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Stability AI, developer of the Stable Diffusion image generation model, has secured a partial legal victory in its UK copyright battle with Getty Images. While the court sided with Getty Images on a trademark infringement claim related to the appearance of watermarks in generated images, it rejected Getty’s broader claim of secondary copyright infringement. This ruling avoids setting a definitive precedent on the legality of training AI models on copyrighted material.

Getty Images had filed the lawsuit in 2023, accusing Stability AI of unlawfully scraping millions of its images to train Stable Diffusion. While the judge recognized the trademark infringement due to the appearance of Getty Images’ watermarks in some outputs, the rejection of secondary copyright infringement is a win for Stability AI. Getty Images plans to continue its legal pursuit against Stability AI in the United States. This case is one of many ongoing copyright disputes between AI companies and creative industries surrounding the training of generative AI models. Recent developments in the field include a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors, and a strategic partnership between Universal Music and Udio, highlighting the complex landscape of AI and copyright law.