Stability AI Wins Copyright Case

What happened

Stability AI largely prevailed in a UK High Court case against Getty Images. The court ruled that Stability AI's Stable Diffusion model did not infringe Getty's primary copyright claim by storing or reproducing copyrighted works during training. However, Stability AI was found to have infringed Getty's trademark due to the reproduction of Getty's iStock watermark within some AI-generated images. Getty withdrew its main copyright claim, citing evidential and jurisdictional challenges, leaving trademark misuse and secondary copyright infringement claims pending.

Why it matters

This ruling introduces a reduced control for content owners over the use of their works in AI model training, increasing exposure for compliance and legal teams to models trained on unconsented data where direct reproduction is not evident. The finding of trademark infringement, specifically the reproduction of watermarks, tightens dependencies on AI model output validation, raising due diligence requirements for platform operators and procurement regarding generated content's adherence to brand and intellectual property guidelines. This shifts the burden of proof and monitoring to detecting indirect indicators of misuse.