Getty Images Sues Stability AI Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
Getty Images initiates legal proceedings against Stability AI, accusing the company of illegally scraping millions of copyrighted photos to train its Stable Diffusion software.
Getty Images announces legal proceedings against Stability AI, accusing the creators of Stable Diffusion of unlawfully copying and processing millions of copyrighted images. The stock photo giant claims that Stability AI uses this massive visual library to train its popular artificial intelligence image generator without permission or compensation.
Although Getty Images acknowledges the creative potential of artificial intelligence, the company emphasizes that it offers specific licenses for training AI systems. The lawsuit asserts that Stability AI ignores these viable licensing options and long-standing legal protections to pursue its own commercial interests, rather than negotiating a proper agreement.
The legal dispute plays out in the High Court of Justice in London, though Stability AI reports it has not yet received official court documents and learns of the lawsuit through the press. Notably, users previously discover that Stable Diffusion sometimes generates images that still feature a distorted version of the Getty Images watermark, serving as visual evidence of the alleged scraping.