In the High Court of England and Wales, Stability AI’s efforts to dismiss Getty Images’ intellectual property infringement claims were rejected by Mrs. Justice Joanna Smith. The judge’s decision, delivered on December 1, stemmed from concerns that Stability AI’s founder and CEO, Mohammed Mostaque, provided potentially inaccurate or incomplete evidence regarding the alleged infringement occurring outside the UK. Consequently, the court ruled that the case should proceed to trial.
Stability AI, represented by Bird & Bird, sought to have key claims from Getty Images—specifically, copyright, database right, trademark infringement, and passing off—dismissed before the trial. Getty Images, advised by Fieldfisher, accuses Stability AI of unlawfully scraping millions of images from its websites to train its deep learning AI model, Stable Diffusion.
Stability AI argued that as all computing resources used for Stable Diffusion’s training were located outside the UK, a UK court lacked jurisdiction over copyright and database rights, which are territorial. However, Justice Smith noted that, despite the international computing resources, Stability AI is based in the UK, has its principal place of business there, and employs a UK-based development team.
The judge highlighted inconsistencies in Mostaque’s evidence, including documentation suggesting that UK-based employees may have been involved in the development and training of Stable Diffusion, despite Mostaque’s claims to the contrary. Evidence from YouTube interviews, where Mostaque discussed expediting visa applications for Russian and Ukrainian programmers to work in the UK, raised the possibility of developers contributing to Stable Diffusion in the UK.
While acknowledging that certain evidence may strongly support the claim that development and training did not occur in the UK, Justice Smith emphasized that the trial would ultimately determine the validity of these assertions.
Smith further explained that for summary judgment to be granted, she must be convinced that there is “no genuine prospect of the claimants being able to challenge this evidence at trial.”
Getty Images, in response to the judgment, expressed satisfaction, asserting that it believes it “has a genuine chance of success with those claims,” opting to proceed with the entire case to trial.
A representative from Stability AI stated, “Stable Diffusion underwent training outside the UK, and we anticipate complete exoneration during the trial.”
This development marks the latest turn in the ongoing legal dispute between Getty Images and the UK startup, established in 2019 by Mostaque. Getty Images initiated a concurrent claim in the Delaware district court in February, accusing Stability AI of copyright infringement.
Getty Images contends that Stability AI violated copyrights covering photographs, video content, and illustrations, with a significant portion of these visual assets constituting original artistic or film works protected by copyright. According to Getty Images, the initial iteration of Stability Diffusion underwent training using approximately 12 million visual assets, including about 7.3 million defined as “copyright works” crucial to the UK proceedings—works either owned by Getty Images or subject to its exclusive license from the copyright holder.
Fieldfisher, advising Getty Images, is led by partner Nick Rose and includes senior associate Chris Leung and associate Emma Varty. Lindsay Lane KC and Jessie Bowhill from 8 New Square are also involved in the case.
Stability AI is being represented by Nicholas Saunders KC from Brick Court Chambers and Jaani Riordan from 8 New Square.
