Artist Class Action Claims May Face Dismissal
Summary
On July 19, 2023, California federal Judge William Orrick held a hearing on a class action complaint against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt (previously covered in the May newsletter.) During the hearing, Judge Orrick indicated that he was inclined to dismiss the majority of the claims brought forth by artists for failure to more clearly state and differentiate claims against each of the defendant companies. Though the court indicated that certain claims were sufficiently argued to proceed to the next stages in the trial process, such as those identifying violations of specific copyright, reporting from the courtroom indicates that Judge Orrick orally cast doubt on whether images generated purely based on text prompts would be substantially similar to copyrighted images for purposes of making a successful copyright claim.
