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Legend
[Andersen v Stability] Midjourney files motion to dismiss largely on procedural and technical grounds
Midjourney filed a motion to dismiss the claims of Andersen et al in Andersen v Stability (they are one of the defendants).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.407208/gov.uscourts.cand.407208.160.0.pdf
Choice words from the motion's introduction:
In other words, say you painted an apple, a banana, and an orange in Your Style. You only register the work of an apple. In a lawsuit against a genAI company, you point to outputs that look a lot like your banana and your orange. Defense then goes and says "that may well be, but you didn't register banana/orange, and while you did register apple, the fact that banana/orange have a similar style to the registered apple-in-Your-Style work is moot because styles can't be copyrighted.
Similarly: books that were registered but only covered the text, not the images / registrations of collections of works which applies only to the collection not the pre-existing material within the collection / Class claims against 'any defendant' being an inappropriate filing for any one of the specific defendants, alleging a genAI model to be a derivative work when it fails even the substantial similarity test, and so on.
Basically just the latest round between the Plaintiffs and Defendants, but it's interesting to me that - while entirely reasonable and certainly the first sort of thing any lawyer should go for - procedural and technical issues are at the forefront of the motion, rather than a direct defense.
While the motion does have legalese and makes other case references, their argument should be fairly understandable to anyone.
Reminder: This is just a motion by the defendants, not any court opinion or judgment
__
There are also new motions to dismiss from all of them - Stability, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway.
a few snippets from the various motions:
The Stability one has a great line:
"Nearly a year after filing their initial complaint, the only examples of purportedly infringing outputs Plaintiffs include in the FAC are those created by Plaintiffs’ attorneys themselves."
and other motions
"The fact that Plaintiffs were able to generate “Image Variations” from an “Image Variation” service does not prove that the underlying model is a “copy” of those images — any more than a photocopier’s ability to duplicate a photograph proves that the photocopier itself is a “copy” of that photograph. Instead, even assuming the images in Exhibit H are substantially similar to Plaintiffs’ works, Plaintiffs’ creation of those images does not mean that the parties who implement the models Plaintiffs used are somehow directly liable for copyright infringement. If anything, it suggests that Plaintiffs just “reproduced” “copies” of their own works."
"Plaintiffs have been unable to elicit any “stored” copies of their own registered works from Stable Diffusion, despite ample opportunities to try. And that is fatal to their claim. The question is not whether Stable Diffusion “stores” any image. Rather, to support their Model Theory, Plaintiffs needed to plead facts showing, at a minimum, that Stable Diffusion “stores” protected expression from Plaintiffs’ registered works.
Plaintiffs have had ready access to Stable Diffusion 1.5 and to Runway’s platform that they allege uses it. But nowhere do they allege that they, or anyone else, have been able to elicit replicas of their registered works from Stable Diffusion by entering text prompts. Plaintiffs’ silence on this issue speaks volumes, and by itself defeats their Model Theory."
Midjourney filed a motion to dismiss the claims of Andersen et al in Andersen v Stability (they are one of the defendants).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.407208/gov.uscourts.cand.407208.160.0.pdf
Choice words from the motion's introduction:
One of the larger bases for the motion is that cited instances of supposed infringement fail to denote exactly which works were infringed upon, and examples of infringement do not match any registered works.
In other words, say you painted an apple, a banana, and an orange in Your Style. You only register the work of an apple. In a lawsuit against a genAI company, you point to outputs that look a lot like your banana and your orange. Defense then goes and says "that may well be, but you didn't register banana/orange, and while you did register apple, the fact that banana/orange have a similar style to the registered apple-in-Your-Style work is moot because styles can't be copyrighted.
Similarly: books that were registered but only covered the text, not the images / registrations of collections of works which applies only to the collection not the pre-existing material within the collection / Class claims against 'any defendant' being an inappropriate filing for any one of the specific defendants, alleging a genAI model to be a derivative work when it fails even the substantial similarity test, and so on.
Basically just the latest round between the Plaintiffs and Defendants, but it's interesting to me that - while entirely reasonable and certainly the first sort of thing any lawyer should go for - procedural and technical issues are at the forefront of the motion, rather than a direct defense.
While the motion does have legalese and makes other case references, their argument should be fairly understandable to anyone.
Reminder: This is just a motion by the defendants, not any court opinion or judgment
__
There are also new motions to dismiss from all of them - Stability, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway.
a few snippets from the various motions:
The Stability one has a great line:
"Nearly a year after filing their initial complaint, the only examples of purportedly infringing outputs Plaintiffs include in the FAC are those created by Plaintiffs’ attorneys themselves."
and other motions
"The fact that Plaintiffs were able to generate “Image Variations” from an “Image Variation” service does not prove that the underlying model is a “copy” of those images — any more than a photocopier’s ability to duplicate a photograph proves that the photocopier itself is a “copy” of that photograph. Instead, even assuming the images in Exhibit H are substantially similar to Plaintiffs’ works, Plaintiffs’ creation of those images does not mean that the parties who implement the models Plaintiffs used are somehow directly liable for copyright infringement. If anything, it suggests that Plaintiffs just “reproduced” “copies” of their own works."
"Plaintiffs have been unable to elicit any “stored” copies of their own registered works from Stable Diffusion, despite ample opportunities to try. And that is fatal to their claim. The question is not whether Stable Diffusion “stores” any image. Rather, to support their Model Theory, Plaintiffs needed to plead facts showing, at a minimum, that Stable Diffusion “stores” protected expression from Plaintiffs’ registered works.
Plaintiffs have had ready access to Stable Diffusion 1.5 and to Runway’s platform that they allege uses it. But nowhere do they allege that they, or anyone else, have been able to elicit replicas of their registered works from Stable Diffusion by entering text prompts. Plaintiffs’ silence on this issue speaks volumes, and by itself defeats their Model Theory."
