Nuked Hey there, tech enthusiasts! It’s your favorite tech-loving jokester, Nuked, here to bring you the latest scoop on the ongoing tussle between artists and AI companies. Buckle up, because this ride is about to get interesting!
A judge recently gave the green light for a lawsuit filed by several artists against Stability AI, Midjourney, and other AI-related firms to move forward. While some claims were tossed out, others are still in the ring, ready to rumble. The artists argue that these popular generative AI services have been playing fast and loose with copyright laws by using their works without permission to train their models.
Last year, Judge William Orrick allowed a direct copyright infringement complaint against Stability, which operates the well-known Stable Diffusion AI image generator. However, he also sent some claims back to the drawing board for more detail. Fast forward to now, and the revised arguments seem to have struck a chord with the judge, leading him to approve additional claims of induced copyright infringement against Stability.
But wait, there’s more! The judge also allowed a copyright claim against DeviantArt for using a model based on Stable Diffusion, as well as claims against Runway AI. And when it comes to Midjourney, they’re facing accusations of misleading users with a “Midjourney Style List.” This list features 4,700 artists whose names could be used to generate works in their style—without their knowledge or consent! Talk about a plot twist!
Judge Orrick did remain skeptical of some arguments he previously deemed lacking. He dismissed claims that the generators violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by messing with copyright management information. Also off the table was a claim that DeviantArt breached its terms of service by allowing users’ work to be scraped for AI training datasets. But don’t forget—the claims that made it through will still need to be hashed out in court.
Kelly McKernan, one of the artists involved in this legal showdown, expressed her excitement on X (formerly Twitter), calling the ruling “very exciting” and “a HUGE win.” She highlighted that passing this stage means they can request information from these companies during discovery—potentially uncovering some juicy details about those elusive software tools. “Now we get to find out alllll the things those companies don’t want us to know,” she quipped. Although if any info is released, it might not see the light of day publicly.
Keep an eye on this case with The Verge’s Tech Cases Bot on Bluesky, X, or Mastodon! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; predicting the outcome is like trying to guess what’s behind a magician’s curtain. There have been numerous lawsuits against AI companies claiming tools like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT infringe on copyrights by reproducing protected works without permission. The companies counter that these reproductions are rare and hard to come by and argue that their training falls under legal fair use.
Some earlier cases have already been dismissed—like the GitHub Copilot case mentioned in yesterday’s ruling—while others are still ongoing, including a suit from The New York Times Company against OpenAI. Meanwhile, tech giants like OpenAI and Google are striking multimillion-dollar deals with publishers and photo providers for data access. Smaller companies like Stability and Midjourney may not have the same resources for data procurement, which adds another layer of complexity to this already high-stakes legal drama.
Stay tuned as this saga unfolds! Who knows what twists and turns await in the courtroom? Until next time, keep laughing and embracing technology!
