A judge in London has given her ruling on Getty Images’ lawsuit against the British AI company, Stability AI. In a decision that may have serious implications for the future of copyright and AI, the Judge dismissed many of Getty Images’ claims.
What was the case about?
Getty Images had sued Stability AI for infringing its intellectual property rights. The claim alleged that Stability AI had trained its generative AI model, Stable Diffusion, on Getty Images’ content. It also alleged that the AI had generated images that breached Getty Images’ copyrights and trademarks.
What did the Judge decide?
In her ruling on the case, Judge Joanna Smith decided in favour of Getty Images in relation to images generated by Stable Diffusion that contained Getty watermarks. However, she clarified that ruling, limiting it to being “both historic and extremely limited in scope.” Judge Smith also dismissed Getty Images’ copyright claims. She said, “An AI model such as Stable Diffusion, which does not store or reproduce any copyright works (and has never done so), is not an ‘infringing copy.’” In addition, the Judge didn’t give a ruling on a passing off claim made by Getty Images.
What has Getty Images said?
Following the ruling, Getty Images issued a statement that said, “Today’s ruling confirms that Stable Diffusion’s inclusion of Getty Images’ trademarks in AI‑generated outputs infringed those trademarks.” It added, “This is a significant win for intellectual property owners.” However, Getty Images warned, “We remain deeply concerned that even well‑resourced companies such as Getty Images face significant challenges in protecting their creative works given the lack of transparency requirements.”
What we think
Companies on both sides of the AI debate had been hoping Getty Images’ case against Stability AI would provide some clarity. Unfortunately, the issue of what can and can’t be used to train generative AI is still a very gray area. The Judge in the case was keen to limit the scope of her ruling, although both Getty Images and Stability AI have sought to claim the victory. For now, AI companies can go on training their AI models as they have been. However, there are clearly a lot more legal battles to be fought before the matter is finally resolved once and for all.
