Learnings from paying artists royalties for AI-generated art
kapwing.com
March 10, 2026
9 min read
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56/100
Summary
Tess.Design launched in May 2024 as a marketplace for AI-generated art, offering artists a 50% royalty on the use of their styles. The platform was shut down in January 2026 after less than two years of operation.
Key Takeaways
- Tess.Design was launched in May 2024 as a marketplace for AI-generated art, allowing artists to earn a 50% royalty on their styles used by subscribers.
- The platform was shut down in January 2026 due to challenges in building a sustainable business model despite offering a properly-licensed image generation service.
- Tess established a novel copyright framework that allowed artists to hold rights over derivative works generated in their style, which was not offered by other AI image generators at the time.
- The outreach to 325 artists resulted in a 50% response rate, with 6.5% agreeing to join the platform and train models based on their work.
Community Sentiment
Positives
- The article provides a refreshing look into the challenges of startup innovation, highlighting the hard work and risks involved in developing new AI applications.
- Acknowledging the importance of compensating artists for their styles reflects a growing awareness of intellectual property issues in AI-generated content.
Concerns
- The reliance on a base model trained on potentially stolen work raises significant ethical and legal concerns about the legitimacy of the AI's outputs.
- Limited artist participation in the platform and poor image generation capabilities compared to established models like OpenAI indicate serious shortcomings in the service's effectiveness.
