In a move that’s bound to shock the world, Disney and National Geographic announced a sale of the entire photo archive to OpenAI. The company claims that it’s in an effort to allow future AI creators to bring more authenticity to the scenes they imagine. The archive includes several of the world’s most famous images, such as the striking image of the green-eyed woman from Afghanistan. What’s even more fascinating is that anyone who uploaded an image to National Geographic’s website for their contests will also have their images included in the sale, as Nat Geo retained the rights to do whatever they want with the photographs.
Surely, there are photographers who are bound to be angry about this. Photographers, unlike many other artists, have never been able to unionize effectively because of stark differences and personality issues. The closest things that we have are stock companies and individual copyright protections. However, one must remember that the photographers at Nat Geo were on staff or signed a work for hire agreement where Nat Geo owned the images and could do whatever they wanted with them.
Editor’s Note: This is an April Fool’s Joke. Relax.