Class Action
Andersen v. Stability AI
Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, Karla Ortiz, et al. v. Stability AI Ltd., Midjourney, Inc., DeviantArt, Inc. & Runway AI, Inc.
Where it stands
The case is in late-stage discovery with disputes over source-code and financial-records production through July 2026, with summary judgment set for November 2026 and a jury trial reported for September 8, 2026.
Key ruling
Aug. 12, 2024 — Judge William Orrick allowed the induced/direct copyright infringement theories and the Lanham Act false-endorsement and trade-dress claims to proceed past the pleadings against all defendants.
What is not confirmed
The reported September 8, 2026 trial date and November 2026 summary judgment date come from litigation trackers rather than a docket entry I read directly; no class has been certified yet.The record
- Court
- N.D. Cal.
- Case number
- 3:23-cv-00201 (WHO)
- Filed
- 2023-01-13
- Defendants
- Stability AI Ltd. · Stability AI, Inc. · Midjourney, Inc. · DeviantArt, Inc. · Runway AI, Inc.
- Plaintiffs
- Putative class of visual artists whose works were allegedly scraped into LAION datasets used to train Stable Diffusion and downstream image models
- Technology at issue
- Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, DreamUp, Runway image models
- Relief sought
- Class-wide damages and an injunction against continued distribution of models trained on the artists' works
- Counsel of record
- Joseph Saveri Law Firm, LLP · Matthew Butterick
Claims pleaded
Sources (3)
- Image generator litigation — case updatesJoseph Saveri Law Firm & Matthew Butterick · 2024-12-22
- Status of all 57 copyright lawsuits v. AI (Oct. 26, 2025)Chat GPT Is Eating the World · 2025-10-26
- AI Infringement Case Updates: July 13, 2026McKool Smith · 2026-07-13
This page describes a publicly filed case. This site is not counsel on this matter, nothing here is legal advice, and the allegations described are allegations unless a court has said otherwise.