Getty images ai lawsuit
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Seattle-based Getty's decision to abandon the copyright claim removes a key part of its lawsuit against Stability AI, which owns a popular AI image-making tool called Stable Diffusion.
As Getty Images continues its legal pursuit, both parties and the interested public alike await the court’s guidance on these multifaceted issues. The shift in venue aligns with Stability AI’s assertion that California is the appropriate forum for this legal matter.
The core of Getty Images’ claim revolves around unauthorized use of its vast image collection by Stability AI, which is known for its advancements in AI technology, particularly in the realm of image generation.
Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications. This dispute highlights the ongoing tension between traditional copyright holders and emerging technology firms leveraging machine learning techniques. The case raises questions about the extent to which AI companies need to secure licenses for training data, and how copyright laws adapt to technological innovations.
The tool allows users to generate new licensable images and artwork.
Getty sued Stability AI — the startup behind AI image generator Stable Diffusion — in January 2023 after alleging that Stability used millions of copyrighted images to train its AI model without permission.
The image database company also claimed that many of the works generated by Stable Diffusion were similar to the copyrighted content used to train it.
It juxtaposed those real photographs with Stability's AI-generated outputs.
But it was a hard case to make in the UK, in part because of a technicality. Some, Getty said, even had its watermarks on them.
Both of those claims were dropped as of Wednesday morning.
“The training claim has likely been dropped due to Getty failing to establish a sufficient connection between the infringing acts and the UK jurisdiction for copyright law to bite,” Ben Maling, a partner at law firm EIP, told TechCrunch in an email.
However, the case was voluntarily withdrawn and subsequently refiled in California. We look forward to the court's final judgment."
Closing arguments are expected to last until the end of the week.
This article was updated to include more information from Getty on its U.S. case against Stability AI.
Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. The legal community is watching closely, recognizing the potential impact on how digital content is utilized by AI systems in the future.
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by a photographer).”In Getty’s closing arguments, the company’s lawyers said they dropped those claims due to weak evidence and a lack of knowledgeable witnesses from Stability AI.
The company framed the move as strategic, allowing both it and the court to focus on what Getty believes are stronger and more winnable allegations.
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What remains in Getty’s lawsuit are a secondary infringement claim as well as claims for trademark infringement.
For further context, Law360 has provided additional details on the case’s procedural posture and legal arguments (Law360).
While this legal contention is not unique in the landscape of AI and copyright law, its outcome could set significant precedents for how intellectual property rights are enforced in the digital age.
Initially, Getty Images filed the case in Delaware, accusing the company of using millions of photos without proper authorization. "We are grateful for the time and effort the UK court has put forth to address the important matters in this case. “Meanwhile, the output claim has likely been dropped due to Getty failing to establish that what the models reproduced reflects a substantial part of what was created in the images (e.g.
Stability, though based in London, did its AI training elsewhere on computers run by US tech giant Amazon.
"It was always anticipated to be challenging to prove that connection to the UK because we know that most of the training happened in the US," said AI legal expert Alex Shandro, who observed the trial for the law firm A&O Shearman.
Getty's abandoning of the key infringement claim in its UK case marks the second legal setback this week for creative industries attempting to challenge the generative AI industry's business practices.
In the US, a federal judge in California found that San Francisco-based Anthropic didn't break the law for training its chatbot Claude on millions of copyrighted books, but the company will still face a trial for taking those books from pirate websites instead of buying them.
In its UK lawsuit, Getty alleged that Stability's use of its images infringed its intellectual property rights, including copyright, trademark and database rights.
However, Getty's move indicates that the company didn't think its copyright allegations would succeed.
After witness and expert testimony, Getty made the "pragmatic decision to pursue only the claims for trade mark infringement, passing off and secondary infringement of copyright," according to a written copy of its closing arguments.
Getty continues to accuse Stability of infringing its trademark because its AI model was trained on images that included Getty's watermarks, which were sometimes reproduced by the image generator.
Getty also alleges that Stability indirectly infringed its copyright because even if Stability's AI models were trained outside of Britain, it still faces local laws if the models produced images in the country.
Shandro said removing that part of its UK complaint might also be a strategic decision by Getty to focus on a similar copyright claim that's still pending in a US court.
London-based Stability said it welcomed Getty's move.
"We are pleased to see Getty's decision to drop multiple claims after the conclusion of testimony," the company said in a statement.
Regarding the secondary infringement claim, Getty is essentially arguing that the AI models themselves might infringe copyright law and that using these models in the U.K. could constitute importing infringing articles, even if the training happened outside the U.K.
“Secondary infringement is the one with widest relevance to genAI companies training outside of the UK, namely via the models themselves potentially being ‘infringing articles’ that are subsequently imported into the UK,” Maling said.
A spokesperson for Stability AI told TechCrunch the startup was “pleased to see Getty’s decision to drop multiple claims after the conclusion of the testimony.”
In its closing arguments, Stability noted that it believed Getty’s trademark and passing off claims will fail because consumers don’t interpret the watermarks as a commercial message from Stability AI.
Getty’s U.S.
division also sued Stability AI in February 2023 for trademark and copyright infringement. In that case, Getty alleged that Stability used as many as 12 million copyrighted images to train its AI model without permission. The company is seeking damages for 11,383 works at $150,000 per infringement, which would amount to a total of $1.7 billion.
A Getty spokesperson said the company’s decision to drop copyright infringement claims in the U.K.
does not impact its U.S. case, which is pending a decision on Stability AI’s motion to dismiss.
Separately, Stability AI is also named in another complaint alongside Midjourney and DeviantArt after a group of visual artists sued the three companies for copyright infringement.
Getty Images has its own generative AI offering that leverages AI models trained on Getty iStock photography and video libraries.
The two have been facing off in a widely watched court case that could have implications for the creative and technology industries.
Tech companies have been training their AI systems on vast troves of writings and images available online.