Disney and Universal have filed a lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney alleging mass copyright infringement that enables users to create images that âblatantly incorporate and copy Disneyâs and Universalâs famous charactersâ. The action could be a major turning point in the legal battles over AI copyright infringement being negotiated by book publishers, news agencies and other content creators.
Midjourneyâs tool, which creates images from text prompts, has 20 million users on its Discord server, where users type their inputs.
In the lawsuit, the two movie-making giants share examples in which Midjourney is able to create images that uncannily resemble characters each company owns the rights to, such as the Minions, controlled by Universal, or the Lion King, owned by Disney. The companies allege those outputs could only be the result of Midjourney training its AI on their copyrighted material. They also say Midjourney âignoredâ their attempts to remediate the issue prior to taking legal action.
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In the complaint, the companies say âMidjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.â Midjourney did not immediately respond to New ĐÓ°ÉÔ´´âs request for comment.
The lawsuit has been welcomed by at Fairly Trained, a non-profit organisation that promotes fairer training practices for AI companies. âThis is a great day for creators around the world,â he says. âGovernments have shown worrying signs they might bend to big techâs intense lobbying by legalising IP theft â Disney weighing in makes this that much less likely.â
Newton-Rex claims Midjourney engineers once told him their actions were justified because art is âossifiedâ. âThankfully, this ludicrous defence wouldnât stand up in court,â he says.
Legal experts are equally forthright about Midjourneyâs likelihood of success defending the case. âItâs Disney, so Midjourney are fucked, pardon my French,â says at the University of Sussex in the UK.
Guadamuz points out that Disneyâs general approach to protecting its intellectual property â rarely, but firmly when it does â highlights the importance of its intervention. The movie companies acted months after other organisations, including news publishers, pursued AI firms over the alleged use of their proprietary creations. Many of those cases have settled after licensing agreements were reached between the AI companies and copyright holders.
âMedia conglomerates are more interested in infringing outputs. The models are getting so much better that itâs now very easy to produce pretty much any character you can imagine,â says Guadamuz. He thinks Disney waited because âunlike publishers, theyâre not looking for licensing agreements to surviveâ.
The involvement of two titans of the creative industry is revealing in itself and marks a watershed moment for AI and copyright, Guadamuz reckons. âThe fact that theyâre going after Midjourney is telling,â he says. The company is a minnow compared to larger AI firms because it only specialises in image generation. âThis is a message to the larger players to get their act together and start implementing stronger filters, or theyâll be next.â
Many large AI companies provide image generation tools within their chatbots, though they tend to more strictly police usersâ ability to create images incorporating copyrighted characters through blunt guardrails preventing them from even trying.
The less likely alternative is that Disney, which made $91 billion in revenue last year, is seeking to get money from Midjourney. âThis could also be a message to come to the table and start negotiating. AI isnât going away, so Disney may be setting this as a marker that theyâre open for business,â says Guadamuz.
