Disney and Universal are accusing Midjourney of copyright infringement

Media corporations Disney and NBCU (which owns film company Universal Pictures) have filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, a service that creates images and short videos using generative AI.

Here's What We Know

We are facing the first case of major companies being sued for direct or indirect infringement of their copyrights by AI developers.

Disney and Universal claim that Midjourney used their intellectual property when training their generative models. They backed up their claims with a large number of specific examples of images generated by Midjourney, which almost entirely replicate characters and footage from the said companies' projects.

By using the plaintiffs' copyrighted works and then distributing images (and soon videos) that brazenly incorporate and copy well-known Disney and Universal characters without investing a penny in their creation, Midjourney is a typical copyright infringer and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.

The media giants are not against the use of generative AI, but believe it is wrong to train such models on content that is copyrighted.

Midjourney has yet to comment on the situation.

Source: Axios