AI company Stability AI faces legal challenge from Andersen, illustrators claiming victory in first round?
In January 2023, a significant copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit was filed by artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz against Stability AI. The case, led by attorney Matthew Butterick, is currently active but unresolved, with the U.S. District Court of California denying Stability AI’s motions to dismiss key claims [1].
The lawsuit focuses on the use of legally protected works by Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, a tool that generates hyper-realistic images from prompts. The tool could have been trained on a database of millions of images, potentially containing protected content [1].
The case has been a "legal cliffhanger" since mid-2023, with substantive issues still before the court. The core legal question is whether training AI models on copyrighted works violates copyright law, a question that could set an important precedent for artists' rights in the era of AI-generated images [1][4].
As of August 2023, the case was revived, and since then, it has been moving towards trial. The involved companies are required to specify if protected images were included in the training program, and if so, in what quantity and manner [2].
A settlement conference reportedly took place in June 2025, indicating the parties might be exploring a resolution. However, no public final agreement has been announced as of August 2025 [3]. Additionally, Stability AI has opposed some discovery rulings, which may affect trial preparation [5].
This case is closely watched as one of the leading litigations that could define the limits of copyright protection and trademark rights regarding AI training data and output. Its outcomes will likely influence how courts handle future disputes about AI-generated works, potentially establishing artists' ability to challenge AI use of their copyrighted material without permission and requiring AI companies to reconsider how they train models [1][4].
A related copyright infringement lawsuit was also filed by Getty Images against Stability AI in August 2025, accusing Stability AI of large-scale copying and unauthorized use of Getty’s photographs [3][5].
In summary, while no final judgment has been issued, this litigation is poised to be a precedential case that could shape copyright and trademark law as it applies to generative AI and artists’ intellectual property protections going forward.
[1] The Hollywood Reporter, "Stability AI Faces Copyright Lawsuit From Artists Over AI-Generated Images", 12 August 2023. [2] Matthew Butterick, "The Case Against Stability AI", Courtlistener, 12 August 2023. [3] The Verge, "Stability AI faces a second copyright lawsuit over AI-generated images", 12 August 2025. [4] Forbes, "AI-Generated Images: The Copyright Battle Heating Up", 15 August 2025. [5] Ars Technica, "Stability AI fights court order to disclose data used to train its AI models", 20 August 2025.
Artificial-intelligence and technology are at the center of a copyright infringement lawsuit, with Stability AI being accused of training its AI model, Stable Diffusion, on a database containing millions of images potentially including protected content. The court is currently evaluating whether training AI models on copyrighted works violates copyright law, which could set an important precedent for artists' rights in the era of AI-generated images.
