Disney and Universal sue AI image company Midjourney over copyright infringement

Walt Disney Co. and Comcast's Universal filed a landmark copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, an AI-image generation firm, alleging rampant infringement by using iconic characters without permission, Reuters reported.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal district court in Los Angeles, claims Midjourney engaged in massive copyright violations, illegally replicating beloved characters such as Darth Vader from Star Wars, Elsa from Frozen, and Minions from Despicable Me.

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The studios argue the San-Francisco-based startup used their intellectual property to train its AI software, generating and monetizing images through a subscription service.

Horacio Gutierrez, Disney's executive vice-president and chief legal officer, said in the report, "We are bullish on the promise of AI technology and optimistic about how it can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity, but piracy is piracy, and the fact that it's done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing."

NBCUniversal's General Counsel, Kim Harris, added in the report, "We're suing to protect the hard work of all the artists whose creations entertain and inspire us, and the significant investment we make in our content."

The lawsuit alleges Midjourney ignored repeated requests from the studios to cease infringement and continued to introduce upgraded versions of its software, deliberately improving the quality of infringing images, the report added.

Examples presented in court include images of Bart Simpson skateboarding, Marvel's Iron Man in flight, Pixar's Buzz Lightyear soaring, DreamWorks' Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, and Po from Kung Fu Panda.

Describing Midjourney's activities as "a bottomless pit of plagiarism," the lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction to halt further infringement, along with unspecified damages.

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The Motion Picture Association backed the lawsuit, with Chairman Charles Rivkin asserting that "strong copyright protection is the backbone of our industry," urging AI companis to responsibly respect intellectual property.

Midjourney, founded by David Holz in 2021, generated approximately $300 million in revenue last year, largely through paid subscriptions.

Holz previously admitted in an interview with Forbes that the company's extensive image database was built through "a big scrape of the internet," acknowledging no practical method existed to track permissions for hundreds of millions of images, the report added.

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