Getty Images vs. Stability AI: The Landmark Copyright Battle Shaping The Future of Generative AI
By: Kate L. Dargan
Getty Images, a well-known visual media company and supplier of stock images, is facing off against a London-based artificial intelligence company, Stability AI, in what is considered to be the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry. Opening arguments began on Monday, June 9th, before the British High Court.
The far-reaching implications of this trial are significant – so much so that Getty Images has spent millions of dollars to take on a “world of rhetoric” through its Stability AI suit, says Craig Peters, CEO of Getty Images. To Getty Images, the alleged copyright infringement by Stability AI represents more than just a company wrongdoing: it poses an overt threat to artists, digital creatives, and the entertainment industry as a whole.
The Players Involved
Getty Images is a licensing platform for copyrighted multimedia content, including photographs, illustrations, videos, and audio files. The digital content on Getty Images is intended for use in commercial projects such as advertising, websites, blogs, presentations, and video productions. Collectively, Getty represents the work of almost 600,000 artists and creators globally. Their Terms of Use explicitly prohibit “using any data mining, robots, or similar data gathering or extraction methods.”
Stability AI, a London-based artificial intelligence company, allows users to generate images using mere text prompts (a model known as Stable Diffusion). Its board of directors includes notable figures such as James Cameron, the Oscar-winning film director of Avatar and Titanic. The problem is that Stability AI (without first securing licensing approvals) trained its Stable Diffusion model on a vast database of copyrighted photographs – including those by Getty Images. Consequently, Stability Diffusion sometimes generates images with Getty Images watermarks still visible, and in other instances, it produces images owned by Getty Images with the watermark intentionally removed.
Getty Images’ lawyers maintain that their suit is not intended to be a “battle between creatives and technology, where a win for Getty Images means the end of AI.” The problem, they say, “is when AI companies such as Stability want to use their work without payment.” To Getty Images, the developers of Stability AI were “so excited by AI that they were indifferent to any of the dangers or problems it presents” – their concerning display of nonchalance undoubtedly influenced Getty’s substantial investment in this lawsuit.
Understanding the Claims and Defenses
Getty Images alleges that Stability AI “unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright and the associated metadata owned or represented” by them. Getty has stated that in the past, they have licensed their content to other companies for training artificial intelligence systems, but Stability AI did not seek or obtain such a license. Getty’s trial lawyer, Lindsay Lane, stated that the heart of the copyright issue was this: “Stability didn’t care if images were protected by copyright, had watermarks, were not safe for work, or were pornographic – it just wanted to get its model to the market as soon as possible.” Additionally, Getty voiced concerns about Stability’s potential to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and then apply Getty’s watermark on those AI-generated images. Trademark infringement, database rights infringement, and passing off are among the other legal issues raised by Getty against Stability AI in the suit.
Stability AI acknowledges that some images from Getty Images were used to train its Stable Diffusion model. Nonetheless, they do not consider Getty’s copyright claims to have merit. Stability’s lawyers insist that Getty’s content is part of the “collective human knowledge,” and therefore its use to train the Stable Diffusion model necessarily constitutes fair usage. Fair use is an affirmative defense to copyright infringement, and it is determined by the consideration of four factors: (1) the purpose and character of the use, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and (4) the effect of the use on the potential market. When the purpose of the use is commercial, rather than educational, and negatively impacts the copyright owner’s ability to market their product, fair use is less likely to be found. (Los Angeles News Services v. KCAL TV Channel 9, 108 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 1997)). Courts have also found that bad faith from the defendant can prevent a finding of fair use.
The outcome of Getty Images’ lawsuit hinges on the strength of both parties’ arguments in the ongoing trial, which is scheduled to conclude on June 30th, 2025.
The Larger Picture
The increasing prevalence of generative AI has long been a concern for creatives across the entertainment, art, and literary sectors. Recently, over 400 prominent UK artists, including Elton John, Paul McCartney, and Dua Lipa, signed an open letter advocating to protect creators’ rights and to prevent the exploitation of their work by artificial intelligence. In the United States, author George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) has joined a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the company’s AI models were trained using his copyrighted works without permission.
Not dissimilarly, Getty Images seeks to protect creators from exploitation by advocating for copyright owners and AI companies to exist in “synergistic harmony” rather than being at odds. “Copyrighted works and database rights are critical to the advancement and success of AI,” Getty’s lawyer, Lindsay Lane, commented.
Because the legal boundaries associated with generative AI are continually being established, the outcome of Getty’s claim against Stability may have a profound impact on other AI copyright infringement cases. If the judgement is in favor of Getty, copyright owners will be emboldened to impose stricter requirements on AI developers and to be more assertive in their demands for compensation for the use of their works. If the judgement is in favor of Stability AI, artificial intelligence programs may feel more secure in training their models using publicly available, copyrighted content, without providing compensation to original creators: all under the guise of fair use.
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Kate L. Dargan is a 2025 Summer Law Clerk at Falcon Rappaport & Berkman in the Intellectual Property, Digital Assets, and Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice Groups. She is a rising 3L at Hofstra Law, where she serves as the Managing Editor (Fact Pattern Writer) of Moot Court Board and the Page Proof & Resource Editor of Family Court Review.
References:
TJ Stotts, Intellectual Property-Copyright Law-Ai Is "Actual Imitation:" an Argument on Why Generative Ai Should Not Be Allowed to Learn from Copyrighted Materials Without Authorization, 47 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 317 (2025)
Associated Press. (2025, June 9). Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry. AP Business News.
Browne, R. (2025, May 28). Getty Images Spending Millions to battle a “world of rhetoric” in AI suit, CEO says. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/28/getty-ceo-stability-ai-lawsuit-doesnt-cover-industry-mass-theft.html
(2025, June 12). Getty sues stability AI over copyrighted image scraping. MEDIANAMA. https://www.medianama.com/2025/06/223-getty-images-vs-stability-ai-lawsuit/
Johnivan, J. R. (2025, June 10). Stability AI claims Getty’s copyright lawsuit stifles freedom of expression. eWEEK. https://www.eweek.com/news/getty-lawsuit-stability-ai-copyright-uk-trial/
Guardian News and Media. (2025, June 9). London AI firm says Getty copyright case poses “overt threat” to industry. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/09/stability-ai-getty-lawsuit-copyright
Stim, R., & law, R. S. A. at. (2021, November 25). Summaries of fair use cases. Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center. https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/cases/
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