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16 January 2026 / Tom Magnani , Dr Beatriz San Martin , Jessica Gillotte , Ally Myers
Issue: 8145 / Categories: Features , Copyright , Artificial intelligence , Intellectual property , Technology
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Getty Images v Stability AI: Much ado about little

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The Getty Images judgment fails to deliver on expectations. Experts from the IP & Technology teams at Arnold & Porter explain why
  • Summarises the highlights of the court’s findings in Getty Images v Stability AI— a ‘historic’ but ‘extremely limited’ ruling.
  • Sets out the impact the judgment will have on future AI infringement cases.

A judge in the High Court of Justice is the latest to weigh in on liability for use of intellectual property by AI companies, in Getty Images (US) Inc and others v Stability AI Ltd [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch). Mrs Justice Joanna Smith DBE considered claims that (i) Stability AI infringed Getty Images’ registered trade marks by generating synthetic image outputs containing similar marks using its AI model, Stable Diffusion, and (ii) Stability AI infringed the copyright in Getty’s visual content by using Getty’s images to train models of Stable Diffusion.

In a painstakingly detailed 205-page judgment, Mrs Justice

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NEWS
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Hugh James has secured 500 places on King’s College London’s new AI Literacy for Law course as part of a major firm-wide push to strengthen its responsible use of generative artificial intelligence
Limits lifted on days in court to tackle backlog
The criminal courts will sit to their maximum capacity next year, after the Lord Chancellor David Lammy lifted the cap on Crown Court sitting days
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The Lord Chancellor David Lammy has set out his plans for ‘Blitz courts’, a national listing framework and other elements of the Leveson reforms
Fabrications lead to time behind bars
A former Commerzbank analyst has been sentenced to eight months in prison for lying during an employment tribunal hearing
ICO joins global warning on AI
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has joined with 60 data protection authorities from around the world to call for ‘urgent regulatory attention’ to the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI)
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