Stability AI and Midjourney, two of the biggest names in the explosive field of AI-generated imagery, and portfolio site DeviantArt have become the targets of a class action lawsuit, brought in California on behalf of the artists.
As we have covered above, AI-generated images are a highly contentious fieldone where “artists write algorithms not to follow a set of rules, but to ‘learn’ a specific aesthetic by analyzing thousands of images. The algorithm then tries to generate new images according to the aesthetics it has learned..”
The lawsuit has been filed by three plaintiffs, all artists: Sarah Andersen (of Sarah’s doodles), kelly mackernan Y carla ortizwho on behalf of all affected artists are “seeking compensation for damages caused by Stability AI, DeviantArt, and Midjourney, and an injunction to prevent further damage.”
It makes numerous and serious allegations:
The lawsuit alleges direct copyright infringement, indirect copyright infringement involving counterfeiting, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), violation of class members’ publicity rights, breach of contract relating to the DeviantArt Terms of Service and various California violations. unfair competition laws.
As lawyer Matthew Butterick says in his post about the caseall three companies are under attack by “writers, artists, programmers, and other creators” who are “concerned about artificial intelligence systems training on large amounts of copyrighted work without consent, without credit, and without compensation.”
Stability AI (which do Stability Diffusion) and Midjourney are the companies behind the two most popular AI-generated art platforms, while DeviantArt, better known as a portfolio and community art site, is getting included. for his own work on fucking massively.
For more technical details on the suit, or contact details if you’re an artist wanting to get involved, you can check out Butterick’s post. here.