Stable diffusion has become a great hit in the AI image creation world. Stability AI released the latest version of this text-to-image model in 2022. So, is Stable Diffusion open source?

Is Stable Diffusion free and open source?

Stability AI developed Stable Diffusion in collaboration with other developers from LMU Munich, LAION, EleutherAI, and Runway ML.

The 2.0 version of the Stable Diffusion released in December 2022 is open source, unlike its latent competing diffusion models DALL-E 2 and Latitude Voyage. The application is free to use directly from their website for anyone looking to create art.

Since the latest model of the Stable Diffusion is open source, it means the code is released under a license. Allowing users to do whatever they want with the software or its source code directly.

Moreover, users can even study, alter or distribute the software to anyone they want. Although it is open-source with a permissive license, it still has some restrictions.

Despite being available and free to use, open-source software still has limitations. This includes forbidding the users to deliberately create or share any such content that violates the law, harms people, or spreads any information to harm others.

In addition, the developers (Stability AI) give their users a full copyright license. However, that does not mean it takes full responsibility for the outcome or output it may generate using the free code.

Users can use the code in any way they want but will be held accountable too if it is used against the limitations set in the license terms.

Are Stable Diffusion images copyrighted?

In short, yes. Interestingly, Stable Diffusion was the first AI art generator to have its creative content receive US copyright protection.

Conclusion

The most distinguishing feature of Stable Diffusion is that you can install it on your computers. However, the feature that most users find the best is to be the fact it is open source.

If you would like to find out how this model compares to OpenAI DALL-E 2, be sure to check out our comparison guide here.

• NOW READ How does Stable Diffusion work?

About the Author

Kevin Pocock

Kevin has a broad interest and enthusiasm for consumer electronics, PCs, and all things consumer tech. And more than 17 years experience in tech journalism.