Freepik Launches F Lite: An Open AI Image Generator Trained on Licensed Data

Freepik releases an 'open' AI image generator trained on licensed data | TechCrunch

Freepik, the online graphic design platform, unveiled a new "open" AI image model on Tuesday that the company says was trained exclusively on commercially licensed, "safe-for-work" images. The model, called F Lite, contains around 10 billion parameters -- parameters being the internal components that make up the model. F Lite was developed in partnership with AI startup Fal.ai and trained using 64 Nvidia H100 GPUs over the course of two months, according to Freepik. F Lite joins a small and growing collection of generative AI models trained on licensed data. We've been secretly working on this for months! It feels good to finally share it! LINKS: * Regular version: more predictable and prompt-faithful, but less artistic: https://t.co/MyWsKer9Ir * Texture version: is more chaotic and error-prone, but delivers better textures and... pic.twitter.com/GX5mIpYE8O -- Javi Lopez ⛩️ (@javilopen) April 29, 2025 Generative AI is at the center of copyright lawsuits against AI companies, including OpenAI and Midjourney. It's frequently developed using massive amounts of content -- including copyrighted content -- from public sources around the web. Most companies developing these models argue fair use shields their practice of using copyrighted data for training without compensating the owners. Many creators and IP rights holders disagree. Freepik has made two flavors of F Lite available, standard and texture, both of which were trained on an internal data set of around 80 million images. Standard is more predictable and "prompt-faithful," while texture is more "error-prone" but delivers better textures and creative compositions, according to the company. Here's an image from the standard model generated with the prompt "A person standing in front of a sunset, in majestic surroundings." Freepik makes no claim that F Lite produces images superior to leading image generators like Midjourney's V7, Black Forest Labs' Flux family, or others. The goal was to make a model openly available so that developers could tailor and improve it, according to the company. That being said, running F Lite is no easy feat. The model requires a GPU with at least 24GB of VRAM. Other companies developing media-generating models on licensed data include Adobe, Bria, Getty Images, Moonvalley, and Shutterstock. Depending on how AI copyright lawsuits shake out, the market could grow exponentially.

Freepik's AI Image Generator Was Not Trained on Stolen Images

Freepik, a platform that provides free images, has introduced a new open-source AI image model named F Lite. Unveiled on Tuesday (yesterday), Freepik claims the model is "responsible AI" since it has been trained solely on commercially licensed, safe-for-work content. Developed in collaboration with AI startup Fal.ai, F Lite was trained on 80 million images -- a small dataset compared to other AI image generators which trained on over one billion images. However, Freepik says that it is "potentially the largest publicly available text-to-image model trained entirely on legally sound content." F Lite joins a small group of models trained on licensed datasets, which includes Adobe, Bria, Getty Images, Moonvalley, and Shutterstock. "Our goal wasn't to outshine Midjourney or Flux," a Freepik spokesperson tells TechCrunch. "It was to make a solid, open model that developers can adapt and improve." Generative AI is currently at the heart of multiple copyright disputes, with companies like OpenAI and Midjourney facing lawsuits for using protected content to train AI models without permission. These companies typically argue that training on such data qualifies as fair use -- a legal interpretation many artists continue to challenge and one that is yet to be definitively settled in court. F Lite is offered in two variants: standard and texture. Both were trained on Freepik's internal library of about 80 million images. The company says the standard version is more reliable and sticks closely to prompts, while the texture variant, though more prone to mistakes, delivers richer textures and more visually creative results. "Both models are openly licensed, with the regular and textured weights available on Hugging Face," says Freepik. "The model's code is also open-source, allowing you to use F Lite in ComfyUI, integrate it into your Python workflows via diffusers, or fine-tune and create custom LoRAs." Depending on how legal battles around AI and copyright unfold, demand for models like F Lite -- trained entirely on licensed content -- could see rapid growth if corporate companies are spooked by the legal uncertainty of more established image generators.

Freepik enters the AI image race with F Lite

Freepik, the online graphic design platform, has launched an "open" AI image generator called F Lite, trained on 80 million commercially licensed images. The model, developed in partnership with AI startup Fal.ai, contains around 10 billion parameters and was trained using 64 Nvidia H100 GPUs over two months. F Lite is available in two versions: standard and texture. The standard version is more predictable and prompt-faithful, while the texture version is more chaotic and error-prone but delivers better textures and creative compositions. According to Javi Lopez, Freepik's representative, the company has been working on F Lite for months, and it feels good to finally share it, as he stated on April 29, 2025. The model was trained on an internal dataset of around 80 million images. The standard version is available at Fal.ai, and the texture version is also accessible. Freepik makes no claim that F Lite produces superior images to leading generators like Midjourney's V7 or Black Forest Labs' Flux family. F Lite joins a growing collection of generative AI models trained on licensed data, including those developed by Adobe, Bria, Getty Images, Moonvalley, and Shutterstock. Running F Lite requires a GPU with at least 24GB of VRAM. The development comes as generative AI is at the center of copyright lawsuits against AI companies, with many creators and IP rights holders disagreeing with the practice of using copyrighted data for training without compensation. Other companies are also developing media-generating models on licensed data, and the market could grow exponentially depending on the outcome of AI copyright lawsuits.