AI firm wins high court ruling after photo agency’s copyright claim

Authors: Robert Booth

Publisher:

The Guardian

Published: 11/4/2025

Language:English

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Tom Banks

Welcome to Goose Pod, 小王. I'm Tom Banks. Today is Thursday, November 6th.

Morgan Freedman

And I'm Morgan Freedman. Today's topic: a major court battle between artificial intelligence and art.

Tom Banks

Let's dive right in. The AI firm, Stability AI, has just won a major court case against the photo giant, Getty Images. It’s a landmark ruling on whether AI can legally be trained on copyrighted material without asking for permission first.

Morgan Freedman

Indeed. Getty accused Stability AI of scraping millions of its photos to train their popular image generator. But in a move that surprised many, the UK's High Court dismissed Getty's core copyright claims, sending ripples through the creative world.

Tom Banks

It's a huge development. However, it wasn't a total victory for the AI company. The judge did find that Stability AI infringed on Getty's trademarks in some instances, mainly because the AI would occasionally produce images with a faint Getty watermark.

Morgan Freedman

A small concession in a much larger battle. Some legal experts have even called the ruling a "damp squib" for AI law, suggesting that because the biggest questions were sidestepped, we are left with more uncertainty than before.

Tom Banks

To really get a handle on this, you have to look at the UK's unique legal position. Unlike the United States, the UK has a special provision for "computer-generated works," which grants copyright even without a human author. It’s a fascinating distinction.

Morgan Freedman

That law was designed decades ago to encourage investment in new technology. The turning point in this case, however, was geography. Getty alleged that 12 million of its images were copied, but it couldn't prove the AI model was actually trained in the UK.

Tom Banks

Exactly. Stability AI successfully argued that all the heavy computing was done on servers in the US. Because of that, Getty had to drop its main copyright claim right in the middle of the trial. It's like trying to pinpoint the location of a cloud.

Morgan Freedman

A very modern defense. So Getty had to pivot, arguing that just making the AI model available for download in the UK was the same as importing an infringing copy. But the judge ultimately disagreed, stating the model itself doesn't store any of Getty's photos.

Tom Banks

It’s like saying a chef's recipe book contains the actual finished meals. The AI learned the patterns, the styles, the essence of the images, but it didn't keep a digital library of them. This very distinction is at the heart of the entire generative AI debate.

Morgan Freedman

And I've often found that such debates reveal the true tensions of an era. On one side, you have the creative industries. Artists, authors, and musicians like Elton John are pleading for protection. He even accused the government of "committing theft" with its proposals.

Tom Banks

You can certainly understand his perspective. Their entire livelihood is based on the value of their original work. But on the other side, tech companies argue they need broad access to data to build the most powerful and effective AI systems for everyone.

Morgan Freedman

The government is caught in the crossfire. It's considering a "text and data mining exception" that would allow AI training on copyrighted works by default, unless a creator actively opts out. This places the burden of protection squarely on the artist.

Tom Banks

And that's the real conflict here. This isn't just a simple legal dispute. It's a strategic battle over the future of creativity itself and who gets to profit from it in this rapidly changing technological landscape. It's a question of fairness.

Tom Banks

The immediate impact of this ruling feels like a significant blow to creators. The UK's creative sector contributes over 124 billion pounds a year to the economy. There's a genuine fear this could devalue human artistry and undermine a vital industry.

Morgan Freedman

It forces us to ask a fundamental question: is AI a partner, or is it a parasite? Many worry that AI is being used not to augment human work, but to simply replace it at an industrial scale, churning out new content without compensating the original sources.

Tom Banks

That feels like a dangerous path to go down. If this technology is truly as revolutionary as its champions claim, then it shouldn't need to build its empire on a foundation of unlicensed work. This case just pulls back the curtain on that struggle.

Morgan Freedman

This story is far from over. The UK government is still consulting on a potential AI Bill, though it's unlikely we'll see it become law before 2026. This gives all parties more time to debate and shape what comes next.

Tom Banks

And in a fascinating twist, Getty Images has a similar lawsuit running against Stability AI in the United States. They actually plan to use parts of this UK ruling to support their case there. The global legal chess match continues.

Tom Banks

That's our time for today. Thank you for listening to Goose Pod, 小王.

Morgan Freedman

We will see you tomorrow.

AI firm Stability AI won a UK High Court ruling against Getty Images' copyright claims. The court found AI training on copyrighted material didn't infringe copyright if the computing occurred outside the UK. While trademarks were infringed, the ruling sidestepped core AI copyright questions, leaving creators concerned about the future of artistry.

Read original at The Guardian →

A London-based artificial intelligence firm has won a landmark high court case examining the legality of AI models using vast troves of copyrighted data without permission.Stability AI, whose directors include the Oscar-winning film-maker behind Avatar, James Cameron, successfully resisted a claim from Getty Images that it had infringed the international photo agency’s copyright.

The ruling is seen as a blow to copyright owners’ exclusive right to reap the rewards of their work, with one senior lawyer, Rebecca Newman, a legal director at Addleshaw Goddard, warning it means “the UK’s secondary copyright regime is not strong enough to protect its creators”.There was evidence that Getty’s images were used to train Stability’s model, which allows users to generate images with text prompts.

Stability was also found to have infringed Getty’s trademarks in some cases.The judge, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith, said the question of where to strike the balance between the interests of the creative industries on one side and the AI industry on the other was “of very real societal importance”. But she was only able to rule on relatively narrow claims after Getty had to withdraw parts of its case during the trial this summer.

Getty Images sued Stability AI for infringement of its intellectual property, alleging the AI company was “completely indifferent to what they fed into the training data” and scraped and copied millions of its images.The judgment comes amid a row over how the Labour government should legislate on the issue of copyright and AI, with artists and authors including Elton John, Kate Bush, Dua Lipa and Kazuo Ishiguro lobbying for protection.

Meanwhile, tech companies are calling for wide access to copyrighted content to allow them to build the most powerful and effective generative AI systems.The government is consulting on copyright and AI and has said: “Uncertainty over how our copyright framework operates is holding back growth for our AI and creative industries.

That cannot continue.”It is looking at whether to introduce a “text and data mining exception” into UK copyright law, which would allow copyright works to be used to train AI models in the UK unless the rights holder opts their works out of such training, said lawyers at Mishcon de Reya who have been following the issue.

Getty had to drop its original copyright claim as there was no evidence the training took place in the UK. But it continued with its suit claiming Stability was still using within its systems copies of its visual assets, which it called the “lifeblood” of its business. It claimed Stability AI had infringed its trademarks because some AI-generated images included Getty watermarks, and that it was guilty of “passing off”.

In a sign of the complexity of AI copyright cases, it essentially argued that Stability’s image-generation model, called Stable Diffusion, amounted to an infringing copy because its making would have constituted copyright infringement had it been carried out in the UK.The judge ruled: “An AI model such as Stable Diffusion which does not store or reproduce any copyright works (and has never done so) is not an ‘infringing copy’.

” She declined to rule on the passing off claim and ruled in favour of some of Getty’s claims about trademark infringement related to watermarks.In a statement, Getty Images said: “We remain deeply concerned that even well-resourced companies such as Getty Images face significant challenges in protecting their creative works given the lack of transparency requirements.

We invested millions of pounds to reach this point with only one provider that we need to continue to pursue in another venue.“We urge governments, including the UK, to establish stronger transparency rules, which are essential to prevent costly legal battles and to allow creators to protect their rights.

”Christian Dowell, the general counsel for Stability AI, said: “We are pleased with the court’s ruling on the remaining claims in this case. Getty’s decision to voluntarily dismiss most of its copyright claims at the conclusion of trial testimony left only a subset of claims before the court, and this final ruling ultimately resolves the copyright concerns that were the core issue.

We are grateful for the time and effort the court has put forth to resolve the important questions in this case.”