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IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT NEWS—Getty Images takes aim at Stability AI in new infringement lawsuit, (Feb 7, 2023)

Law Firms Mentioned:US | Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP | Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor LLP
Organizations Mentioned:Getty Images (US), Inc. | Stability AI, Inc. | Weil Gotshal & Manges, LLP | Young Conaway Stargatt Taylor, LLP

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The prominent photo agency claims that the software developer scraped millions of its images in order to train its system.

Stability AI, the creator of a software interface capable of generating digital content using artificial intelligence did so by ...

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The prominent photo agency claims that the software developer scraped millions of its images in order to train its system.

Stability AI, the creator of a software interface capable of generating digital content using artificial intelligence did so by engaging in “brazen infringement” of intellectual property on a “staggering scale,” a new federal complaint asserts. The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the District of Delaware by Getty Images, one of the nation’s leading photo agencies, is only the latest to take aim at the newly developed software solution and promises to raise a host of unresolved questions about the application of traditional intellectual property laws to unanticipated computer-aided technologies (Getty Images (US), Inc. v. Stability AI, Inc., February 3, 2023.).

The lawsuit was filed by Getty Images, the operator of a series of websites that enable users to license photographs and other visual assets. The stock image titan currently hosts “hundreds of millions” of images, its complaint asserts, at websites such as at www.gettyimages.com and www.istock.com. The photo agency claims to have more than 500,000 contributors (80,000 of which are exclusive to Getty Images), over 300 premium content partners, and more than 115 staff photographers.

Getty Images’ lawsuit takes aim at Stability AI, a company that offers both open-source and revenue-generating software solutions that allow users to custom-generate artworks based on text queries. According to the complaint, Stability AI has copied more than 12 million photographs from Getty Images’ database, along with the associated captions and metadata, without permission from or compensation to Getty Images. These images, the complaint alleges, are used to “train” the software to associate artwork with its descriptive text, thus allowing users to enter search queries—“cat in a scarf,” for example—that return computer-generated images resembling the query. Moreover, the lawsuit alleges, some of the computer-generated renderings even contained distorted recreations of the watermark that Getty Images embeds in all of its photos—in some cases rendering the watermark as part of “bizarre or grotesque synthetic imagery” that tarnishes the photo agency’s reputation.

(The programs, as IP Law Daily explored in a recent article, appear to have a widely varying amount of success. For example, IP Law Daily’s query in https://stablediffusionweb.com/ for the term “fast car” returned, indeed, computer-generated images of four speedy-looking vehicles. But of the images returned for the phrase “sunglasses at night,” three of them appeared, regrettably, to be taken in the daytime. And despite the hope of your correspondent—or perhaps happily for his publisher—a query for the term “intellectual property law daily” did not even come close to resembling the original.).

The lawsuit is not the first to target the artificial intelligence software behind Stability AI. Last month, a series of visual artists filed a putative class action lawsuit in the federal court for San Francisco, alleging that the companies unlawfully collected millions of images from the internet and then used those images to train their computers. That case was recently transferred to the courtroom of William H. Orrick, a jurist who has long been in the forefront of intellectual property developments.

The lawsuit by Getty Images asserts claims of copyright infringement, removal of copyright management information in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trademark dilution under the Lanham Act, and several violations of Delaware statutory and common law.

The Case is No. 1:23-cv-00135-UNA.

Attorneys: Benjamin Marks, Jared Friedmann and Melissa Rutman (Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP) and Tammy L. Mercer (Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor LLP) for Getty Images (US), Inc.

Companies: Getty Images (US), Inc.; Stability AI, Inc.

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