- Pascal's Chatbot Q&As
- Posts
- Getty has dropped its two main copyright infringement claims against Stability AI in the UK High Court.
Getty has dropped its two main copyright infringement claims against Stability AI in the UK High Court.
The move is both strategic and pragmatic—letting Getty concentrate on its strongest claims in the UK and leave the heavier copyright arguments to its parallel U.S. case.
Getty has dropped its two main copyright infringement claims against Stability AI in the UK High Court.
by ChatGPT-4o
Those claims centered on Stability using Getty’s images to train Stable Diffusion and reproducing similar output. Getty admitted that these claims were unlikely to succeed—since training happened outside the UK (on AWS servers in the U.S.) and lacking strong evidence both on data acquisition and output similarity.
Instead, Getty is now focusing on trademark infringement, passing off, and secondary copyright infringement. Specifically, Getty alleges that Stable Diffusion occasionally reproduces Getty’s watermarks, and that even if training occurred abroad, distributing the AI model in the UK could still violate local secondary infringement laws.
The move is both strategic and pragmatic—letting Getty concentrate on its strongest claims in the UK and leave the heavier copyright arguments to its parallel U.S. case. Stability AI welcomed the development, and final judgment in the UK trial is expected after the closing arguments this week.
Why it matters
Jurisdictional challenge: This highlights how pivotal the location of training is under UK copyright law.
Trademark & watermarks: It shows a shift in focus toward branding issues and model distribution.
Wider impact: The outcome could influence how future UK AI-copyright disputes are handled—and may prompt legal reforms.
