Getty Images setbacks in UK lawsuit and unrelated CMA approval

Getty Images was mostly unsuccessful in its UK lawsuit against Stability AI at the High Court in London, where the judge rejected the core copyright claims while upholding a narrow finding on trademark use.

Judge Joanna Smith said Getty had succeeded in part on trademark infringement concerning Getty watermarks that appeared in outputs from Stable Diffusion, but described that finding as both historic and extremely limited in scope.

The court dismissed Getty’s claim for secondary copyright infringement and found that it had not established the wider copyright breaches it had alleged.

Getty, a provider of editorial and creative stock imagery, accused Stability AI of using its images to train the Stable Diffusion image generator. The former claimed that outputs from the model reproduced its copyrighted works.

Mid-trial, Getty withdrew part of its copyright case after failing to produce evidence locating where Stable Diffusion was trained.

Getty’s remaining claims included trademark infringement and an allegation that Stability AI imported an AI model into the UK in breach of copyright.

The litigation centres on whether copyrighted image collections and licenced photo libraries can be used to train generative image systems that produce images from text prompts.

Because Getty withdrew that allegation and the court narrowly focused on watermark reproduction, the decision stops short of resolving whether training on copyrighted image datasets alone constitutes infringement. It also does not determine whether AI-generated images, such as those from Stable Diffusion, infringe when they resemble copyrighted works.

In a statement, Getty Images said: “Today’s ruling confirms that Stable Diffusion’s inclusion of Getty Images’ trademarks in AI-generated outputs infringed those trademarks.

“Crucially, the Court rejected Stability AI’s attempt to hold the user responsible for that infringement, confirming that responsibility for the presence of such trademarks lies with the model provider, who has control over the images used to train the model. This is a significant win for intellectual property owners.”

Meanwhile, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has referred a proposed merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock to a Phase 2 inquiry following its Phase 1 review.

It cited concerns that the deal could lead to higher prices, worse commercial terms, or reduced quality in the supply of editorial and stock imagery in the UK.

The CMA said both companies supply digital content, including photos, illustrations, video and music, and that a combined Getty and Shutterstock business would be worth more than £3bn.

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The CMA reported it had received widespread concerns from media firms, trade associations and other stakeholders across the UK media and creative sectors about the potential impact of the deal.

Those concerns focused on the supply of editorial content and stock images, including UK-centric news photography and licensed commercial images.

The regulator assessed a package of remedies offered late in the Phase 1 process and concluded those proposals did not fully address competition concerns. That finding prompted referral to a more detailed Phase 2 investigation led by an independent panel of experts.

"Getty Images setbacks in UK lawsuit and unrelated CMA approval" was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand.

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