Adobe announced today the rolling out of a program that will compensate Adobe Stock contributors for using their content in AI training and AI image generation on Adobe Firefly –the company’s native family of generative AI models.
The compensation program reaches eligible contributors and is an annual payout –the first one being today– that varies from one artist to the other based on different individual factors.
Want to know more details? We have them, read on!
Adobe Firefly Bonus Compensation Plan for Adobe Stock Contributors
According to the announcement and new information on Adobe’s website, the new Firefly compensation plan involves all eligible artists who have contributed photos, vectors, or illustrations to Adobe Stock’s standard and Premium collections and whose work was included in the training datasets for the first commercially released model of Adobe Firefly.
The plan establishes an annual bonus payment for all these contributors that compensates them for using their work in the AI generative applications of Firefly during the previous year. For example, the first payment issued today, September 13, 2023, accounts for the use of images in training datasets and image generation between June 3, 2022, and June 2, 2023.
First Payment Calculations: How Much Are Contributors Being Paid?
Due to the nature of Adobe Firefly models and the user features based on them, it is impossible to quantify how often an image has been used to create an AI-generated picture with Firefly. So, the company uses a different method to calculate how much each artist must receive in compensation.
For this initial bonus, they’re considering the total number of images the artist has approved into the Adobe Stock collections and the total number of licenses sold for those images during the above-mentioned 12-month period. As such individual numbers vary greatly from one contributor to the next, a wide range of payouts can be expected, as the better-selling artists and those with bigger portfolios should see a higher bonus. It could be a couple of dollars or up to thousands. The specific amount coming from the Firefly contributor fund will appear detailed in the artists’ balance on the contributor portal.
Special Lowering of Thresholds for Contributor Payments
Also announced today was that Adobe is making an exception and lowering the usual payment threshold of $25 to just $1 for the next three months until December 12, 2023.
Anyone with more than $1 in their account can request a payout before that date, but it’s a one-time-only opportunity: once a payout –below or over $25– has been requested, the subsequent requests can only be made once the usual $25 limit has been reached.
Bonus Compensation Payouts in the Future
After this first payout rollout, Adobe plans to base the calculations for future annual bonuses on new approved images and downloads –and not all-time numbers anymore.
So, how much contributors will be paid next year is impossible to say right now. However, it’s expected that those who achieve more approved images and licenses sold would receive a higher compensation.
Highlights on AI-Generated Image Submission, Video Content, and More
Other important considerations shared by Adobe today are:
- Contributors can submit Firefly-generated images to the agency, providing they comply with the specific guidelines for AI-generated media submission and that they were created with the full commercial version of Adobe Firefly – the beta version produced non-commercial images only, and those are not eligible as stock.
- They do not consider video files for AI training datasets, nor do they have any information about the future inclusion of this media type in the program.
- It is not possible to opt out of having your Adobe Stock images included in Firefly training at this time.
- They plan to integrate Firefly features, such as “expand image” and text-to-image generation, directly into Adobe Stock for users.
Adobe Stock is Now an Agency that Pays Artists for AI Usage of Their Work
While not the only stock licensing company developing such a program, Adobe Stock has now officially become an agency that pays contributors for using their work in building and training generative AI models and has disclosed many more details on how they’re doing it than its competitors.
Are you an Adobe Stock contributor? Have you received your bonus? Or are you an Adobe customer, and if so, are you glad that artists are paid for your use of Firefly?
We’d love to know!
