Created by Humans
Created by Humans is an AI rights licensing marketplace founded by former Scribd CEO Trip Adler that connects book authors, publishers, and content creators with AI developers to ethically license creative works for AI model training and commercial usage.
What is Created by Humans?
Created by Humans is an AI rights licensing platform and marketplace co-founded in 2024 by Trip Adler (co-founder and former CEO of Scribd) alongside Edward Igushev and Jen Singerman. Created by Humans establishes a transparent, legally cleared marketplace that bridges the divide between creative rights holders and artificial intelligence companies, allowing authors, rights holders, and publishers to license copyrighted intellectual property directly to AI developers for foundation model training and downstream applications.
Created by Humans is an AI rights licensing platform that lets creators monetize their work by allowing AI companies to legally train on it. Founded in 2024, it has raised around $10–11M in funding and operates with a small team of 2–10 employees. The platform connects authors directly with AI firms, giving full control over usage and compensation, solving a major gap in ethical AI data sourcing.
- Platform Role: AI Rights Licensing Marketplace, Creator Monetization Engine & Ethical Data Clearinghouse
- Founders & Leadership: Trip Adler (CEO & Co-Founder), Edward Igushev, and Jen Singerman, based in San Francisco, California
- Initial Domain & Expansion: Books, literary manuscripts, and publishing rights, expanding across video, music, imagery, and specialized research datasets
Use Cases:
- Enabling book authors and literary publishers to claim catalog rights via ISBN and establish custom licensing preferences for generative AI model training
- Providing foundational AI developers (LLM builders, multi-modal research labs) with legally cleared, high-fidelity literary corpora backed by unified invoices and indemnification
- Licensing specific derivative rights, such as AI-driven audiobooks, automated language translations, and conversational book companions
- Tracking usage, attribution, and royalty disbursements from AI model agreements across publisher catalogs
- Bypassing messy legal ambiguity and fair-use disputes through mutual, direct licensing arrangements
Technology:
- Proprietary rights registry and catalog ingestion engine matching ISBNs and copyright records to verified rights holders
- Granular licensing taxonomy allowing creators to define permitted AI activities (pre-training, fine-tuning, RAG, derivative works)
- Automated royalty distribution and accounting infrastructure managing continuous micro-transactions and enterprise licensing payouts
- Secure dataset bundling delivering vetted, clean data to developers while safeguarding raw digital manuscripts from unauthorized leaks
Target Users:
- Published authors, indie novelists, and non-fiction writers seeking new royalty streams in the AI economy
- Book publishers, literary agents, and estate trustees managing commercial licensing rights for extensive backlists
- Foundation model developers and AI research labs needing ethical, litigation-free text data for LLM pre-training and alignment
- Independent media producers and content creators preparing to monetize multi-modal assets for AI ingestion
Acquisition: Venture-backed AI rights licensing enterprise headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area
What are the key features of Created by Humans?
Created by Humans' key platform features are
- ISBN & Catalog Claiming: Streamlined verification workflow allowing authors and publishers to claim their titles and establish verified ownership.
- Granular Rights Controls: Set customizable permission tiers determining whether titles can be used for foundation training, RAG search, or derivative audio generation.
- Legally Cleared Dataset Access: AI developers can license pre-packaged, clean datasets through unified commercial agreements with clear copyright provenance.
- Automated Creator Compensation: Transparent royalty management ensuring creators receive structured payments when their works are licensed.
- Litigation Risk Mitigation: Helps artificial intelligence labs replace high-risk web crawling with certified, contractual intellectual property rights.
- Authors Guild Alignment: Developed with creator-first legal frameworks designed to align with major author advocacy standards and best practices.
How much does Created by Humans cost?
Created by Humans operates on a two-sided marketplace and revenue-sharing business model connecting creators and enterprise buyers.
Creators & Authors:
- Free to Register & Claim: Authors, rights holders, and publishers can list their works, configure licensing rules, and upload catalogs without upfront fees. Created by Humans earns a percentage-based commission on concluded licensing deals.
AI Companies & Developers:
- Enterprise Custom Licensing: AI developers pay negotiated enterprise fees based on data volume, catalog scale, domain specialization, and intended training or inference use cases.
Disclaimer: Licensing deal values, creator revenue share percentages, and enterprise pricing agreements are determined by direct commercial contracts. Review createdbyhumans.ai for platform terms.
Who should use Created by Humans?
Created by Humans is designed for creators, publishers, and AI technology builders, including
- Book Authors & Novelists: Turning published works into active commercial assets for AI training while retaining copyright ownership.
- Publishing Houses & Literary Agencies: Scaling digital revenue opportunities across extensive backlists and out-of-print titles.
- Generative AI Labs: Sourcing premium, high-retention literary training data with complete chain-of-title legal clearance.
- Enterprise Content Owners: Seeking organized, contract-governed licensing solutions for creative archives.
What are the best alternatives to Created by Humans?
Some of the strongest Created by Humans alternatives include
- Spawning AI (Source.Plus)
- TollBit
- Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)
- ProRata.ai
- Shutterstock / Getty Images (AI Licensing Programs)
- Humans.ai
What are the pros and cons of Created by Humans?
What are the pros of Created by Humans?
- Pioneers a direct monetization channel for authors in an AI landscape previously characterized by unauthorized scraping
- Led by experienced publishing and digital distribution leadership with established industry trust
- Provides AI companies with legally defensible datasets, mitigating costly copyright infringement liabilities
- Gives creators granular choice over which AI use cases they permit for their titles
- Simplifies transactions through standardized master licensing agreements and centralized royalty payouts
What are the cons of Created by Humans?
- Still expanding catalog volume compared to the vast unvetted datasets scraped from the open internet
- Initial platform focus is centered on books and publishing, with visual, video, and audio datasets rolling out progressively
- Creator earnings are tied to marketplace demand and direct deal procurement by AI labs
Why should you choose Created by Humans?
The generative AI revolution has created friction between technology companies hungry for training data and creators defending their life's work against uncredited exploitation. Created by Humans transforms this conflict into a sustainable commercial ecosystem. By providing authors with a simple, trusted mechanism to set their own terms and receive financial remuneration, and giving AI labs clean, risk-free training data, Created by Humans establishes the legal and ethical foundation for human-AI creative collaboration.
- Monetize your creative backlist with direct licensing deals from leading AI developers
- Retain complete control over how your work is used with customizable permission settings
- Source litigation-proof training data backed by verified rights holders and clean provenance
- Support an ethical AI ecosystem that values human creativity and intellectual property
How does Created by Humans compare to competitors?
While Spawning AI focuses primarily on artist opt-outs and web crawling consent, and TollBit operates an API paywall for real-time web scraping by AI bots, Created by Humans specializes in structured, high-value copyright licensing for books and creative publications with end-to-end rights verification.
| Feature / Platform | Created by Humans | Spawning (Source.Plus) | TollBit | ProRata.ai |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Focus | Book & literary copyright licensing for AI | Artist opt-outs & ethically sourced datasets | Real-time publisher paywalls for AI bots | Attribution and revenue share for generative AI |
| Primary Media Type | Books, manuscripts & publications | Visual art & image datasets | Online journalism & web articles | News publications & reference content |
| Licensing Mechanism | Master marketplace contracts & royalties | Data commons & opt-out registries | Per-request content monetization tokens | Generative output attribution algorithms |
| Target Rights Holders | Authors, publishers, and literary estates | Visual artists and digital creators | Digital publishers and news websites | Major media organizations and authors |
| Pricing Structure | Free for authors / Commission on deals | Free registry / Paid dataset licensing | Developer API usage pricing | Custom enterprise media agreements |
| Best For | Authors and publishers wanting AI royalties | Artists protecting visual work from scraping | Online newsrooms monetizing bot queries | Publishers wanting proportional query revenue |
How do we rate Created by Humans?
| Parameter | Rating (out of 5) |
|---|---|
| Rights Management & Provenance | 4.9 |
| Creator Protection & Terms Control | 4.9 |
| Data Quality for AI Developers | 4.8 |
| Platform Ease of Use | 4.7 |
| Value for Money | 4.8 |
| Overall Score | 4.82 |
What is our review and verdict on Created by Humans?
Created by Humans addresses the most urgent structural issue facing modern intellectual property: creating a fair economic exchange between generative AI and human culture. By providing a credible, legally sound bridge between book creators and AI developers, it establishes a sustainable blueprint for the future of copyright in the machine learning age. For authors looking to participate in the AI economy on their own terms, it represents an essential marketplace.
Conclusion
Created By Humans addresses a critical gap in the AI ecosystem by giving creators control over how their work is used in model training. Instead of being excluded from the process, authors and content owners can license their data transparently and get compensated. This creates a more balanced relationship between creators and AI companies. Overall, it promotes fairness, consent, and sustainability, helping build a more ethical foundation for the future of AI development.
FAQ
What does Created by Humans actually do?
Created by Humans is an AI rights licensing platform that allows authors, publishers, and creators to control how their written content is used by AI companies. Instead of having their work scraped or used without permission, creators can explicitly license their books and articles, set usage terms, and get paid when AI developers access their content. It essentially creates a structured marketplace where human creativity and AI development can work together fairly.
How is Created by Humans different from traditional publishing platforms?
Unlike traditional publishing platforms that focus on selling books to readers, Created by Humans focuses on licensing content to AI systems. It introduces a new revenue stream where creators can monetize their work for AI training or reference use, while still maintaining ownership and control. This makes it less about distribution and more about managing intellectual property in the AI era.
How does AI rights licensing work on the platform?
Creators sign up, verify their identity, and claim their works on the platform. They can then choose how their content can be used—such as for AI training or retrieval—and set specific rules or opt out entirely. AI developers can browse and license this content, while the platform handles agreements, file delivery, and payments to rights holders.
Who should use Created by Humans?
The platform is designed for authors, publishers, literary agents, and other rights holders who want to protect and monetize their content in the AI ecosystem. It’s also useful for AI companies that need legally sourced, high-quality training data without risking copyright issues. This dual-sided approach makes it valuable for both content creators and AI developers.
What types of content can be licensed through Created by Humans?
Currently, the platform primarily focuses on books, articles, and other written works. However, the core idea applies to any text-based intellectual property that can be used to train or improve AI systems. The emphasis is on high-quality, rights-cleared content that AI companies can safely use.
Does Created by Humans protect creators’ rights and data?
Yes, one of the main goals of the platform is to give creators full control over their intellectual property. Authors decide whether to participate, which AI systems can use their work, and under what conditions. The platform ensures that usage is permission-based and that creators are compensated, helping address concerns around unauthorized AI training.
What benefits or ROI can creators expect?
Creators can unlock a new revenue stream by licensing their content to AI companies, while also gaining transparency and control over how their work is used. Instead of losing value as AI adoption grows, they can actively participate in the ecosystem, get paid for usage, and influence how their content contributes to AI development.
User Reviews
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Alternatives to Created by Humans
The best Created by Humans alternatives include Spawning AI (Source.Plus), TollBit, ProRata.ai, and Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). While Created by Humans focuses specifically on establishing contractual rights and royalties for authors and book publishers licensing content for AI models, alternatives like TollBit handle real-time bot paywalls and Spawning focuses on visual artist scraping opt-outs.
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