Digital Editions
Newsletters
Subscribe
Digital Editions
Newsletters
Art market
Museums & heritage
Exhibitions
Books
Podcasts
Columns
Technology
Adventures with Van Gogh
Art market
Museums & heritage
Exhibitions
Books
Podcasts
Columns
Technology
Adventures with Van Gogh
Art & Technology
news

US artists score victory in landmark AI copyright case

A federal judge in California has blocked an attempt by several AI companies to have portions of a copyright case dismissed

Torey Akers
15 August 2024
Share
An astronaut riding a horse, generated using Stable Diffusion XL Image by Vulcansphere via Wikimedia Commons

An astronaut riding a horse, generated using Stable Diffusion XL Image by Vulcansphere via Wikimedia Commons

As the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright continues to develop in the legal sphere, a group of visual artists have scored a small victory in court. On 12 August, US District Judge William Orrick ruled that the companies Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI were violating artists' rights by illegally storing their works in their image generation systems.

While Orrick refused to dismiss trademark claims related to the matter, he threw out accusations of unjust enrichment and breach of contract, in addition to allegations that the companies' behaviours were in violation of a second US copyright law, Reuters reported.

The plaintiffs—illustrators Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz—first sued the AI companies in January 2023 in a landmark lawsuit against tech companies engaging in AI training. Judge Orrick dismissed most of their allegations last October, but allowed the artists to re-file. The original three plaintiffs, along with seven others who joined the lawsuit, returned with amendments in November, arguing that Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion model, which all the companies used, unlawfully contained “compressed copies” of their artwork.

In May, Judge Orrick decided in a tentative ruling to allow the copyright allegations to continue.

"The plausible inferences at this juncture are that Stable Diffusion by operation by end users creates copyright infringement and was created to facilitate that infringement by design," Judge Orrick said.

This week's ruling did not take on the central points of contention in the case—that the artists’ work was used to train AI systems in violation of their copyright. The AI companies claimed fair use, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims were ultimately dismissed with prejudice.

Lawyers for artists, Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick of Saveri Law Firm, called the decision "a significant step forward for the case” in a statement.

Judge Orrick's ruling was delivered before a court hearing that was scheduled for today (14 August).

Art & TechnologyArt & AIArtificial intelligenceLawsuitsCourt
Share
Subscribe to The Art Newspaper’s digital newsletter for your daily digest of essential news, views and analysis from the international art world delivered directly to your inbox.
Newsletter sign-up
Information
About
Contact
Cookie policy
Data protection
Privacy policy
Frequently Asked Questions
Subscription T&Cs
Terms and conditions
Advertise
Sister Papers
Sponsorship policy
Follow us
Instagram
Bluesky
LinkedIn
Facebook
TikTok
YouTube
© The Art Newspaper

Related content

Lawsuitsnews
10 May 2024

DeviantArt and Midjourney deny wrongdoing in copyright infringement lawsuit over in AI image generators

Two giants of the image generation industry rejected copyright infringement claims from artists who allege their work was used to train an AI tool

Torey Akers
Art & Technologynews
4 January 2024

Leaked: the names of more than 16,000 non-consenting artists allegedly used to train Midjourney’s AI

The lists were both partially included in a recent class-action lawsuit and accidentally shared via a public Google spreadsheet

Theo Belci
Art & Technologynews
31 October 2023

Judge dismisses most of artists’ copyright lawsuit against AI image generators

The artists have indicated they will amend their complaints and continue the legal battle against what they say is unfair use of their work by artificial intelligence image generators

Carlie Porterfield
AI artnews
15 February 2023

Artists and visual media company sue AI image generator for copyright breach

Lawsuits against firm behind Stable Diffusion image generator are recent attempt to define the legal status of such images

Daniel Grant