Getty Images sues Stability AI for copyright infringement in training data
Getty Images has filed lawsuits in the UK and US alleging that Stability AI illegally scraped over 12 million copyright-protected images from its website to train the Stable Diffusion text-to-image model without permission or compensation. Stability AI denies liability and argues its use of the material falls under fair use doctrine. Getty's CEO says the company is spending millions of dollars on the legal battle.
What happened
In January 2023, Getty Images launched lawsuits against Stability AI in both the UK and US, alleging that the company illegally scraped more than 12 million copyright-protected photos, videos, and illustrations from Getty's website to train its Stable Diffusion text-to-image model.
Stability AI acknowledged that some images from Getty Images websites were used to train Stable Diffusion but denies liability, arguing its use of the copyrighted material is sound under the fair use doctrine as a transformative use.
Reported impact
Getty CEO Craig Peters stated the company is spending millions of dollars on the legal case and described the situation as unfair competition and theft of copyrighted material to benefit Stability AI's commercial interests and to the detriment of content creators.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.