Getty Images Loses Most of UK Lawsuit Against Stability AI

A British court has mostly ruled in favor of Stability AI in its intellectual property dispute with Getty Images, according to ABC News. The High Court in London dismissed Getty’s claim that Stability’s image generator, Stable Diffusion, committed secondary copyright infringement, while granting a narrow win to Getty on trademark grounds.

Justice Joanna Smith stated that Getty’s trademark claim “succeeds in part” but described the findings as “historic and extremely limited in scope.” The court determined that Stable Diffusion does not store or reproduce copyrighted works and therefore did not infringe copyright. Getty had dropped its main copyright argument during the trial after acknowledging that the AI model was trained outside the United Kingdom.

Getty had accused Stability of using millions of its images without permission to train Stable Diffusion. Stability denied the allegations, maintaining that the model’s training occurred on overseas servers. Both companies claimed partial victory following the ruling.

Getty said the decision confirms that Stability’s use of its trademarks in AI-generated outputs constitutes infringement and reiterated calls for stronger transparency rules to protect creators. Stability’s general counsel, Christian Dowell, said the ruling resolves the copyright concerns at the center of the case. Getty continues to pursue a related lawsuit against Stability in the United States.