Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Getty granted permission to appeal whether Stable Diffusion’s parameters make an ‘infringing copy’ under CDPA 1988 (England and Wales)

Published on: 22 December 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter

Legal News

Article summary

High Court judge Joanna Smith indicated the photo library could challenge her decision that Stability’s use of Getty’s copyright‑protected collections of images to set the parameters of its Stable Diffusion model did not make the model an infringing copy of those images. She also noted this raises a novel and significant question of law about how the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) ought to be interpreted, a point not previously addressed by any court. That new question, she added, may carry far‑reaching consequences for AI models and for intangible articles such as software in general. Getty sought permission from the High Court to appeal the finding that Stability’s reliance on Getty’s protected image collections to configure Stable Diffusion’s parameters did not render the model an unlawful copy of those images. In written submissions, Getty argued that Judge Smith made a number of errors in her reasoning which ultimately led to an incorrect conclusion that the model was...

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