Getty Image CEO: Spending millions on an AI copyright case

The CEO of Getty says the company is costing millions of dollars to fight a prominent AI firm in court for alleged copyright violations.

In January 2023, Getty Images Started a lawsuit Against stability AI, company Back A popular text-image generator, stable spread. Getty, one of one World’s largest Stock photo companies alleged that stability AI Illegally scraped Its AI image generator to train the generator over 12 million copyright-scholarly photos, videos and illustrations from its website.

Now, Getty CEO Craig Peters says that although he believes that Getty has a “very strong” case against stability AI, it is expensive to fight the AI ​​company in court.

“We are spending millions and millions of dollars in a court case,” Peters told CNBC On Wednesday, the effort is called “extraordinaryly expensive”.

Connected: Getty Image has initiated legal proceedings against AI generic art company for copyright violations

Peters stated that although copyright violation occurs every week, Getty selectively choosing to fight against stability AI in court because “courts are prohibitually expensive just to carry forward every violation”.

^{Craig Peters, CEO of Getty Image. Photo by Zerod Harris/Getty Image for Vox Media}

AI image generators are popular. Imad Mostke, CEO of Stability AI By March 2024told Bloomberg In October 2022, there were more than 10 million daily users in stable proliferation, and that people tapped into the AI ​​image generator for everything to make the apps to make slideshows. By April 2024, One of five Were using AI to make American images and videos.

Peters accused Getty of stealing Getty’s copyright-reserved material to develop an AI model as part of a competitive business. He said that AI companies are arguing that paying for access to creative tasks will “kill innovation”, but argues that taking copyright work without permission or compensation is actually stealing.

“We are not against competition,” Peters told CNBC“But this is just unfair competition, it is theft.”

Stability AI logic Its AI model was “trained on Getty Image through”Temporary cheating“Which is copying the picture to train the dataset. However, the AI ​​company argues that its AI eventually creates new photos and does not repeat its training material in the final images. Other Generic AI case.

Connected: Getty and Shuttersock are merging. What does it mean for creators and businesses here.

Getty is sueing the stability AI in both the US and the UK as AI training can take place at any place. Getty is allegedly asking for $ 1.7 billion In disadvantages, according to its latest company accounts.

The case has been scheduled for preliminary testing on 9 June.

In a different case, a group of artists Class-action sued In January 2023, stability AI and other AI image generators such as midzoni and daventart accusing copyright violations. The artists alleged that these companies trained AI to their work without their permission. That is the case Moving forward in finding.