AI search vendor Perplexity AI and Getty Images’ new multi-year licensing agreement marks a distinct change from previous AI licensing deals.
Getty said the agreement will enable Perplexity to access its editorial and creative imagery. In addition, Perplexity will make changes to how it displays images, including crediting Getty Images by adding a link to the source so that users can use the licensed image legally, Getty said.
Before the partnership deal, revealed on October 30, Getty had been part of Perplexity’s publisher program for the last year.
Perplexity maintains publishing arrangements with other media companies and outlets, including Adweek, Gannett, The Los Angeles Times and Fortune.
Despite its relationship with other publishers, the vendor faces multiple allegations of data theft or copyright infringement. Most recently, Reddit sued the company for data scraping.
The Good
The deal between Getty and Perplexity is favorable for both organizations, said Arun Chandrasekaran, an analyst at Gartner.
“Getty is monetizing its visual IP in the AI era by licensing its image library,” Chandrasekaran said. “This is a continuing trend of data providers inking partnerships with AI companies to monetize the data assets as a new revenue model.”
However, the deal with Getty differs from similar setups in that Perplexity can’t train its model on Getty Images’ data. Instead, the agreement allows Perplexity to provide Getty’s content in its search results, linking back to those images. Perplexity gains access to Getty Images, much like an API does. Whenever users want to view an image, they are still directed to the Getty Images website.
“I see this as more of a fair deal than some of the other deals where AI companies have made with the content providers, which essentially license their content to train the models,” said Chirag Shah, a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He added that some licensing deals can be dangerous for content providers because, at some point, AI companies will find their content less valuable and they no longer need it.
“[The Getty-Perplexity deal] is more of a traditional pointer, the kind of thing that traditional Google has done, where you search and then you click on something that takes you to that content provider or that website, as opposed to Google reproducing it right here,” Shah said. “That’s why I feel like this is a more sustainable model.”
The system in which Perplexity links to Getty shows that the vendor is committed to “proper image credit,” Chandrasekaran said.
For business, this deal demonstrates that “content rights are no longer ‘nice-to-have’, but they are becoming contractual,’ Chandrasekaran continued.
Some Things to Consider
Although this contract addresses attribution, it’s unclear what effect it will have on content creators who have a direct agreement with Getty Images, Shah said.
While Perplexity can’t train its models on Getty Images content, it can still produce similar content that users might prefer, especially if the content Perplexity generates is less expensive than the images it links to, Shah said.
That scenario is similar to a scenario in which Walmart offers an in-house brand but continues to sell products from other producers, Shah continued. Perplexity might reach a point where it points back to Getty Images but also generates its own similar images.
