Stability AI, makers of the widely used AI artwork tool Stable Diffusion, is being sued by Getty Images for allegedly infringing upon copyrighted materials.
A press release from Getty Images sent to The Verge claims that the stock picture agency has commenced legal action in the High Court of Justice in London against Stability AI for unlawfully copying and processing millions of images covered by copyright to train its software.
Lawsuit Against Stability AI
In an interview with The Verge, Getty Images CEO Craig Peters said the company has formally notified Stability AI of an anticipated lawsuit in the UK by issuing a letter before action. He did not specify whether or not any lawsuits would be filed in American courts.
Peters said that the motivation for the letter was Stability AI's exploitation of other parties' intellectual property without compensation or authorization to create a commercial solution for the company's own gain.
He added that Stability AI made no attempts to contact Getty Images about using their content, including the contributors'. Thus, they decided to act to safeguard their intellectual property.
According to Angela Pontarolo, Stability AI's media agent, the company has not received information concerning this complaint. Therefore they cannot comment.
Escalating Legal Conflict
There has been a growing legal dispute between AI companies and content producers about attribution, compensation, and the future of the creative industries. This case is only one indication of an increase in that conflict.
Diffusion and similar AI art techniques depend on training data comprised of pictures made by humans, which firms allegedly scrape from the web, often without the owner's knowledge or permission.
AI businesses say 'fair use' protects this approach, while rights holders say it violates the copyright. Even while legal specialists are split on the matter, they agree that such problems should be settled in the courts.
The first big lawsuit against AI companies, including Stability AI, was filed by three artists this past weekend.
CEO Peters tries to link the present legal scenario in the generative AI field to the early days of digital music when services like Napster provided popular but unlawful downloads until new arrangements were negotiated with license holders like music labels.
"We're taking this action to get clarity," he stated.
An independent review of the dataset discovered that Getty Images and other stock picture sites make up a significant part of its contents. The AI program reportedly tends to duplicate the company's watermark.
Stability AI and similar businesses have denied posing any kind of legal or ethical risk with their algorithms, but they have started providing accommodations for content producers anyway. For example, Stability AI claims that in the future iteration of Stable Diffusion, creators will have the option not to use the algorithm at all.
