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Getty Images' Suit Over AI Generator

By Isha Marathe
March 01, 2023

The magical world of AI-generated art has become more mainstream over the past few months. There has also been some backlash against the industry, including brewing class action lawsuits alleging copyright violations and resistance from online artist communities. But until recently, a substantial legal threat was yet to emerge against the technology that underpins artificial-intelligence art.

In February, that threat materialized when Getty Images, one of the largest global stock image libraries sued in U.S. federal court the UK-based Stability AI, one of the most prominent AI art developers and the creator of open-source AI art generator Stable Diffusion. The complaint adds to an initial lawsuit Getty filed in January against Stability AI in the High Court of Justice in London.

Getty's U.S. court complaint hinges on two primary factors: copyright infringement — that is, Stability AI allegedly scraping copyrighted images from Getty's database to train Stability AI's machines without Getty's consent or Getty being compensated; and trademark dilution, when the art generator created certain images with Getty's watermark on them, albeit distorted — or as the complaint called the output, "bizarre or grotesque," thus "tarnishing" Getty's trademarks.

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