The High Court of Justice ruled in favor of an AI developer

Essence of the dispute: Getty Images (the Rights Holder) filed a claim against Stability AI (the AI Developer) in the High Court of Justice.

The claimant advanced novel legal arguments, seeking a declaration that the defendant’s AI model itself constituted an “infringing copy”, on the grounds that it allegedly stored and reproduced copyright-protected images during the training process and also made use of the claimant’s trademark.

The claim was dismissed by the Court.

Key findings of the judgment:

• Trademark infringement was established only in relation to the early versions of the model, as certain generated images contained watermarks identical to the claimant’s registered trademarks. No such use was identified in later iterations of the model;

• The use of the AI model does not amount to copyright infringement, as the model itself does not store or reproduce protected works;

• The mere act of copying and temporarily storing images during the model’s training process does not constitute copyright infringement in connection with the distribution or deployment of the AI model.

We will continue to monitor the development of this line of case law!

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