Getty Images v Stability AI – Court of Appeal hearing

The Court of Appeal is today hearing the second day of Getty Images' appeal in its landmark dispute with Stability AI, the developer of the Stable Diffusion AI image generator. The case is one of the most closely-watched intellectual property disputes of the generative AI era. The appeal’s outcome will shape how UK copyright law applies to AI models that are trained overseas and do not contain copies or reproductions of copyright works on which they were trained.

Background 

As previously reported (see our articles here and here), the High Court handed down its first instance judgment in November 2025, delivering a mixed outcome that largely favoured Stability AI. Getty succeeded on a small part of its trade mark claim, but its copyright claim ultimately failed.

Because Stable Diffusion was trained outside the UK, Getty had dropped its primary copyright claims during the trial. Its remaining copyright case was one of secondary infringement: namely that Stable Diffusion was an "infringing copy" which had been imported into, and distributed in, the UK. 

The High Court rejected that claim. It accepted that an AI model can be an "article" even though it is intangible, but held that an infringing copy must be a copy. Because Stable Diffusion's model weights had never stored Getty's images, the model could not be an infringing copy. 

The Appeal 

The key question in the appeal is whether an AI model can be an "infringing copy" for the purpose of secondary copyright infringement if the model itself has never contained a copy of those works?

The relevant provision of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) is section 27(3), which provides that:

(3) An article is also an infringing copy if—

(a) it has been or is proposed to be imported into the United Kingdom, and 

(b) its making in the United Kingdom would have constituted an infringement of the copyright in the work in question, or a breach of an exclusive licence agreement relating to that work.”

In its appeal, Getty’s position is that "making" a model includes training it (in turn involving the copying of images) and that the law does not require the finished model (the “article”) to itself contain a copy of the works it was trained on: if the making of an article in the UK would have constituted copyright infringement then the article is an “infringing copy”, whether or not it actually contains copies. 

Notably, the British Recorded Music Industry Limited (BPI), which represents the UK recorded music industry, has been given permission to intervene in support of Getty. It warns that the High Court's approach could allow AI developers to train models offshore and bring them back into the UK, with significant consequences for the music and wider creative industries. 

BPI has also highlighted the significance of what it says is not in issue in the appeal, namely whether AI models generally contain copies of copyright works on which they are trained. Getty had accepted at trial that versions of Stable Diffusion did not contain such copies. In contrast, BPI cites two recent German cases where the Munich Court has found that AI models did contain copyright works on which they had been trained, having ‘memorised’ them (‘memorisation’ being a machine learning process whereby a trained model is able to reproduce significant parts of its training data as output). On this basis, BPI says the Getty judgment must be viewed as having “no wider significance” on that particular issue, which is fact-specific to each AI model.

Converse to Getty and BPI, Stability AI says the High Court was right. It argues that whether something is a copy depends on what is actually produced, not on how it was developed. It says Getty's approach would lead to odd results, for example making it unlawful to import the model but lawful to copy it once it is in the UK. Stability also argues that “extending” the law to AI models trained overseas is a matter for Parliament, not the courts.

Stability AI is also asking the Court of Appeal to overturn two findings that went against it at first instance: that an intangible model can be an "article", and that Stability AI itself imported or distributed the model in the UK. Getty disputes both points.

Impact 

The stakes are high for both sides. If Getty succeeds, AI developers could face copyright claims in the UK over models trained abroad on unlicensed works, even where the model imported into the UK stores no copies of those works. If Stability AI succeeds, where a model is trained, and whether it actually stores copies, will remain key to potential copyright claims against AI companies.

Either way, the ruling may influence how rights holders protect their content and how AI developers structure training and distribution. This case is further significant as it comes as the Government continues to consider its approach to copyright and AI following the publication of its March 2026 report. 

Stay updated

We will report on the judgment when it is handed down. To receive our latest intellectual property legal updates, news, and event invitations direct to your inbox, subscribe to our Concept newsletter. 

If you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this case, please contact Jeremy Dickerson, Harry Jewson, or another member of the IP team.