news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

when i was reading huxiu's articles these two days, i suddenly discovered something that has existed for a long time but has been ignored by me.

their header images are generated by ai.

it was so harmonious and so smooth that after such a long time, i took a closer look and realized, damn, it was really ai.

i took a quick look on huxiu and found that almost all of the header images were generated by ai.

the reason why media are starting to use ai for illustrations is actually quite simple:obedient, cheap and risk-free.

if we want to talk about ai picture matching, we must inevitably talk about how people matched pictures when there was no ai.

except for some professional new media, operations, designers, etc., in fact, many ordinary people’s first reaction when looking for pictures is to search for pictures on baidu.

for example, if i want to write an article about the workplace, i want to find a picture that reflects "competition in the workplace."

i found a lot of messy, tacky and ugly things.

even if you find a picture that fits perfectly, don’t think that you’re done. there is a more serious problem: where did this picture come from? are there any copyright issues?

you might end up messing with a company with a very strange business model, whose name is:

callvisual china。

that’s right, it’s the same company that turned the national flag, black hole, and trump’s shooting into copyrighted images in its own gallery and sold them for money.

i would like to make a statement first, as i don’t know much about this company. although it has “china” in its name, it is not a state-owned enterprise. . .

simply put, it is a company specializing in image copyright business.

have a huge amount of image resources, and then sell these images to people or companies in need.

actually it’s just an intermediary, but at least it sounds like a legitimate business, right?

however, its business model has caused many people to complain.

this is the extortion-style business model of “rights protection - litigation - settlement - signing” commonly used by visual china.

it’s very similar to raising pigs, fattening them up before killing them.

once you discover that any picture in your library is used without authorization, immediately start the pig-raising mode. when you have grown and established a certain business scale, immediately initiate rights protection actions.

don't ask me why i know this so well.

because when i was at my previous company, in 2017, on the eve of the ipo, we received a lawyer’s letter from visual china that we had been waiting for a year or two, and we had to pay more than 200,000 yuan in compensation. . .

the key point is that you are really complaining. who told you not to pay attention when using the pictures?

after being frightened, many people will choose to settle or sign a contract, so visual china has achieved customer conversion.

the media around the world hate visual china even more.

countless peers have been sued by visual china.

there is even a funniest one: pan shiyi built his own soho and used photos of his own soho for publicity, but was also warned of infringement by visual china. . .

the key is visual china’s nature of finding all kinds of loopholes and always winning in the end.

the paper once compiled a statistic:

here is a quote from the sanbiao longmenzhen wechat public account:

if you are a self-media and have not received a lawyer's letter from visual china, it means you are not big enough.

what if you buy pictures to avoid copyright risks?

let me show you the prices of the products in veer gallery, a subsidiary of visual china.

i consulted visual china’s customer service again.

if you ask me, at this price, i have decided to use my selfie as the header image for every article from now on.

therefore, under the outrageous operation of visual china and the heavy pressure of funds, everyone now chooses another channel, ai.

the development of ai technology, especially the emergence of generative ai, has greatly lowered the threshold for image creation.

now, you only need to enter a text description and ai can generate a picture that meets the requirements within a few seconds.

what about the price of ai-generated pictures?

i've only listed a few that i use frequently, but there are many great free products out there.

basically, there is no picture that costs more than 0.4 yuan.

back to our original question: why do we use ai for graphic headers now?

the answer is obvious.

if you were a new media operator, what would you choose?

should i spend tens or hundreds of dollars to buy a picture whose copyright may belong to visual china, or use ai to generate a unique picture for free?

i think anyone would give the answer without hesitation.

compared with the annual fee of thousands of yuan for image libraries, the subscription fee of ai tools is simply a drop in the bucket.

and it can perfectly suit your needs.

when your imagination runs wild and you want a picture of a cat in a suit drinking coffee on the moon.

just look for it in baidu and traditional photo libraries, you won’t find it.

but with ai, you only need to enter the description and get the picture you want in a few seconds.

this kind of convenience and creative space is difficult to match with traditional photo galleries.

last but not least, the risk of infringement.

in the past, many creators have been involved in copyright disputes because they inadvertently used unauthorized images.

using ai-generated images can largely avoid this risk. with this strong randomness, as long as you really rolled it yourself, and don’t use a pad of pictures or steal other people’s pictures, there is basically no risk of infringement.

moreover, it is not just the illustrations that need to improve infringement risks.

for example, mango was also discovered.

so they chose to use ai raw pictures in the latest official posters of "flowers and boys 6".

but is that the end?

to be honest, the entire content creation industry is changing.

in the past, content creation was a relatively closed field. whether it was text, pictures or videos, it required professional skills and equipment.

this has led to a scarcity of high-quality content and provided opportunities for companies like visual china.

but the emergence of ai is breaking down this barrier.

it gives everyone the opportunity to create professional-quality content.

lower the threshold for creation and reshape the entire creative ecosystem.

it’s not just the illustrations for public accounts or the posters for s-level variety shows.

everything is happening.

you are in this vortex.

both a witness and a participant.

>/ author: kha'zix, xiao rui