Battle Between AI and Artists Builds with New Ruling
By Movieguide® Contributor
A judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by several artists claiming that AI companies used their work can proceed.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Monday advanced all copyright infringement and trademark claims brought against Stability AI, Midjourney and other similar companies
“He found that Stable Diffusion, Stability’s AI tool that can create hyperrealistic images in response to a prompt of just a few words, may have been ‘built to a significant extent on copyrighted works’ and created with the intent to ‘facilitate’ infringement,” The Hollywood Reporter wrote.
Judge Orrick did dismiss some of the claims listed in the suit, including breach of contract and unjust enrichment, as well as violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that claim the companies removed information that would have identified artwork as someone’s intellectual property.
The case will now be moved forward to discovery, where information about how these AI companies are gathering the artwork could be uncovered.
Kelly McKernan, one of the artists who is part of the lawsuit, posted to X to celebrate Judge Orrick’s ruling.
“Very exciting news on the AI lawsuit! The judge is allowing our copyright claims through & now we get to find out allll the things these companies don’t want us to know in Discovery,” she wrote. “This is a HUGE win for us. I’m SO proud of our incredible team of lawyers and fellow plaintiffs!”
However, The Verge noted that the outcome of the case is “difficult to predict.”
“Numerous suits have been filed against AI companies, alleging that tools like Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT easily reproduce copyrighted works and are illegally trained on huge volumes of them,” the outlet wrote. “The companies have countered that these reproductions are rare and difficult to produce, and they argue that training should be considered legal fair use.”
Movieguide® previously reported on a suit brought by Scarlett Johansson concerning the unauthorized use of her voice for an AI chat feature:
Actress Scarlett Johansson believes an AI company used her voice for its product, despite her request for it not to.
OpenAI, creators of Chat GPT, released a new model last week including a feature called “Voice Mode.” This feature allows users to hear a voice respond to their questions and searches. The voice in question is one called “Sky,” which both users and Johansson herself believe sounds like the actress.
The unfortunate “coincidence” is that the company had asked the BLACK WIDOW actress if they could use her voice.
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” she said in a statement. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people. After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.
Johansson explained that Altman even seemed to reference a movie she was in for the release of Sky.
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her’ – a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.”
In response, Johansson has taken legal action, and OpenAI has removed Sky from its platform.
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