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Artists file class action against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt
See how this story connectsIllustrators Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz sued Stability AI, DeviantArt and Midjourney in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on 13 January 2023. The proposed class action claims copyright infringement, DMCA violations, right of publicity violations, unfair competition and unjust enrichment over the training and output of image generators such as Stable Diffusion.
Why it matters
Image-generator developers faced a class claim from visual artists over training on scraped images, putting the legality of that training data before a US federal court.
- When
- 13 Jan 2023
- ID
WTA-N-2023-0042- Where
- United States
- Who
- Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt; Sarah Andersen, Karla Ortiz, Kelly McKernan
- Topics
- Copyright, Courts and liability
- Authority
- US District Court, N.D. California
- Target
- Stability AI; DeviantArt; Midjourney
- Action
- class action
- Status
- open · Enforcement ledger
Summary by wheresthe.ai, from Joseph Saveri Law Firm. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.
Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.
Cite this story
WTA-N-2023-0042: “Artists file class action against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt.” wheresthe.ai, 13 Jan 2023. https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-andersen-v-stability-ai-filed-2023-01/ (source: Joseph Saveri Law Firm (counsel for the plaintiffs)).
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