Getty is benefitting from having historically paid creators for the rights to their creations. The horror.
VCs have burned oodles of cash on startups. They could do the same to fund artists and photographers to create training images. A company could earn the good will of the community by starting with public domain and CC images. People who support AI image generation could sign over their own photos.
There are options that aren’t as easy and carry more risk than unethically scraping the web. But companies are willing to be unethical until the law catches up, in hopes of cementing their foothold. See Uber and Airbnb for examples.
MoogleMaestro