Latest news with #StabilityAI
The Hindu
4 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain's High Court. 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. 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. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices with copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. Getty's trial evidence sought to show the painstaking creative work of professional photographers who made the images found in Getty's collection, from a Caribbean beach scene to celebrity shots of actor Donald Glover at an awards show and Kurt Cobain smoking a cigarette. It juxtaposed those real photographs with Stability's AI-generated outputs. But it was a hard case to make in the U.K., in part because of a technicality. Stability, though based in London, did its AI training elsewhere on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. 'It was always anticipated to be challenging to prove that connection to the U.K. because we know that most of the training happened in the U.S.,' 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 U.K. case marks the second legal setback this week for creative industries attempting to challenge the generative AI industry's business practices. In the U.S., 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 U.K. 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 U.K. complaint might also be a strategic decision by Getty to focus on a similar copyright claim that's still pending in a U.S. 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. "We are grateful for the time and effort the U.K. court has put forth to address the important matters in this case. We look forward to the court's final judgment.' Closing arguments are expected to last until the end of the week. A written decision from the judge is expected at a later date. How the judge addresses the remaining claims could be significant because they go to the heart of how the U.K. handles the distribution of AI tools that might have been lawfully trained in the U.S., said Nina O'Sullivan, a partner at British law firm Mishcon de Reya.
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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain's High Court. 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. 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. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices with copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. Getty's trial evidence sought to show the painstaking creative work of professional photographers who made the images found in Getty's collection, from a Caribbean beach scene to celebrity shots of actor Donald Glover at an awards show and Kurt Cobain smoking a cigarette. 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. 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. "We are grateful for the time and effort the UK court has put forth to address the important matters in this case. We look forward to the court's final judgment." Closing arguments are expected to last until the end of the week. A written decision from the judge is expected at a later date. How the judge addresses the remaining claims could be significant because they go to the heart of how the UK handles the distribution of AI tools that might have been lawfully trained in the US, said Nina O'Sullivan, a partner at British law firm Mishcon de Reya.
Japan Today
4 days ago
- Business
- Japan Today
Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
FILE - The desktop and mobile websites for Stable Diffusion are pictured, Oct. 24, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) By KELVIN CHAN Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain's High Court. 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. 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. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices with copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023. Getty's trial evidence sought to show the painstaking creative work of professional photographers who made the images found in Getty's collection, from a Caribbean beach scene to celebrity shots of actor Donald Glover at an awards show and Kurt Cobain smoking a cigarette. 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. Stability, though based in London, did its AI training elsewhere on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. 'It was always anticipated to be challenging to prove that connection to the we know that most of the training happened in the U.S.,' 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 U.K. case marks the second legal setback this week for creative industries attempting to challenge the generative AI industry's business practices. In the U.S., 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 U.S. 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. "We are grateful for the time and effort the UK court has put forth to address the important matters in this case. We look forward to the court's final judgment.' Closing arguments are expected to last until the end of the week. A written decision from the judge is expected at a later date. How the judge addresses the remaining claims could be significant because they go to the heart of how the UK handles the distribution of AI tools that might have been lawfully trained in the U.S., said Nina O'Sullivan, a partner at British law firm Mishcon de Reya. —— AP Technology Writer Matt O'Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI
LONDON — Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain's High Court. 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. The two have been facing off in a widely watched court case that could have implications for the creative and technology industries.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Getty drops key copyright claims against Stability AI, but UK lawsuit continues
Getty Images dropped its primary claims of copyright infringement against Stability AI on Wednesday at London's High Court, narrowing one of the most closely watched legal fights over how AI companies use copyrighted content to train their models. The move doesn't end the case entirely – Getty is still pursuing other claims as well as a separate lawsuit in the U.S. – but it underscores the gray areas surrounding the future of content ownership and usage in the age of generative AI. The development also comes just a day after a U.S. judge sided with Anthropic in a similar dispute over whether training AI on books without author permission violates copyright law. 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. 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. '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. 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. What remains in Getty's lawsuit are a secondary infringement claim as well as claims for trademark infringement. 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 UK could constitute importing infringing articles, even if the training happened outside the UK. '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.' The spokesperson also noted that Stability was confident that 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. 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 stock photography and video libraries. The tool allows users to generate new licensable images and artwork. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
