You might recall that the judge in  Andersen v. Stability AI —the case in which a group of visual artists sued the makers of several different generative AI platforms for copyright infringement—tossed most of the plaintiffs’ claims last year. However, the court allowed the plaintiffs an opportunity to replead. Specifically, the judge said that for their vicarious copyright infringement claims to remain viable, the plaintiffs would have to at least allege that derivative works created using AI programs that generate images in response to user prompts are “substantially similar” to their original copyright-protected works.

The plaintiffs took the judge’s ruling to heart. They filed an amended complaint, adding new plaintiffs and using statements by the AI companies’ employees on social media to bolster their claims that the AI programs are copying their art. Most interesting to us, however, was the images the plaintiff artists inserted into their amended pleading providing a side-by-side comparison of their original visual works and what they allege is substantially similar AI-generated output. (Plaintiffs in other cases involving written works have been taking notes on the Stability AI decision and similar decisions too, which we’ll be writing about in the coming weeks).