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Landmark Stability AI vs Getty Images copyright lawsuit to move ahead to trial

Landmark Stability AI vs Getty Images copyright lawsuit to move ahead to trial

Stability AI

A UK court has ruled that Getty Images' copyright dispute against leading artificial intelligence (AI) company Stability AI can move on to trial.

Dismissing Stable Diffusion creators contentions against the lawsuit, the court found merit in Getty's insistence that its copyright materials were used to train the company's AI models.

Stability AI vs Getty Images: The case

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Getty Images has sued Stability AI, a competitor of the popular OpenAI, over the use of its copyrighted content. The US stock image provider alleges that Stability scrapped millions of its images online to train its image generation tool, called Stable Diffusion.

Stability AI, which is valued at $1 billion (£790 million), attempted to have the case brought by Getty Images dismissed. It contended that its models were largely trained in Munich — by a team from Munich University, and not in the UK. This, it said, meant that the case should not be held in a British court.

"I am confident that no Stability employee based in the UK has ever worked on developing or training Stable Diffusion," said Stability CEO Emad Mostaque, as reported by the Telegraph.

Judge's decision

Casting doubt on Stability AI's claims, Justice Joanna Smith, as per the Telegraph report, suggested that evidence provided by Mostague may be "inaccurate, or incomplete".

"These documents raise the spectre that Mr Mostaque’s evidence is either inaccurate or incomplete; at the very least they suggest a conflict of evidence."

"The apparent inconsistencies between Mr Mostaque's evidence and other available evidence casts doubt over the credibility of his statements generally," read Judge Smith's judgement.

Smith said that previous comments by the Stability CEO made during media appearances and YouTube interviews warrant a further investigation. She said that because of "unanswered questions" a full trial is needed, and that "Disclosure may establish that Mr Mostaque’s evidence is unimpeachable."

In a 2022 interview, Mostaque said that the company "fast-tracked" residency applications of Ukrainian and Russian developers to allow them to come to the UK.

Accusing Getty Images of "kicking up dust", Stability AI argued that the developers may have been working on other projects. It further said that the evidence provided by the stock image providerwas "speculative".

(With inputs from agencies)

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Moohita Kaur Garg

Moohita Kaur Garg is a senior sub-editor at WION with over four years of experience covering the volatile intersections of geopolitics and global security. From reporting on global...Read More