Notice any similarities? One of the many allegedly infringing Midjourney outputs (and the original characters for comparison) included in the newly filed lawsuit from Disney and Universal Pictures. Photo Credit: Digital Music News
Midjourney is a “quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism” – at least according to Disney and Universal Pictures, which have slapped the image-focused AI startup with an infringement lawsuit.
Disney, Universal, and a number of their subsidiaries submitted the complaint today, naming four-year-old Midjourney as the lone defendant. Despite spanning north of 100 pages, the high-stakes suit is straightforward enough; much of the legal text cites specific examples of the alleged infringement.
“Piracy is piracy,” the firmly worded action sums up, “and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing. Midjourney’s conduct misappropriates Disney’s and Universal’s intellectual property and threatens to upend the bedrock incentives of U.S. copyright law that drive American leadership in movies, television, and other creative arts.”
Of course, that alleged infringement refers in part to Midjourney’s training process, which allegedly drew from (and in the case of a reportedly forthcoming video option, is drawing from) “innumerable unauthorized copies” of protected works.
But the filing parties are zeroing in on the output side, pointing to Midjourney’s allegedly infringing “copies and derivatives” of “copyrighted characters.”
That includes allegedly infringing image outputs involving The Simpsons, Star Wars, Shrek, Toy Story, Despicable Me, and much more.
Another side-by-side comparison of an allegedly infringing Midjourney output (ostensibly generated in response to the single-word ‘Pixar’ prompt) and the purported source material. Photo Credit: Digital Music News
As the relevant rightsholders see the situation, “Midjourney could stop, or at least minimize, its ongoing copyright infringement” by “discontinuing” the training in question and implementing “copyright protection measures” blocking certain prompts.
(Already-generated images compiled in an “Explore” section are also allegedly infringing, the suit maintains in many more words.)
Besides allegedly failing to implement adequate protection measures, the gen AI defendant has purportedly ignored related communications (“Midjourney never responded to Disney’s letter”).
All told, the plaintiffs are seeking a massive pile of damages and an order blocking, among other things, the alleged image-generation infringement and the release of Midjourney video “without appropriate copyright protection measures.”
In the bigger picture, there are definitely parallels between the “textbook copyright infringement” described in the complaint and the music industry’s AI qualms. Amid ongoing music-space showdowns involving Anthropic, Suno, Udio, and more – incidentally, the latter two platforms may be preparing to settle – RIAA head Mitch Glazier applauded the Midjourney lawsuit.
“There is a clear path forward through partnerships that both further AI innovation and foster human artistry,” Glazier said. “Unfortunately, some bad actors – like Midjourney – see only a zero-sum, winner-take-all game. These short-sighted AI companies are stealing human-created works to generate machine-created, virtually identical products for their own commercial gain.
“That is not only a violation of black letter Copyright law but also manifestly unfair. This action by Disney and Universal represents a critical stand for human creativity and responsible innovation,” the RIAA chairman and CEO concluded.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.