Tom Magnani, head of the firm's Technology Transactions practice and co-chair of the Technology, Media, & Telecommunications industry group, was featured in the Managing IP article, "Lawyers: thorough pleadings key to getting AI claims up and running." The article highlights the key legal takeaways from a California federal court's recent decision to dismiss claims filed by three artists against several AI platforms. The artists accused the AI companies, including Stability AI, of taking training images from public websites and using copyrighted images to create and train Stability AI's system, Stable Diffusion.
Most of the claims against the companies were dismissed, with the judge noting that the artists' claims may be stronger if they can prove the AI platforms allow users to create new works by referencing an artist's work by name. "This gives the Plaintiffs a fairly clear road map to follow to establish that Stable Diffusion somehow incorporates copyrighted content, even if they are unable to articulate exactly how it does so," Magnani told Managing IP.
Though most claims were dismissed, the judge allowed direct copyright infringement claims against Stability AI to proceed. As a result, there will likely be "a decision on the Defendants' fair use defense in due course," Magnani said.
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