Disney & Universal Sue Midjourney Over Copyright Infringement

On June 11, media giants Disney and Universal filed a joint lawsuit against AI firm Midjourney over its alleged use of copyrighted materials to train its image generation models. The lawsuit marks the first instance of a major Hollywood studio suing a generative AI company.

The suit, filed in a Los Angeles (US) federal court, sustains that Midjourney used pirated libraries from the studios to create “endless unauthorized copies of Disney’s and Universal’s copyrighted work.”

“By helping itself to Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and then distributing images (and soon videos) that blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters—without investing a penny in their creation – Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism,” the suit reads.

“Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing,” it continues.

The studios claim that the San Francisco-based company ignored requests to take measures to stop the generation of images that infringe on their copyrights.

In the lawsuit, the studios claim that Midjourney is capable of generating images of copyrighted characters such as the ones from the Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, Frozen, and Cars franchises. The plaintiffs also claim that Midjourney uses these protected characters to promote its image generation capabilities.

In a statement relating to the suit, the Motion Picture Association said: “Strong copyright protection is the backbone of our industry. A balanced approach to AI that both protects intellectual property and embraces responsible, human-centered innovation is critical for maintaining America’s global leadership in creative industries.”

Though Midjourney CEO David Holz hasn’t made an official statement regarding the suit, he did respond to a user’s question about it during a June 11 conference. “I can’t really discuss any ongoing legal things because the world isn’t cool like that, but I think Midjourney is going to be around for a very long time. I think everybody wants us to be around.”

The lawsuit comes at a time when generative AI faces mounting legal and ethical dilemmas in courts. Back in May, a US judge officially denied the argument that chatbots should have “free speech rights” in a case involving the death of a teenage user with his use of the popular AI chatbot platform Character.ai.