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7 February 2023CopyrightMuireann Bolger

Getty Images ramps up feud with Stable Diffusion maker

US lawsuit is latest in a wave of litigation by copyright owners against AI developers | Complaint alleges infringement of 12 million images | Stability AI | Microsoft | GitHub | OpenAI | MidJourney.

Getty Images has escalated its high-profile dispute with an artificial intelligence (AI) developer over the alleged infringement of millions of images used for the training of an art tool,  Stable Diffusion.

The picture library filed a complaint at the  US District Court for the District of Delaware against  Stability AI on Friday, February 3, less than a month after it  sued the same company in the UK.

Stability AI is also facing a class action  lawsuit from a trio of artists in the US accusing it of infringement, while Microsoft, Microsoft’s GitHub, OpenAI and MidJourney have  been sued over allegedly using copyrighted open source code to train their machine learning (ML) systems.

Getty’s US action also comes after the  UK government scrapped controversial plans to allow AI developers greater powers to mine text and data, following an outcry from copyright owners.

‘Brazen infringement’

In this latest complaint, Getty alleged that Stability AI’s “brazen infringement” of its IP had been on a “staggering scale”, leading to the unauthorised use of more than 12 million photographs from its collection, along with the associated captions and metadata.

It also accused Stability AI of removing or altering Getty’s copyright management information, of providing false copyright management information, and infringing its trademarks.

Getty Images is one of the world’s largest creators and distributors of digital content, with a collection of hundreds of millions of visual assets, most of which are photographic images.

Stability AI was founded in 2020 by Emad Mostaque, a former hedge fund executive, and the company is already valued at $1 billion.

But Getty Images contended that Stability AI created its blockbuster image-generating model, Stable Diffusion—which uses AI to deliver computer-synthesised images in response to text prompts—on the back of IP owned by Getty Images and other copyright owners.

It goes on to allege that Stability AI failed to attempt to negotiate a licence with Getty Images for the use of its content, “even though the terms of use of Getty Images’ websites expressly prohibit unauthorised reproduction of content for commercial purposes such as those undertaken by Stability AI”.

Licensing income

The complaint outlined how many of the disputed images were created by Getty Images staff photographers, while others have been acquired by Getty from third parties with an assignment of the associated copyrights.

The remaining images, it added, have been licensed to Getty by its hundreds of content partners or hundreds of thousands of contributing photographers, who rely on the licensing income Getty Images generates for them.

Getty Images claimed that its visual assets are highly desirable for use in connection with AI and ML because of their high quality, and because they are accompanied by content-specific, detailed captions and rich metadata.

But it argued that the alleged infringement means that Stability AI now competes directly with Getty by marketing Stable Diffusion and its DreamStudio interface to those seeking creative imagery.

Stability AI, insisted Getty, was well aware that the content it was scraping without permission from Getty’s websites was protected by copyright.

Low-quality outputs

“Often, the output generated by Stable Diffusion contains a modified version of a Getty Images watermark, creating confusion as to the source of the images and falsely implying an association with Getty Images,” the complaint added.

Getty also noted that while some of the output generated through the use of Stable Diffusion is aesthetically pleasing, other output is of much lower quality and at times ranges from the “bizarre to the grotesque”.

“Stability AI’s incorporation of Getty Images’ marks into low-quality, unappealing, or offensive images dilutes those marks in further violation of federal and state trademark laws,” said the complaint.

Getty is seeking a jury trial to “obtain redress for Stability AI’s callous disregard for its intellectual property rights”.

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