would then requires its customers to acknowledge that the AI‑generated image has not been reviewed by Shutterstock, and therefore could contain third‑party intellectual property rights such as likeness of brand, public personality, or other protected content. This essentially passes the risk and liability on to the customer—and many customers don’t even realize it’s happening.  

iStock: A safer option for image licensing

This is why choosing the right platform for your stock images is more important than ever. Generative AI is becoming more prevalent in the creative process, so it’s essential to know what’s at stake and the benefits of choosing a platform you can trust. The rise of generative AI content in creative libraries has made it crucial for businesses to be aware of the potential risks. 
 
At iStock, protecting our customers from those risks is our priority. While some competitors use AI‑generated imagery to inflate their libraries and push legal risk onto their customers, we invest time, energy, and resources into offering reliable, commercially safe images that you can license with confidence, knowing iStock’s creative library contains no AI‑generated imagery. 

References
Based on image searches performed on Adobe Stock as of 1/625 
** Growcoot, Matt, ”Midjourney Founder Admits to Using a ‘Hundred Million’ Images Without Consent,” 12/21/22, PetaPixel.com, [Link
† Vincent, James, “Shutterstock will start selling AI‑generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI,” 10/25/22. TheVerge.com, [Link

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