Getty Images is known for its extensive collection of millions of images, including an exclusive archive of historical images and a wide selection of stock images hosted on iStock. On Friday, Getty filed his second lawsuit against Stability AI Inc to prevent unauthorized use and duplication of stock images using artificial intelligence.
According to the company’s latest lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, “Stability AI has extracted over 12 million photos from the Getty Images collection, along with associated captions and metadata, without permission or permission from Getty Images. Copied without compensation as part of an effort to build a competing business.”
In the lawsuit, Getty alleges that Stability AI removed Getty’s copyright management information, tampered with its own copyright management information, and duplicated Getty’s watermark on some images, alleging that Getty’s “famous trademark ‘ and claimed to have gone so far as to infringe. Getty has filed his second lawsuit against Stability AI, following a lawsuit in the UK last month, according to Reuters. In addition to these lawsuits, Stability AI has also faced class action lawsuits from artists, in which the company has claimed billions of copyrighted artworks without seeking compensation or seeking permission from the artists. It claims to have trained a Stable Diffusion model.
Stability AI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. Getty Images responded with “no comment.”
Last month, Getty said in a statement that the company “believes that artificial intelligence has the potential to inspire creative endeavors,” but Stability AI is doing its stock image business the wrong way. can confuse you with Rather than paying Getty for a license to train the Stable Diffusion model “in a manner that respects personal and intellectual property rights,” Getty stated that “Stability AI did not seek such a license from Getty Images.” “It appears that they have chosen to ignore the viable licensing option.” And years of legal protection for pursuing independent commercial interests. ”
So far, what kind of image rights holders, whether Getty or individual artists, are against companies freely scraping images on websites to train AI systems like Stable Diffusion? It remains unclear whether it has such legal status. If the court side with Getty, it could answer some of the legal questions many artists have asked since the controversy began. , announced last month plans to allow artists to opt out of its image training efforts.
Getty is in a slightly different position than artists, with recent complaints alleging that not only are the images hosted by Getty superior in quality, but all the detailed descriptions and metadata that Getty collects are targeted. says. Companies like Stability AI can use that data to better respond to user prompts. Essentially, all of Getty’s input can be used to unfairly compete with image providers, the company claims.
“Stability AI was fully aware that the content it was scraping without permission from the Getty Images website was protected by copyright,” Getty’s complaint states.
Getty requested a jury trial “to put an end to Stability AI’s blatant infringement and to obtain relief for Stability AI’s callous disregard of its intellectual property rights.” The company is seeking damages and is asking the court to “demand a full and complete explanation from Getty Images of the value of her Stability AI benefits, benefits, advantages, and business opportunities derived from the infringement.” increase.
