Key holding or allegation
The High Court held that an intangible AI model can in principle be an article, but Stable Diffusion was not an infringing copy on the surviving copyright theory where the model did not itself contain or store copies of Getty's protected works as the case was presented.
Why it matters
Principal UK GenAI copyright judgment and critical comparator to German model-memorisation cases.
Facts
Getty alleged training and output infringement involving Stable Diffusion. By trial, Getty had abandoned the UK training claim for lack of evidence of UK training and abandoned the copyright output claim; secondary infringement/model-copy issues remained.
Issues before the court
Whether Stable Diffusion itself was an infringing copy/article for secondary infringement and other surviving claims.
What the court did not decide
The High Court did not decide whether original Stable Diffusion training infringed UK copyright or whether ordinary outputs infringed Getty copyright because those claims were abandoned before judgment.
Procedural timeline
High Court of Justice, Chancery Division
Summary-judgment / strike-out ruling: Court refused to dispose of Getty's training/location and secondary-infringement theories at an early stage because factual issues remained.
High Court of Justice, Chancery Division
Case-management judgment: Case-management decision addressing representative copyright claim and trial structure.
Court of Appeal
Procedural appeal judgment: Court of Appeal addressed a trial pleading issue rather than the core copyright training/model questions.
High Court of Justice, Chancery Division
Principal merits judgment: An intangible model could in principle be an article, but Stable Diffusion was not an infringing copy on the surviving secondary-infringement theory where it did not itself contain/store copies of Getty works as the case was presented.
Court of Appeal
Appeal pending: Permission to appeal granted concerning dismissal of the secondary copyright infringement theory.