US Judge Dismisses Artists' Copyright Lawsuit Against AI Firms for Lack of Evidence
Summary:
A U.S. judge has dismissed a class-action copyright lawsuit filed by artists against generative AI firms Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Stability AI due to lack of evidence. However, one class action member has been allowed to proceed against Stability. This lawsuit, initiated in mid-January, accused Stability's AI model of unlawfully using billions of copyrighted images, including those of the artists, for software training. Allegations were also made against DeviantArt for implementing the AI model on its website, possibly replicating millions of unlicensed images. The judge remains unconvinced that the AI-generated images infringe the artists' copyright, unless similarities between the original artworks and the generated images can be shown.
In a recent development, a copyright lawsuit initiated by several artists against AI-based firms has been rejected by a US court due to insufficient evidence. On October 30, Judge William Orrick of the California District Court, dismissed the copyright infringement case filed against Midjourney, a generative AI image service, DeviantArt, an art platform, and Stability AI, citing various inadequacies in the case. However, Judge Orrick permitted a single class action member to proceed with a copyright infringement case against Stability and granted the group a month's time to resubmit an improved lawsuit backed with further evidence.
The initial lawsuit, which was lodged in the middle of January, accused Stability's AI model, Stable Diffusion, of unlawfully extracting billions of copyrighted pictures, including those of the involved artists, to facilitate the software training. The suit also alleged that DeviantArt had implemented Stable Diffusion on its website, potentially replicating millions of unlicensed images, thereby violating its terms and conditions.
Judge Orrick argued that the images produced by the AI are unlikely to violate the artists' copyright since it is improbable that they have been derived from copyrighted images. He isn't persuaded that these images infringe unless the group can demonstrate similarities between the generated images and the original artworks.
A few members of the class action had their copyright claims rejected since their images were not registered with the Copyright Office, which is a prerequisite to file a copyright infringement lawsuit. Such copyright infringement disputes form the backbone of similar lawsuits directed at AI companies such as OpenAI by the Author’s Guild, Anthropic by Universal Music Group, and Stability AI by Getty Images in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
Published At
10/31/2023 6:13:36 AM
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