A group of artists brought a claim of copyright infringement against Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Stability AI, which a recent court ruling mostly rejected. The artists accused these companies of using copyrighted artwork without their permission.
However, the class-action lawsuit against several generative AI companies has suffered a setback as a judge dismissed it for lack of evidence. This ruling could have significant implications for the future of copyright protection in the AI art space.
In an Oct. 30 ruling, a California District Court judge found flaws in the copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Stability AI in several ways. The judge granted the defendants’ earlier motions to dismiss the case.
Although the class action suit was dismissed, Judge Orrick allowed a separate copyright infringement claim by an individual member of the class to proceed. He also gave the class 30 days to amend their complaint with more proof.
“Even Stability recognizes that determination of the truth of these allegations — whether copying in violation of the Copyright Act occurred in the context of training Stable Diffusion or occurs when Stable Diffusion is run — cannot be resolved at this juncture,” Judge Orrick wrote.
The lawsuit, filed in mid-January, alleged that Stability’s AI model, Stable Diffusion, scraped a large number of copyrighted images without permission, including those of the artists, to train its algorithms.
The lawsuit alleged that DeviantArt also incorporated Stable Diffusion on its site, potentially copying a significant number of images from DeviantArt without a license, which could be a violation of its terms of service.
Judge Orrick held that the images generated by AI are not likely to infringe the artists’ copyright, as they are not a direct copy of the copyrighted works and are unlikely to be considered a derivative work.
The judge pointed out that the class would need to demonstrate that the AI-generated images are substantially similar to the artists’ work, and without that evidence, he was “not convinced” of copyright infringement.
Meanwhile, some of the copyright claims brought by the class members were dismissed because their images were not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, a requirement for bringing a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Similarly, OpenAI is facing a lawsuit from The Author’s Guild, with accusations of “systemic theft,” alleging the unauthorized use of copyrighted works.
Seventeen renowned authors, including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, and Elin Hilderbrand, have initiated legal action against OpenAI, seeking compensation for what they claim is the unlawful utilization of their work.
The authors filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing OpenAI of “widespread and harmful infringements” of their registered copyrights. They characterize ChatGPT as a “massive commercial enterprise” built on “systematic mass theft.”
OpenAI responded to the lawsuit by highlighting its respect for the rights of writers and authors. The organization stated its intention to collaborate with creators to address any concerns they may have about AI technology.
Copyright infringement allegations have played a central role in several lawsuits involving AI companies, such as the class action filed by the Author’s Guild against OpenAI, Universal Music Group’s suit against Anthropic, and the lawsuits filed by Getty Images against Stability AI in both the U.S. and the U.K.
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