Artists Suing Stability AI Forced to Go Back to The Drawing Board on Copyright Claims

From MSN:

A group of artists suing generative AI companies for allegedly using their copyrighted works are down, but not out, following a recent federal judge’s order. On Monday, the judge presiding over a case brought by three visual artists dismissed the majority of the claims levied against Stability AI, Midjourney, and art social network DeviantArt after determining the artists’ accusations were “defective in numerous respects.”

All of the allegations against Midjourney and DeviantArt were dismissed, though the artists and their legal teams will have a chance to amend their complaint to state their argument more clearly. The core question of whether or not training generative AI models on artists’ work amounts to a copyright infringement, however, remains totally unresolved.

The case stems from a January lawsuit filed by artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz, who accused the tech companies of downloading billions of copyrighted images to train models without the artist’s consent and without compensating them. The artists claim supposedly “new” creations generated by Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion generator derivative of their own supposedly sucked up on a dataset used to train the models. Generative AI image generators, the artists argued in their lawsuits, aren’t creating completely original art, but are instead “merely a complex collage tool.” The artists sought a permanent injunction from the court barring Stability AI and the other defendants from using artwork without artists’ permission.

Orrick seemed unconvinced about whether or not the actual images generated by the AI models amount to a copyright infringement. In their complaint, the artists particularly took issue with AI images generated via prompts asking the modes to create images “in the style of” a known professional. The images the AI models spit out, they argue, end up competing in the marketplace against the original work of the human artist they were based on. But many of the works generated by these models, even if they are trained on an artist’s original work, may not look similar enough to the original artist’s work to run afoul of copyright protection. In other words, those “inspired by” images generated by AI models likely do not violate the artist’s copyright.

“I am not convinced that copyright claims based on a derivative theory can survive absent ‘substantial similarity’ type allegations,” Orrick wrote in the order. “The cases plaintiffs rely on appear to recognize that the alleged infringer’s derivative work must still bear some similarity to the original work or contain the protected elements of the original work.”

The judge also expressed skepticism towards the artists’ theory that the billions of supposedly scrapped works were “compressed” into Stable Diffusion’s program. Stability AI has previously denied accusations that training its AI model requires complete copies of copyrighted works. Instead, Stability claims it trains its models using complex parameters that are associated with certain subjects.

“Plaintiffs will be required to amend to clarify their theory with respect to compressed copies of Training Images and to state facts in support of how Stable Diffusion—a program that is open source, at least in part—operates with respect to the Training Images,” Orrick’s order stated.

Stability AI did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment. Matthew Butterick, and Joseph Saveri, two of the attorneys representing the artists, told Gizmodo they believed the order issued by Judge Orrick sustained their client’s “core claim” regarding the alleged direct copyright infringement by Stability AI. That core claim, he said, was now on a path to trial.

Link to the rest at MSN and thanks to F. for the tip

PG suggests that the comments from the artists’ counsel in the last paragraph may be hopeful happy talk.