Andersen v. Stability AI — Visual Artist Class Action over Stable Diffusion (N.D. Cal.)
N.D. Cal. · Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., No. 3:23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.)
Visual artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz brought the first major image-generator class action, alleging Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway trained text-to-image models on artists' copyrighted works scraped from the web. After two rounds of motions to dismiss, key claims survived and the case is in discovery.
Technical detail
Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., No. 3:23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal., filed Jan. 13, 2023; Judge William H. Orrick). Original complaint largely dismissed Oct. 30, 2023; First Amended Complaint substantially survived an Aug. 12, 2024 ruling: direct copyright infringement claims against Stability AI, Runway, Midjourney and DeviantArt survived; induced infringement and DMCA § 1202(b) claims survived against Stability; Lanham Act and unjust enrichment dismissed. Discovery ongoing 2025–2026.
Who is protected: Visual artists whose works were scraped via the LAION dataset for image-generator training
Who must comply: Stability AI Ltd., Midjourney Inc., DeviantArt Inc., Runway AI Inc.
Key facts
| Jurisdiction | N.D. Cal. |
|---|---|
| Level | Federal |
| Status | Blocked / in litigation |
| Protection strength | Moderate protection |
| Effective date | 2023-01-13 |
| Citation | Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., No. 3:23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.) |
| Topics | copyright and training data |
| Last verified | 2026-06-17 |
| Official source | Andersen v. Stability AI — CourtListener 3:23-cv-00201 ↗ |
More AI rules in N.D. Cal.
- Tremblay v. OpenAI · Blocked / in litigation
- Silverman v. OpenAI · Blocked / in litigation
- Kadrey v. Meta · Blocked / in litigation
- Chabon v. OpenAI · Blocked / in litigation
- Chabon v. Meta · Blocked / in litigation
- Doe v. GitHub (Copilot) · Blocked / in litigation
Related copyright and training data rules elsewhere
- Copyright Office AI Guidance · In effect
- USPTO AI Inventorship Guidance · Repealed / replaced
- AB 2013 (Training Data Transparency) · In effect
- ELVIS Act · In effect
- SSB 5886 (WA Digital Likeness Rights) · In effect
- AR Generative AI Ownership Act (Act 927) · In effect
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