Apple is seemingly among the many corporations eager to license billions of photographs from Photobucket for synthetic intelligence (AI) coaching, studies Reuters.
The article notes that at its peak within the early 2000s, Photobucket was the world’s prime image-hosting website. The media spine for once-hot companies like Myspace and Friendster, it boasted 70 million customers and accounted for practically half of the U.S. on-line picture market.
In the present day solely two million folks nonetheless use Photobucket, based on analytics tracker Similarweb. However the generative AI revolution might give it a brand new lease of life, says Reuters.
On April 6, it was introduced that Apple had struck a deal to license hundreds of thousands of photographs owned by Shutterstock, a inventory picture website, to additionally use for AI coaching, The worth of the deal is seemingly within the US$25-50 million vary, and was mentioned to have been signed within the months following the discharge of ChatGPT in late 2022.
And in December 2023, it was reported that Apple needs to accomplice with information publishers in offers that may permit it to coach generative synthetic intelligence programs on information content material. The New York Occasions mentioned the tech large has approached publishers resembling Vogue, Wired, Vainness Truthful, Ars Technica, Glamour, The New Yorker, GQ, Individuals, The Spruce, Critical Eats, Martha Stewart Dwelling, Actual Easy, Leisure Weekly, and Higher Properties & Gardens. The proposed offers are purported with at the very least US$50 million.
What Apple needs to do is license archives of the publications’ content material. Nevertheless, The New York Occasions mentioned a few of the publishers are “lukewarm” with regards to Apple’s supply as a result of, amongst different issues, the phrases e “too expansive” obscure about precisely how the tech large will apply generative AI to information.
