The main complaint is copyright violations brought about by the use of Sta­ble Dif­fu­sion, 'a col­lage tool that remixes the copy­righted works of mil­lions of artists whose work was used as train­ing data' (per lawyer and programmer Matthew Butterick). The suit, filed over the weekend, names Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt as defendants, and accuses them of 'direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement related to forgeries, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), violation of class members' rights of publicity, breach of contract related to the DeviantArt Terms of Service, and various violations of California's unfair competition laws.' The plaintiffs are artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McK­er­nan, and Karla Ortiz.

Well, some artists are taking a stand in a new class-action lawsuit to assert their copyrights and more. When does this content cease being 'art,' and who gets credit for it? When is it stealing from something that already exists? We love a new technology that could make things easier for filmmakers-from creating storyboards to cleaning up dialogue to casting-but it's always been a little bit of a fuzzy line, and no one is sure when they've crossed into robot overlord territory. We've talked a lot about AI here on the site.