Getty Images (US), Inc. v. Stability AI, Inc., No. 1:23-cv-00135 (D. Del.), was a copyright and trademark suit brought by the stock-photography company Getty Images against Stability AI over the use of Getty's image library to train Stable Diffusion. Filed on February 3, 2023, it was the second of the first-wave generative-AI copyright actions, three weeks after Andersen. Getty voluntarily dismissed the case on August 14, 2025, and the clerk terminated it on August 18, 2025, without any ruling on the merits (Source: courtlistener.com).
Infobox
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Case number | 1:23-cv-00135 (D. Del.) |
| Filed | February 3, 2023 |
| Plaintiff | Getty Images (US), Inc. |
| Defendants | Stability AI, Inc.; Stability AI, Ltd.; Stability AI US Services Corporation |
| Judge | Jennifer L. Hall |
| Disposition | Voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff, August 14, 2025; case terminated August 18, 2025 |
| Merits ruling | None |
Claims
Getty's US complaint combined the training-data theory common to the docket with claims the artist suits did not raise. It alleged that Stability copied more than twelve million Getty images, together with their captions and metadata, to train Stable Diffusion; that outputs reproduced protected works; and — distinctively — that generated images carried distorted versions of the Getty Images and iStock watermarks, supporting trademark-infringement and dilution claims alongside the copyright counts. The watermark allegation is what separates the Getty theory from the pure ingestion-and-output framing at AI Copyright.
Procedural history
The case did not reach the merits. Its docket is dominated by jurisdictional and venue disputes: Stability moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and for failure to join a party, and separately moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, where Andersen was already pending. Getty requested oral argument on those motions in August 2024, and a Rule 26(f) conference was still being arranged by letter in November 2024. Getty filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on August 14, 2025; the case was terminated four days later, and a report issued to the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks (Source: courtlistener.com).
The dismissal came without a published explanation on the docket. Getty has not been recorded refiling the US action.
Relation to the UK proceeding
Getty brought a parallel action against Stability AI in the English High Court in 2023. That case reached trial in 2025 and produced a split judgment: Getty's trademark and database-right claims succeeded in part, while its core copyright claims were narrowed, and the ruling went on appeal (AI Copyright). The UK proceeding is therefore the only one of the two Getty actions to have generated substantive law; the US case leaves no precedent.
Current status
Terminated. The status: active frontmatter value marks the page as maintained rather than the litigation as live; the case itself is closed. Because the dismissal was voluntary and without prejudice on the face of the docket, it removed one of the two 2023 filings against Stability AI from the US docket without resolving any of the questions it raised.
Relationships
- instance-of: AI Copyright — training-data, output-infringement and trademark theories
- related: AI Copyright Litigation — Analysis — the wider copyright docket
- related: Andersen v. Stability AI — co-pending action against the same defendant, still live
- related: Tremblay v. OpenAI — the third first-wave 2023 filing