Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI; AP, June 25, 2025

  KELVIN CHAN, AP; Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI

"Getty Images dropped copyright infringement allegations from its lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI as closing arguments began Wednesday in the landmark case at Britain’s High Court. 

Seattle-based Getty’s decision to abandon the copyright claim removes a key part of its lawsuit against Stability AI, which owns a popular AI image-making tool called Stable Diffusion. The two have been facing off in a widely watched court case that could have implications for the creative and technology industries."

Two Major Lawsuits Aim to Answer a Multi-Billion-Dollar Question: Can AI Train on Your Creative Work Without Permission?; The National Law Review, June 18, 2025

Andrew R. Lee, Timothy P. Scanlan, Jr. of Jones Walker LLP , The National Law Review; Two Major Lawsuits Aim to Answer a Multi-Billion-Dollar Question: Can AI Train on Your Creative Work Without Permission?

"In a London courtroom, lawyers faced off in early June in a legal battle that could shape the future relationship between artificial intelligence and creative work. The case pits Getty Images, a major provider of stock photography, against Stability AI, the company behind the popular AI art generator, Stable Diffusion.

At the heart of the dispute is Getty's claim that Stability AI unlawfully used 12 million of its copyrighted images to train its AI model. The outcome of this case could establish a critical precedent for whether AI companies can use publicly available online content for training data or if they will be required to license it.

On the first day of trial, Getty's lawyer told the London High Court that the company “recognises that the AI industry overall may be a force for good,” but that did not justify AI companies “riding roughshod over intellectual property rights.”

A Key Piece of Evidence

A central component of Getty's case is the observation that Stable Diffusion's output sometimes includes distorted versions of the Getty Images watermark. Getty argues this suggests its images were not only used for training but are also being partially reproduced by the AI model.

Stability AI has taken the position that training an AI model on images constitutes a transformative use of that data. The argument is that teaching a machine from existing information is fundamentally different from direct copying."

Getty Images Faces Off Against Stability in Court as First Major AI Copyright Trial Begins; PetaPixel, June 10, 2025

 Matt Growcoot , PetaPixel; Getty Images Faces Off Against Stability in Court as First Major AI Copyright Trial Begins

"The Guardian notes that the trial will focus on specific photos taken by famous photographers. Getty plans to bring up photos of the Chicago Cubs taken by sports photographer Gregory Shamus and photos of film director Christopher Nolan taken by Andreas Rentz. 

All-in-all, 78,000 pages of evidence have been disclosed for the case and AI experts are being called in to give testimonies. Getty is also suing Stability AI in the United States in a parallel case. The trial in London is expected to run for three weeks and will be followed by a written decision from the judge at a later date."

Getty argues its landmark UK copyright case does not threaten AI; Reuters, June 9, 2025

 Sam Tobin, Reuters; Getty argues its landmark UK copyright case does not threaten AI

 "Getty Images' landmark copyright lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Stability AI began at London's High Court on Monday, with Getty rejecting Stability AI's contention the case posed a threat to the generative AI industry.

Seattle-based Getty, which produces editorial content and creative stock images and video, accuses Stability AI of using its images to "train" its Stable Diffusion system, which can generate images from text inputs...

Creative industries are grappling with the legal and ethical implications of AI models that can produce their own work after being trained on existing material. Prominent figures including Elton John have called for greater protections for artists.

Lawyers say Getty's case will have a major impact on the law, as well as potentially informing government policy on copyright protections relating to AI."

It’s too expensive to fight every AI copyright battle, Getty CEO says; Ars Technica, May 28, 2025

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; It’s too expensive to fight every AI copyright battle, Getty CEO says

[Kip Currier: As of May 2025, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) data values Getty Images at nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.

So it's noteworthy and should give individual creators pause that even a company of that size is publicly acknowledging the financial realities of copyright litigation against AI tech companies like Stability AI.

Even if the courts ultimately determine that AI tech companies can prevail on fair use grounds against copyright infringement claims, isn't there something fundamentally unfair and unethical about AI tech oligarchs being able to devour and digest everyone else's copyrighted works, and then alchemize that improperly-taken aggregation of creativity into new IP works that they can monetize, with no recompense given to the original creators?

Just because someone can do something, doesn't mean they should be able to do it.

AI tech company leaders like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg et al would never stand for similar uses of their works without permission or compensation. 

Neither should creators. Quid pulchrum est (What's fair is fair).

If the courts do side with AI tech companies, new federal legislation may need to be enacted to provide protections for content creators from the AI tech companies that want and need their content to power up novel iterations of their AI tools via ever-increasing amounts of training data. 

In the current Congress, that's not likely to happen. But it may be possible after 2026 or 2028. If enough content creators make their voices heard through their grassroots advocacy and votes at the ballot box.]

[Excerpt]

"On Bluesky, a trial lawyer, Max Kennerly, effectively satirized Clegg and the whole AI industry by writing, "Our product creates such little value that it is simply not viable in the marketplace, not even as a niche product. Therefore, we must be allowed to unilaterally extract value from the work of others and convert that value into our profits."

Getty Images Wants $1.7 Billion From its Lawsuit With Stability AI; PetaPixel, December 19, 2024

 MATT GROWCOOT, PETAPIXEL; GETTY IMAGES WANTS $1.7 BILLION FROM ITS LAWSUIT WITH STABILITY AI

"Getty, one of the world’s largest photo agencies, launched its lawsuit in January 2023. Getty suspects that Stability AI may have used as many as 12 million of its copyrighted photos to train the AI image generator Stable Diffusion. Getty is seeking $150,000 per infringement and 12 million photos equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion.

However, according to Stability AI’s latest company accounts as reported by Sifted, Getty is seeking damages for 11,383 works at $150,000 per infringement which comes to a total of $1.7 billion. Stability AI has previously reported that Getty was seeking damages for 7,300 images so that number has increased. But Stability AI says Getty hasn’t given an exact number it wants for the lawsuit to be settled, according to Sifted."

Getty Images CEO Calls AI Training Models ‘Pure Theft’; PetaPixel, December 3, 2024

 MATT GROWCOOT , PetaPixel; Getty Images CEO Calls AI Training Models ‘Pure Theft’

"The CEO of Getty Images has penned a column in which he calls the practice of scraping photos and other content from the open web by AI companies “pure theft”.

Writing for Fortune, Craig Peters argues that fair use rules must be respected and that AI training practices are in contravention of those rules...

“I am responsible for an organization that employs over 1,700 individuals and represents the work of more than 600,000 journalists and creators worldwide,” writes Peters. “Copyright is at the very core of our business and the livelihood of those we employ and represent.”"

The Washington Post; National Archives says it was wrong to alter images; The Washington Post, January 18, 2020

Steve Thompson and Joe Heim , The Washington Post; National Archives says it was wrong to alter images

 

"Officials at the National Archives on Saturday said they had removed from display an altered photo from the 2017 Women’s March in which signs held by marchers critical of President Trump had been blurred.

 

In tweets on Saturday, the museum apologized and said: “We made a mistake.”

“As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration,” one of the tweets said.

“This photo is not an archival record held by the @usnatarchives, but one we licensed to use as a promotional graphic,” it said in another tweet. “Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image.”...

Marchers in the 2017 photograph by Mario Tama of Getty Images were shown carrying a variety of signs, at least four of which were altered by the museum. A placard that proclaimed “God Hates Trump” had Trump blotted out so that it read “God Hates.” A sign that read “Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women” had the word Trump blurred. Signs with messages that referenced women’s anatomy were also digitally altered."

If China Ever Uses Copyright to Censor Tank Man, It Will Be America’s Fault; Motherboard, 2/1/16

Sarah Jeong, Motherboard; If China Ever Uses Copyright to Censor Tank Man, It Will Be America’s Fault:

"Imagine a future where news agencies, historical archives, academic resources, and humanitarian organizations across the world all receive the same US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice, sent by a Chinese firm: Take down the Tank Man photo, or be sued for copyright infringement.

There is perhaps no better-known image associated with the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre: an unknown man in a white shirt and black trousers, grasping a bag in one hand, stands in front of a line of tanks, halting their progress.

Tank Man is a subversive image for the Chinese government, and for internet users in that the country, the photo—like many other references to the 1989 protests—has been censored by the authorities. It would be insanity if copyright were used to expand that censorship beyond China’s borders, but thanks to the United States copyright lobby, this absurd hypothetical is a little more realistic than you’d expect.

There’s more than one photograph of Tank Man, but for such a long, momentous stand-off, the photographs are surprisingly few. At least one of these photographs now belongs to Visual China Group, which purchased it from none other than Bill Gates himself, included inside of a massive bundle of copyrights to “historic news, documentary, and artistic images” that includes images of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Visual China Group has announced a partnership with Getty to license the images, so censorship doesn’t look like it’s in the cards."