Two new lawsuits ask if AI art creators infringe copyright laws – The Hollywood Reporter

A group of artists is suing AI art creators Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt for using their work to train AI tools.

The first lawsuit accuses the companies of copyright infringement for using billions of images downloaded from the internet without the artist’s consent. “Until now, when buyers searched for a new image ‘in the style’ of a certain artist, they had to pay a commission or license an original image from that artist,” reads the lawsuit. may be proposed Friday in California federal court. “Those buyers can now use the artist’s works along with the artist’s name to create new works in the artist’s style without paying the artist.”

Stability’s AI stable diffusion, which generates images in response to text prompts, is integrated into the company’s DreamStudio AI imaging systems, DreamUp and DeviantArt’s Midjourney. They allow users to create images based on artists whose work is used to train the art generator algorithms. Getty on Monday sued Stability AI in the UK for illegally copying and processing millions of its copyrighted images.

“Getty Images has licensed leading technology innovators for purposes related to training artificial intelligence systems in a manner that respects intellectual and personal property rights,” the company said. AI-generated artwork said in a statement. “Stable AI did not seek any such license from Getty Images and instead, we believe, chose to ignore viable licensing options and permanent legal protections in order to pursue their independent commercial interests.”

Stable AI counters by stating that “Anyone who believes this is not fair use is not understanding the technology and misinterpreting the law.”

Whether AI programs, built on model analysis models of copyrighted works, infringe the intellectual property rights of artists. Engineers build AI art generators by providing algorithms with large databases of images downloaded from the internet without a license. The artists’ lawsuit questions whether AI companies are infringing on artists’ copyrights by using copyrighted works to train AI engines, and when consumers use the copyrighted works. art creation tools to create new works. It also asks if such conduct is protected under fair use, which allows protected works to be used without permission as long as they are transformative.

The lawsuit was filed by the Joseph Saveri Law Firm, which represents the programmers in a similar proposed class action lawsuit against Microsoft, Github and OpenAI. They claim that the billions of lines of computer code that the companies’ AI technology analyzes to generate their own code constitutes piracy.

The artists argue that harvesting their work to build AI models constitutes copyright infringement. “The defendants are using copies of the Training Images connected to their AI Imaging Products to generate digital images and other outputs derived solely from the Training Images, and that is not the case. what’s new,” the complaint reads, noting that the new work “has essentially negatively impacted the market for the work of Plaintiffs and the Class.”

The lawsuit claims copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalizes acts aimed at circumventing controls on access to copyrighted works. It highlights that AI companies have removed copyright management notices, naming titles for allegedly plagiarized works, and other identifying information to “conceal copyright infringement.” It also alleges the right to publicity, protection against unauthorized use of a person’s name or likeness for commercial purposes, unfair competition and breach of contract.

Midjourney and DeviantArt did not respond to requests for comment.