On 4 November 2025, the UK High Court handed down its much-anticipated judgment in Getty Images v Stability AI, arguably the most important AI legal decision to date. Getty, a stock photo licensing platform (which agencies will be familiar with), had brought copyright and trade mark infringement proceedings against Stability AI, the developer of the Stable Diffusion image-generation model.
The outcome of the case has been keenly anticipated because of its potential importance to the creative industries/generative AI development debate. However, it is highly fact-specific and, as a result, the key issues on the application of copyright law to generative AI were not considered by the judge. There are still some useful takeaways, though, as set out below.
Getty alleged that Stability AI had used its images to train Stable Diffusion without authorisation, and pursued claims on three grounds:
However, at the trial, the primary infringement claim was withdrawn due to a lack of evidence that training of the AI model had occurred in the UK - a technical point, but a hugely important one.
Getty failed on its secondary infringement claim. The Court accepted that, in principle, an AI model could constitute an “article” under copyright law. However, it held that Stable Diffusion was not an infringing copy: the model did not store copies of the training images but instead relied on statistical representations of them. As such, there was no copying capable of giving rise to secondary infringement.
Getty succeeded in part on its trade mark infringement claim, limited to older versions of Stable Diffusion. The finding was based on unauthorised use of Getty’s GETTY IMAGES and ISTOCK trade marks. However, more recent versions of the model (e.g. Stable Diffusion XL) were not found to infringe.
Getty secured only a very narrow win, which will be seen as a blow to many in the creative industries. However, the decision confirms that existing IP frameworks can be applied to AI-related disputes, with outcomes remaining highly fact-specific and heavily dependent on the quality of evidence presented.
The Court acknowledged in its judgment the significance of the case, noting that it represents a clash between the creative industries and the AI sector but is one of “very real societal importance”. We will have to wait until another case comes to trial where the facts enable the court to consider a primary copyright infringement claim.
Meanwhile, industry is still waiting for the Government's response to its consultation on Copyright and AI which closed in February this year (and to which the IPA responded). You can find our legal materials on AI for IPA members on our website.
Laura Hartley - IPA, Legal Counsel
Richard Lindsay - IPA, Director of Legal & Public Affairs