A $67.5B market emerges for licensing creative work to train AI

A new market is emerging around AI content licensing as startups develop platforms to help creators monetize their work for AI training. Investors have poured $215 million into companies building tools that enable writers, publishers, music studios, and filmmakers to license their content to AI developers like OpenAI and Meta. This trend comes amid growing legal and regulatory scrutiny over AI companies’ use of copyrighted material, highlighting the tension between rapid AI advancement and fair compensation for creative works.

The big picture: Startups are creating marketplaces where creative industries can sell their content for AI training purposes, addressing both copyright concerns and the need for high-quality data.

• Companies like Pip Labs, Vermillio, Created by Humans, ProRata, Narrativ, and Human Native have secured substantial funding to build these licensing platforms.
• The AI licensing market is projected to grow from approximately $10 billion in 2025 to $67.5 billion by 2030, according to Vermillio.

Follow the money: Investors are making substantial bets on the future of AI content licensing with several notable funding rounds.

• Andreessen Horowitz raised $80 million for Pip Labs in August 2024.
• ProRata reached a $130 million valuation after signing licensing deals with major UK publishers including The Guardian and DMG Media.
• Vermillio secured a $16 million funding round led by Sony Music and DNS Capital in March.

By the numbers: AI licensing deals have been accelerating rapidly as companies seek to avoid legal complications.

• December 2024 saw a record 16 AI licensing agreements, according to data from the Centre for Regulation of the Creative Economy.
• OpenAI and Perplexity have each established more than 20 deals with media groups since 2023.

The legal landscape: Tech giants face mounting pressure to compensate creators for training data.

• Meta recently appeared in US court in a case that could set precedents for whether AI companies must pay for copyrighted training data.
• The UK is considering relaxing copyright rules for AI training, while the EU is pursuing regulations that would require more compensation.
• OpenAI continues to face copyright lawsuits from media organizations like the New York Times, despite having completed numerous licensing deals.

Behind the scenes: AI companies are recognizing data as a crucial investment alongside talent and computing power.

• “You need three things to build AI models: talent, compute and data,” notes James Smith, CEO of Human Native. “[AI companies] have spent millions on the first two. They’re just getting around [to] spending millions on the third.”
• Stability AI, currently facing lawsuits from artists, is exploring launching its own licensing marketplace.

Challenges ahead: The emerging AI training data marketplace faces several significant hurdles.

• Startups need to secure enough high-quality data providers to create viable business models.
• Online datasets often contain harmful content that could expose companies to reputational damage or legal issues.
• Many creators remain skeptical about selling their content for AI training purposes.

The bottom line: Finding a sustainable model for compensating creators is essential for the creative economy’s survival in the AI era.

• “We can’t have a situation where we decimate industries that we hold dear, like journalism or music. We have to find a way to make this work,” says Human Native’s Smith.