Disney, Universal, Dreamworks Sue Midjourney, call it a ‘bottomless pit of plagiarism’

Disney and Universal, along with various other American film studios, have brought a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Midjourney, claiming that the popular tool for generating image generation systematically violates copyright by creating unauthorized reproductions of famous characters.

The lawsuit, submitted Wednesday in an American federal court, Midjourney of functioning accuses a “bottomless pit of plagiarism”.

“By helping themselves with the copyright works of claimants and then spreading images (and soon videos) that clearly record Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters and copy a cent in their creation is Midjourney the typical copyright free Rider,” the complaint is. “Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology makes it no less infringing.”

The studios, which also include DreamWorks and the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, quoted examples of outputs generated by Midjourney with similarities of Yoda, Marvel Superheroes, characters from Aladdin, Minions, The Simpsons and Shrek.

They are looking for compensation and an order to prevent the platform from reproducing, displaying or distributing their copyright -protected content. Decrypt has approached Midjourney for comment on the suit.

The case is part of an increasing wave of lawsuits with which AI companies are confronted with copyright violations.

As generative AI tools become more widespread, the legal control over their training data and outputs is intensified. The New York Times sued OpenAi and Microsoft in December 2023, and Reddit is currently pursue Legal steps against anthropic. Other claimants include Music publishers And media companies such as Ziff Davis.

The most important legal question in these suits is whether AI companies can use copyright working without using permission during training or generation.

Companies like OpenAi recognized The use of copyrighted content in training and argued that it would be “impossible” to develop AI systems without developing it.

Filtering the problem

Although some companies have searched for a license with copyright holders, others, such as Midjourney, have received criticism of insufficient guarantees.

In the complaint, the studios claim that Midjourney has the opportunity to filter prompts and outputs, just as it is currently blocking certain violent or pornographic content. They claim that the company could easily implement similar protection for copyright protected material, but has chosen not to do so.

Midjourney was confronted in his early days with controversy for limiting image generation related to Chinese President Xi Jinping and for allowing making images of other world leaders.

In the meantime, the film industry is struggling with how AI will reform creative labor. A report from the British Film Institute this week warned That AI is a direct threat to the jobs and income of the screen sector.

The research called that suggests that global audiovisual makers up to 21 years old can lose to 21% and that more than 200,000 American entertainment courts can be disturbed by 2026, in particular positions at entry level.

Disney, Universal and Dreamworks have been approached for further comments.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair