Stock photo provider Getty Images has sued artificial intelligence company Stability AI, alleging in a lawsuit unsealed Monday that the company misused more than 12 million Getty photos to train its Stable Diffusion AI image generation system.
The suit, filed in Delaware federal court, follows a separate lawsuit brought by Getty against Stability in the U.K. and a related one filed by artists in California against Stability and other companies in the rapidly growing field of generative artificial intelligence. Class action.
Getty declined to comment on the Delaware lawsuit. Stabilization Bureau representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Reuters News competes with Getty in the editorial picture market.
London-based Stability AI released Stable Diffusion last August, an AI-based system for generating images from text input and image generator DreamStudio. The company announced in October that it had raised more than $100 million (nearly Rs. 830 crore) at a valuation of $1 billion (nearly Rs. 828 crore).
Seattle-based Getty accused Stability of copying millions of its photos without permission and using them to train Stable Diffusion to generate more accurate descriptions based on user prompts.
Its images are particularly valuable for AI training because of their image quality, variety of subjects, and detailed metadata, Getty said.
Getty said it had licensed “millions of suitable digital assets” to other “leading technology innovators” for AI-related purposes, and that Stability infringed its copyright and competed unfairly.
The suit also accuses Stability of infringing Getty’s trademark, citing images generated by its AI system that are watermarked by Getty, which Getty says could lead to consumer confusion.
Getty is asking the court to order Stability to stop using its images and to seek monetary damages, including Stability’s profits from the alleged infringement.
© Thomson Reuters 2023