How Tess Works

First: We acquire art to train Tess models

We contact most artists via email outreach, and we target accomplished editorial illustrators. On Tess, a “Contributor” is the artist or owner who submits art for a visual style.

Each Tess AI model is tuned on 10-20 images of artwork in a consistent visual style. There are two ways that we license the original work that defines the visual style:

1. Tess buys art to train a model; or
2. Tess licenses art and pays the Contributor ongoing usage royalties

The artist either licenses or sells their work through an agreement directly with Tess, so the artist always knows which works we’ve licensed, how their work will be used, and what the terms are upfront. Our company’s mission is to give artists more visibility and control over how their works are used, so each model is trained with permission.

When an artist licenses their work to Tess (case #2), the original artist still owns their original work. The art is displayed on Tess, at the top of their Tess model, for reference, but the artist can continue to publish, sell, and display this work however they want.

Then, we train a Tess model

We list the Tess model in our public marketplace and offer it to customers.

The artist also receives an invitation to join Tess as a Contributor. Contributors have access to a dashboard where they can see their model, learn about how it is being used, update their information, and get paid.

Each Contributor names their Tess model, which is the name used when the art is attributed on other websites; some artists use a pseudonym, some their real name, and others a generic word. Contributors can also add their contact info on their profile so that publications who use Tess can reach out to them for custom commissions.

Part of our mission is to empower the artists themselves to use the Tess model as a tool to expand their career: brainstorming, generating low-fi mockups, transforming sketches to images, scaling commission capacity, etc. Tess provides resources and support for artists who are using generative AI.

Next, people generate and download art from Tess

Once your Tess model is live, people can start using it to generate images using image-to-image and text-to-image. Our customers are media organizations, entrepreneurs, journalists, and content creators.

Contributors agree to link to their Tess model from somewhere on their personal website. It can be anywhere: in a footer, blog post, gallery, main page, etc.

Through the Contributor Agreement, work that is generated from the original works via the Tess AI model belongs to Tess. We license this to our customers through a custom software subscription agreement, either an editorial or commercial license.

If someone generates work from your model, the high-resolution image will have a Tess watermark on it. When they click “Download,” they pay a fee to Tess, and we split this fee with the Contributor whose model was used to generate the image.

Customers can download and alter the images that they generate on Tess. If they use the image, they’re required to attribute the Tess model.

The artist will not have control over what content is generated because Tess users can enter any prompt. That said, Tess will have controls for the Contributor so that they can set limits on what prompts are allowed for their model. For example, if an artist wanted to set a rule that animal prompts should not be allowed, Tess would enforce that rule on their behalf.

The artist gets paid

At the end of the month, the Contributor gets paid the sum of download royalties paid within that month. Let’s say, for example, that 8 customers pay $10 each for images from your model, meaning a total of royalty payments of $80. The artist would make $20 for the month.

Since Tess is still a startup, we know that the usage royalties will not be huge on day 1. We want to take on this risk, so we also pay an advanced royalty to Contributors when we train the model. Most advanced payments are between $400-$5000 for a bundle of 10-20 images, negotiated directly with the artist on a case by case basis. We pay the advanced royalty immediately, after our content moderation has approved the visual style and we’ve trained the Tess model. It is a prepayment of future royalties, we each Contributor will earn back the advanced royalty before being paid additional monthly royalties.

In the case of licensing work to Tess, a Contributor can terminate the agreement at any time. If they terminate their agreement with Tess, we take their Tess model down (so that users cannot generate with it), and we stop paying usage fees to the artist. If a Contributor terminates the agreement within 12 months, they have to pay us back the advanced royalty.

Tess Contributor Agreement

Please send us an email request at hello@tess.design for the latest version of the Tess Contributor Agreement PDF.

If you have any questions or clarifications, let us know your feedback.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tess legal?

Yes. We have contracts with each user, customer, and contributor. Tess is the first properly licensed AI Image generator in that we have a defined copyright and ownership model where each artist is paid for the work that they contribute. Learn more.

Is Tess ethical?

Tess gives artists more control, visibility, and ownership than existing AI Image generators. Tess artists consent to having their work used in this way and market the platform to support their livelihood with a passive income stream.

The Tess business model supports a healthy ecosystem as artists get paid and can use the tools to grow their own career. So, we believe it is a more ethical approach than using generators that are trained on work without the author’s permission and may produce work that infringes copyright.

Of course, each artist has their own opinion about how to work with AI in the future, and we respect the choice of artists not to participate on Tess. We protect artists who choose not to license their work to us by preventing users from generating in their style.

Can I have a private Tess model for my own work?

We’re working on a subscription that would allow publishers and artists to train a private Tess model rather than listing their model in the marketplace. This approach is ideal for media organizations, artists, and agencies who want exclusive access to their visual style. Contributors will still need to verify that they own the rights to images that their model is trained on.