Getty is turning AI-free imagery into a visible product category
Getty Images has launched single-seat Creative and Editorial image subscriptions for individual professionals. Getty describes the available imagery as AI-free, authentic, and commercially ready, giving independent creators, marketers, and editorial users subscription access without requiring an enterprise arrangement.
Why visual creators should care
A major visual marketplace is no longer leaving the absence of generated content as an unstated assumption. AI-free imagery is being presented as a product feature, suggesting that human creation and verifiable image origin are becoming meaningful distinctions for professional buyers.
Practical takeaway
Photographers and agencies should make defensible provenance information easy for buyers to understand. Preserve original captures, edit histories, contributor records, releases, and delivery notes. Only describe work as human-created or AI-free when that claim can be substantiated.
What to watch next
Watch whether Getty introduces stronger provenance indicators, whether other stock platforms create separate human-made collections, and whether clients begin requesting AI-free assurances in briefs and licensing agreements.
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Meta faces growing pressure to make AI likeness reuse opt-in
Meta’s Muse Image feature allows eligible users to generate and remix imagery using photographs from public adult Instagram accounts. Creative Artists Agency, SAG-AFTRA, photographers, and privacy specialists are challenging the decision to rely on an opt-out setting rather than obtaining affirmative permission first.
Why visual creators should care
The dispute tests whether publishing a photograph publicly should also be treated as consent for synthetic reuse. It affects not only the person shown but also photographers, clients, stylists, agencies, and other rights holders connected to the original image.
Practical takeaway
Review the relevant Instagram and Meta AI settings for personal, professional, and client accounts. Contracts should state whether campaign images, portfolio photographs, or talent likenesses may be tagged, uploaded, remixed, or used as references in generative systems.
What to watch next
Watch whether Meta changes the default, improves notifications, introduces monitoring or removal tools, or gives agencies and rights representatives a way to manage consent across multiple accounts.
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Bombay High Court orders the removal of AI deepfakes and morphed images
The Bombay High Court has granted interim relief to actor Preity Zinta and directed the deletion of online material alleged to violate her personality, publicity, privacy, and moral rights. The identified material included AI-generated deepfakes, superimposed visuals, and morphed photographs.
Why visual creators should care
The earlier stage of this dispute concerned permission to bring the case. The new order is a material development because the court has now moved from hearing the complaint to granting removal relief and addressing the responsibilities of online intermediaries.
Practical takeaway
Do not assume that a standard model release covers synthetic alteration. Agreements involving recognisable people should separately address deepfakes, face replacement, generated variations, synthetic endorsements, permitted platforms, approval rights, and takedown responsibilities.
What to watch next
Watch how intermediaries respond to additional notices, what evidence is required for further removals, and whether similar protection becomes practically accessible to models, creators, and private individuals without celebrity status.
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EU opens the signatory process for its AI-content transparency code
The European Commission has published instructions for providers and deployers that want to sign the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content. Organisations must submit their forms by July 22, 2026, at 18:00 CEST to appear on the initial list before the relevant AI Act obligations begin applying on August 2.
Why visual creators should care
The transparency framework is moving from drafting into implementation. It covers provider-side machine-readable marking of generated or manipulated images, video, audio, and text, alongside deployer-side disclosure of deepfakes and certain other material.
Practical takeaway
AI providers, agencies, platforms, and professional deployers should establish who is responsible for machine-readable marking, visible disclosure, provenance retention, and compliance records. Signing the code is voluntary, but the underlying Article 50 duties are not.
What to watch next
Watch which image, video, editing, advertising, and provenance companies join the initial list, and how forthcoming guidance treats retouching, composites, generative edits, artistic works, and clearly fictional imagery.
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Midjourney wants access to Hollywood studios’ internal AI-use records
Midjourney is challenging limits placed on discovery in the copyright cases brought by major Hollywood studios. It wants information about the studios’ own use of generative AI, rather than restricting discovery to consumer-facing AI products and outputs.
Why visual creators should care
The disagreement does not decide the underlying copyright claims, but it could determine how much of the studios’ internal AI activity becomes part of the litigation record. That may affect arguments about market harm, accepted industry practice, licensing, and the consistency of the parties’ positions.
Practical takeaway
Studios, agencies, and production companies should assume that internal AI workflows could become discoverable in a dispute. Maintain accurate records of models, licences, prompts, source assets, reference files, generated outputs, rejected outputs, approvals, and final uses.
What to watch next
Watch whether the court permits broader discovery, which categories of internal records must be produced, and whether the dispute reveals how large rights holders are licensing or using generative systems themselves.
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UK MPs ask whether visual artists will have a seat at the AI copyright table
New questions tabled in the UK Parliament ask whether the government’s proposed AI and copyright working group will include representatives from the visual arts. They also ask whether its work will improve licensing and rights management for visual artists and help prevent unauthorised AI use of copyrighted work.
Why visual creators should care
These are parliamentary questions rather than a confirmed policy change, but they identify a significant gap: visual creators could be directly affected by a new licensing or rights-management framework without receiving meaningful representation in its design.
Practical takeaway
Photographers, illustrators, designers, and their professional organisations should prepare specific evidence about licensing failures, the limits of opt-out systems, monitoring costs, attribution problems, and the practical difficulty of discovering unauthorised training or generation.
What to watch next
Watch for the government’s answers, the working group’s membership and terms of reference, the date of its first meeting, and whether visual-creator organisations receive formal representation.
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Visual Artists Ireland sets out a practical AI policy for creative organisations
Visual Artists Ireland has published an organisational policy that accepts AI image generation where artists retain creative agency, the use is transparent, and the rights of other creators are not infringed. It also supports training-data transparency, voluntary licensing, standard opt-outs, public disclosure, and restrictions on uploading confidential material.
Why visual creators should care
This is not law, but it provides a useful example of how a professional arts organisation can move beyond a general ethical statement and turn creator-rights principles into operational rules for staff, artists, vendors, and public content.
Practical takeaway
Studios and creative organisations can adapt the framework into an internal policy covering approved tools, prohibited source material, confidential and unpublished work, licensing checks, human review, client approval, public disclosure, and documentation.
What to watch next
Watch whether other creator associations adopt comparable policies, whether collective or voluntary licensing models develop, and how organisations verify vendors’ claims about training data and creator opt-outs.
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