Apple reportedly wants to license billions of images from Photobucket for AI training

Apple is apparently among the companies wanting to license billions of images from Photobucket for artificial intelligence (AI) training, reports Reuters.

The article notes that at its peak in the early 2000s, Photobucket was the world’s top image-hosting site. The media backbone for once-hot services like Myspace and Friendster, it boasted 70 million users and accounted for nearly half of the U.S. online photo market.

Today only two million people still use Photobucket, according to analytics tracker Similarweb. But the generative AI revolution may give it a new lease of life, says Reuters.

On April 6, it was announced that Apple had struck a deal to license millions of images owned by Shutterstock, a stock image site, to also use for AI training, The value of the deal is apparently in the US$25-50 million range, and was said to have been signed in the months following the release of ChatGPT in late 2022. 

And in December 2023, it was reported that Apple wants to partner with news publishers in deals that would allow it to train generative artificial intelligence systems on news content. The New York Times said the tech giant has approached publishers such as Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair, Ars Technica, Glamour, The New Yorker, GQ, People, The Spruce, Serious Eats, Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, and Better Homes & Gardens. The proposed deals are purported with at least US$50 million.

What Apple wants to do is license archives of the publications’ content. However, The New York Times said some of the publishers are “lukewarm” when it comes to Apple’s offer because, among other things, the terms e “too expansive” vague about exactly how the tech giant will apply generative AI to news.