Extract from Molly Smith’s article “‘Landmark’ Lawsuit Between Getty and Stability AI Case Commences in UK”
A closely watched trial expected to impact laws surrounding copyright infringement and artificial intelligence began on Monday at London’s High Court.
The case pits global stock photo agency Getty Images against image generation AI company Stability AI.
Seattle-based Getty Images and associated companies filed a lawsuit against Stability AI, creators of the “Stable Diffusion” AI model, alleging it scraped millions of images from Getty’s websites without permission to train its AI, resulting in infringement of copyright and trademarks.
The trial is one of several lawsuits around the world that raise questions about the use of copyright-protected material to train AI models.
Getty is being advised by Fieldfisher, which instructed Lindsay Lane KC, Jessie Bowhill and Joshua Marshall.
Nicholas Saunders KC, Henry Edwards and Edward Cronan have been instructed by Bird & Bird on behalf of Stability AI.
In court documents, Getty, which describes itself as “the creative endeavour” of hundreds of thousands of photographers worldwide, alleges that “[Stability] has ridden roughshod over this vast creative and entrepreneurial endeavour by simply taking millions of images, which were scraped from Getty Images’ websites without its consent, and using them as key input to train its commercial AI model, Stable Diffusion, the output of which competes with Getty Images’ content.”
