Bria lands new funding for AI models trained on licensed data

AI-powered image generators, which are at the center of a number of copyright lawsuits against AI companies, are frequently trained on massive amounts of data from public websites. Most of these companies argue that fair use doctrine shields their data scraping and training practices. But many copyright holders disagree. That’s why some startups and firms developing image generators are trying a different tack: Training generators exclusively on licensed content. New York and Tel Aviv-based Bria, founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Yair Adato and Assa Eldar, is one of these. Bria pays for images from around 20 partners, including Getty Images, and uses these to train image-generating models with content guardrails. Adato, Bria’s CEO, said that the platform “programmatically” compensates image owners according to their “overall influence.” “Bria foundation models house one billion visuals and millions of videos,” Adato told TechCruch. “Bria has mitigated biases that can sometimes emerge ... Read full article.