Leading artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI and Google, are purchasing unpublished video content directly from creators, according to a report by Bloomberg. This move aims to secure fresh training data to enhance AI models.
These companies are offering between $1 and $4 per minute of video, with higher prices for premium content such as 4K resolution footage, drone videos, and 3D animations. Standard or unused clips from platforms like YouTube or TikTok are valued at up to $2 per minute. Deals can bring individual content creators thousands of dollars.
To facilitate these transactions, companies rely on specialized intermediaries like Troveo and Calliope Networks, who collaborate and negotiate with content creators. Troveo has reportedly paid over $5 million to creators so far.
Contracts often include clauses preventing companies from creating AI replicas of the content creators, reproducing specific scenes from their channels, or using videos in ways that could harm their reputation.
Google has also introduced a new YouTube feature that allows creators to control whether their public videos can be used for training AI models.
The acquired video data is being used to improve AI video-generation tools like Sora and Veo. Experts believe training AI models with large volumes of real-world video footage could help these systems better understand the physical world.
This initiative presents a significant opportunity for content creators, particularly those with hundreds of hours of unused footage that lack commercial value. These assets can now be transformed into a viable source of income.
