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Shutterstock expands relationship with Meta to supply AI training data

Shutterstock announced an expansion of its long-standing relationship with Meta, under which Meta will use Shutterstock datasets of images, videos and music to develop, train and evaluate its machine learning capabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.

NEW YORK, January 12, 2023 Shutterstock announced an expansion of its long-standing relationship with Meta, under which Meta will use datasets of Shutterstock images, videos and music to develop, train and evaluate its machine learning capabilities.1

Terms of the deal

The release described millions of images, videos and music tracks as the source material and said Meta would use the datasets for training and evaluation.1 Shutterstock said it operates an ecosystem that compensates contributors and that it was one of the first companies to pay artists for contributions to training machine learning models. The release did not disclose the value of the deal or payment amounts.1

Background

Later Reuters reporting said Shutterstock's initial AI deals with Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple ranged from $25 million to $50 million each, though it did not break out the Meta figure.2

What it means for data sellers

The announcement shows a content library selling AI training data to a buyer it already served as a customer. Sellers that already hold licensing relationships with large technology companies may have an easier path to AI data deals.

This entry is a news summary. SellYourAIData was not involved in the deal.

How the deal came together

  1. Expansion of an existing relationship. Shutterstock said the agreement expands its long-standing relationship with Meta.
  2. Datasets for training and evaluation. Meta will use datasets drawn from Shutterstock's images, videos and music to develop, train and evaluate its machine learning capabilities.
  3. Contributor payments. Shutterstock said it was one of the first companies to pay artists for their contributions to training machine learning models, but gave no payment amounts.
  4. Terms undisclosed. The release did not state the deal value or other financial terms.

Takeaways for companies with data

  • Existing commercial relationships can be extended to cover AI training data without a new product category.
  • Sellers can pitch contributor compensation as part of the offer, which may matter to buyers wanting a cleaner rights story.
  • Early deals like this did not publish prices, so benchmarks only emerged later through press reports.

Sources

Every numbered reference above points to an entry here. Figures come from these pages as of the date shown at the top of the article. Where a source reports a number it got from unnamed people, the text says so.

  1. Shutterstock Expands Long-standing Relationship with Meta (Shutterstock press release via AAP, January 2023)
  2. Inside Big Tech's underground race to buy AI training data (Reuters via KFGO, April 2024)

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About the AI Data Deal Tracker

SellYourAIData tracks publicly reported sales and licenses of data to AI companies, with the price, terms and sources for each. Entries are checked against public reporting and updated as deals change. SellYourAIData was not involved in this deal. To ask what your company's data could sell for, get a free valuation. To report a deal, contact us.