The makers of the well-known AI art tool Stable Diffusion, Stability AI, are being sued by Getty Photos for illegitimately copying and processing millions of copyright-protected images without a licence. The company informed Stability AI last month that it would be bringing legal action in the High Court of Justice in London, and the case has now been brought.
Stability AI had duplicated and altered the pictures “without a licence to enhance Stability AI’s commercial interests and to the prejudice of the content producers,” according to Getty Images CEO Craig Peters in a news release. Peters also pointed out that Stability AI has not attempted to get in touch with Getty Images in order to use any of its or its contributors’ content.
The organisation creating visual media added, “Artificial intelligence, in the opinion of Getty Images, has the potential to inspire creative endeavours. In order to educate artificial intelligence systems in a way that respects people’s privacy and intellectual property rights, Getty Images granted licences to prominent technological pioneers. We think that Stability AI ignored potential licencing options and established legal protections in order to further their own independent business interests and did not request any such licence from Getty Images.”
Stable Diffusion AI is an AI art tool created by Stability AI that creates original artwork using licenced pictures. The programme analyses a photo using machine learning algorithms to produce an AI-generated artwork that is based on the original photo but has its own distinctive qualities. The programme has gained popularity among digital artists who use it to produce distinctive works of digital art.
The infringement action is a component of an expanding pattern of legal objections to AI art tools, which have become more and more well-liked recently. Many artists believe that their work is being stolen without their knowledge or consent by these technologies, which use copyrighted photos to train their artificial intelligence algorithms and produce new works of art.
The issue is even more contentious by the fact that AI art tools frequently duplicate the original watermark from the photos that are protected by copyright in their produced artwork. This has led to concerns over whether the AI art industry violates copyright rules and deprives original producers of their property.
As it has the potential to be a key turning point for the AI art sector, the legal dispute between Stability AI and Getty Images will undoubtedly be closely monitored. Although the outcome of the case is still uncertain, it is obvious that this problem will not go away any time soon given the rising popularity and apparent “intelligence” of AI products.
