Image generators get off the hook in a lawsuit.

A federal judge has dismissed most claims in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by artists against AI art generators Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt. One claim against Stability AI for direct infringement was allowed to proceed.

What's going on here?

Artists lose a copyright infringement case against image generators.

What does this mean?

The lawsuit alleged these companies used copyrighted images without permission to train their AI systems. The judge ruled the artists must clarify their legal theory and provide facts showing copies of their work exist in the AI systems. To quote the ruling: “I am not convinced that copyright claims based on a derivative theory can survive absent ‘substantial similarity’ type allegations.”

The dismissed claims can be refiled but artists must clearly explain how protected images exist inside the AI systems, and not just as data used for training. According to this ruling, the artists likely can't rely on rough similarities between their work and AI outputs.

Why should I care?

This ruling isn’t a surprise for most of the people who are taking a nuanced look at the lawsuits. Most of them conflate different parts of the technology. This lack of clarity in the claims makes it harder for the judiciary to evaluate them. To point to this specific ruling, there seems to be a need for identical responses by the AI systems to justify the claims.

If you’re an artist, you should focus on getting a sound theory behind your claims and if you’re a researcher, you should aim to establish (or deny) the direct relation between actual art pieces and the generations.