Judge dismisses artists’ AI copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, Stability AI

FILE PHOTO: The letters AI (Artificial Intelligence) are placed on a computer motherboard in this photo taken on June 23, 2023. Reuters/Dado Rovic/Image/File Photo License Rights

Oct 30 (Reuters) – A judge in California federal court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by visual artists accusing Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt of misusing their copyrighted works related to the companies’ artificial intelligence systems.

US District Judge William Orrick dismissed some of the claims brought by Sarah Anderson, Kelly McKernan and Carla Ortiz, including all allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt. The judge said the artists could file an amended complaint against the two companies, whose systems use text-to-image Stable Diffusion technology.

Orrick also completely denied McKernan and Ortiz’s claims of copyright infringement. The judge allowed Andersen to pursue his key claim that Stabley’s alleged use of his work to teach Stable Diffusion violated his copyright.

This claim is at the heart of other lawsuits filed by artists, writers and other copyright holders against artificial intelligence companies.

“Even Stabley acknowledges that it is not possible at this time to determine whether the allegations of copying in violation of copyright law occurred in the context of Stable Diffusion’s training or occurred while Stable Diffusion was being implemented,” Orrick said.

The artists’ attorneys, Joseph Savory and Matthew Buttrick, said in a statement that their “core claim” remains and they are confident they can address the court’s concerns about their other claims in an amended complaint to be filed next month.

A spokesperson for Tasaf declined to comment on the decision. Representatives for Midjourney and DeviantArt did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The artists said in their January complaint that Stability used billions of images “scraped” from the Internet, including their own, without permission to teach Stable Diffusion to create their images.

Orrick agreed with all three companies that the images the systems actually created were not likely to infringe on the artists’ copyrights. He allowed the claims to be amended, but said he was “not convinced” that claims based on the systems’ output could survive without showing that the images were substantially similar to the artists’ work.

The judge also rejected the artists’ other claims, including that the companies violated their publicity rights and unfairly competed with them by relicensing them.

Urick dismissed McKernan and Ortiz’s copyright claims because they had not registered their images with the US Copyright Office.

Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd, United States District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:23-cv-00201.

For artists: Joseph Savory of Joseph Savory Law Firm; and Matthew Butterick

For Stability: Paul Schoenhard of Fried Frank Harris Shriver and Jacobson

For Midjourney: Angela Dunning of Cleary Gottlieb Stein and Hamilton

For DeviantArt: Andy Gass of Latham & Watkins

Read more:

The lawsuits accuse AI content creators of misusing copyrighted works

Artificial intelligence companies are asking a US court to dismiss the artists’ copyright lawsuit

US judge finds flaws in artists’ lawsuits against artificial intelligence companies

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