Hollywood Giants Launch Legal Battle Against AI Innovator Midjourney

Disney and Universal have filed a copyright lawsuit against AI company Midjourney, claiming the unauthorized creation and distribution of images featuring their characters. This case marks Hollywood's first major involvement in legal disputes over generative AI. The studios accuse Midjourney of pirating their content and ignoring requests to halt infringement.

In a significant move, Disney and Universal have taken legal action against the AI company Midjourney, marking the first major Hollywood intervention in the generative AI legal domain. Filed in Los Angeles' federal district court, the lawsuit accuses Midjourney of pirating the esteemed libraries of these studios to create and distribute unauthorized images featuring well-known characters, like Star Wars' Darth Vader and the Minions from Despicable Me.

The studios assert in their complaint that Midjourney embodies a "copyright free-rider" with its alleged continuous infringement via AI-generated images. They emphasize that such acts of piracy are not excused by the technology used, be it AI or otherwise. Despite requests to cease the unauthorized exploitation of their intellectual properties, Disney and Universal claim that Midjourney has disregarded their demands.

While Midjourney did not provide a comment on the lawsuit, its role as a facilitator of AI-generated visuals places it among several research labs exploring the potentials of AI. Developers often cite the "fair use" doctrine in American copyright law to justify using publicly available data to train their AI models, though Hollywood's legal challenge underlines the complexities of this defense.

(With inputs from agencies.)