Getty Images suffers partial defeat in UK copyright lawsuit against Stability AI

The long-running legal clash between Getty Images and Stability AI has become one of the first major test cases for copyright in the generative AI era, setting a crucial precedent for how courts may interpret intellectual property rights in the age of machine learning.

According to reporting by Reuters, Getty largely lost its London lawsuit against Stability AI over claims that the AI company’s image generator, Stable Diffusion, unlawfully used Getty’s copyrighted photos to train its model. The case, which began in June this year, was among the earliest efforts to challenge how generative AI systems source creative content.

Judge Joanna Smith ruled that Getty succeeded “in part” on trademark infringement, specifically in relation to Getty watermarks reproduced by users of Stable Diffusion. However, the judge dismissed Getty’s secondary copyright infringement claim, concluding that Stable Diffusion “does not store or reproduce any copyright works.” She added that her findings were “historic and extremely limited in scope.”

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Getty, which produces creative stock images and videos, dropped a significant portion of its copyright arguments mid-trial due to limited evidence of where the AI model was trained. Still, the company said the decision reaffirmed that AI developers bear responsibility when their systems output images containing protected marks.

In a statement, Getty said, “Today’s ruling confirms that Stable Diffusion’s inclusion of Getty Images’ trademarks in AI-generated outputs infringed those trademarks. Crucially, the Court rejected Stability AI’s attempt to hold the user responsible for that infringement.” The company added that the court’s findings established “a powerful precedent that intangible articles, such as AI models, are subject to copyright infringement claims in the same way as tangible articles.”

Stability AI, meanwhile, welcomed the ruling. Its general counsel, Christian Dowell, said the decision “ultimately resolves the copyright concerns that were the core issue.”

As reported by Reuters, legal experts noted that the case leaves unresolved the larger question of whether training AI models on copyrighted works constitutes infringement in the UK. Lawyers said this exposes gaps in British copyright law and highlights the need for stronger transparency and policy guidance.

The case first originated in early 2023. Based on a past report by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Getty Images had initiated legal proceedings in London’s High Court against Stability AI for “unlawfully copying and processing millions of images” from its platform to train the Stable Diffusion model. In its statement then, Getty said that Stability AI acted “absent a license to benefit its commercial interests and to the detriment of content creators,” adding that it had long offered proper licensing arrangements to technology partners developing AI responsibly.

At the time, Getty also underscored its belief in AI’s creative potential when applied ethically, contrasting its stance with Stability AI’s alleged disregard for licensing protocols. At the time, Getty’s rival, Shutterstock, had already begun working with OpenAI to train its DALL·E model under a transparent licensing deal, offering a roadmap for how creative platforms could balance innovation with intellectual property protection.

Just last week, Getty Images signed a multi-year licensing deal with Perplexity, marking a major step in the AI startup’s efforts to formalize relationships with content providers after facing multiple allegations of plagiarism and data scraping, Tech Crunch reported. The agreement allows Perplexity to display Getty’s images within its AI search and discovery products, with proper credit and links back to the original source.

The partnership builds on a year-long collaboration between the two companies under Perplexity’s Publishers’ Program, which shares ad revenue with participating outlets when their content appears in search results. Perplexity said the collaboration reinforces its commitment to attribution and transparency.

Meanwhile, Stability AI has continued on its slew of collaborations and alliances, having partnered up with Universal Music Group to co-develop professional AI music creation tools, Electronic Arts to co-develop tools for EA's artists and designers, and even ad giant WPP to establish a joint R&D pipeline. 

Announced in March earlier this year, the tie-up allows WPP to leverage Stability AI's open visual media models to craft brand narratives, and in turn, WPP's real-world applications and market insights will drive the development of Stability AI's tech. 

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