Getty Images sued Stability AI in London and in the United States in early 2023, alleging that the company used millions of Getty images without permission to train and run its Stable Diffusion image generator. The UK High Court ruled in November 2025 that the model was not an infringing copy but found limited trade mark infringement over Getty watermarks. Getty is appealing in the UK, and its refiled US case is pending in California.
In the UK, Getty's appeal on secondary copyright infringement, for which the High Court granted permission in December 2025, was awaiting the Court of Appeal with no hearing date found. In the US, most of Getty's claims survived dismissal in April 2026 and a 14 day jury trial in the Northern District of California is scheduled to begin on 18 January 2028. The outcome of mediation due by 19 October 2026 was not found.
Getty Images and related claimants issued proceedings against Stability AI in the High Court, alleging that the company infringed their intellectual property in developing and offering the Stable Diffusion image generator, according to the 2025 trial judgment.
Getty said it had begun proceedings in London alleging that Stability AI copied and processed millions of its images without a licence.
Getty Images (US) filed a complaint with a jury demand against Stability AI in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, case number 1:23-cv-00135. Reuters reported that Getty accused Stability of misusing more than 12 million Getty photos and alleged copyright and trade mark infringement. Getty filed an amended complaint on 29 March 2023.
Stability AI defendants moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, failure to join a party and failure to state a claim, or alternatively to transfer the case to the Northern District of California.
US District Court for the District of Delaware (The Delaware court granted Getty's request for jurisdictional discovery, and in January 2024 dismissed the pending motion to dismiss or transfer without prejudice to refiling after that discovery, according to the docket.
US District Court for the District of Delaware (Mrs Justice Joanna Smith refused Stability's application for summary judgment or strike out of the training and development claim, pointing to unanswered questions and inconsistencies in the evidence on where training took place, and left the meaning of article in the secondary infringement claim to be decided at trial.
The judge ruled that one of the claimants could not represent a class of owners of works exclusively licensed to Getty Images (US), such as photographers, because membership of the class depended on whether each owner's works were used to train Stable Diffusion. That claimant remained a party in its own right.
During the trial Getty abandoned its training and development claim, accepting there was no evidence that training took place in the UK, and its outputs claim, because the prompts used for its examples had been blocked. A dependent database right claim fell with them. The judge recorded that these claims were abandoned shortly before closing submissions.
The trial began before Mrs Justice Joanna Smith and ran on 12 days between 9 and 30 June 2025, according to the judgment.
The Court of Appeal dismissed a Getty appeal against a ruling made on 9 June 2025, the first day of trial, holding that the pleaded allegations about pornography did not extend to child sexual abuse material. Lord Justice Arnold gave the lead judgment.
Getty voluntarily dismissed its Delaware lawsuit without prejudice and the same day filed a new complaint, with a jury demand, in the Northern District of California, case number 3:25-cv-06891. Bloomberg Law reported that Getty cited Stability's own arguments in Delaware for moving the case to California.
US District Court for the Northern District of CUS District Court for the Northern District of CBloomberg LawStability AI moved to dismiss six of the seven claims in the refiled complaint, but not the copyright infringement claim. The motion was fully briefed on 4 November 2025 and argued on 7 April 2026, according to the court's later order.
US District Court for the Northern District of CMrs Justice Joanna Smith dismissed the secondary copyright infringement claim, finding that Stable Diffusion does not store or reproduce any copyright works, Reuters reported. Getty succeeded in part on trade mark infringement over watermarks in images generated by Stable Diffusion versions 1.x and 2.x, and the passing off claim was not determined, according to the court's costs ruling.
Judge Trina L. Thompson issued a case management and scheduling order requiring private mediation to be completed by 19 October 2026, setting a fact discovery cut-off of 18 September 2026 and scheduling a 14 day jury trial from 18 January 2028.
US District Court for the Northern District of CThe judge granted Getty permission to appeal on all grounds against the dismissal of the secondary infringement claim, calling the meaning of infringing copy for an AI model a novel and important point of law. She refused Stability permission to appeal the trade mark findings.
In a costs ruling the judge treated Stability as the overall winner and awarded it its costs, reduced by about 30.6 percent to reflect Getty's partial success on the trade mark claim.
Judge Thompson granted in part and denied in part Stability's motion. She dismissed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act section 1202(a) claim without prejudice, with leave to amend by 7 May 2026, and let the trade mark infringement, false designation of origin, trade mark dilution and California unfair competition and dilution claims proceed. Stability answered the complaint on 21 May 2026, stating that Getty had not amended the dismissed claim.
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Courts and Tribunals Judiciary · judiciary.uk US District Court for the Northern District of California (via CourtListener RECAP) · storage.courtlistener.comLast updated 1 November 2026. Spotted an error? See corrections. Every event links to the record it comes from. Allegations are attributed to whoever made them.