Disney and Universal sue Midjourney, alleging AI-related copyright infringement

Disney and Universal have sued generative AI platform Midjourney for allegedly training its art-generating and -editing models on their content with permission.

Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming that Midjourney ignored their earlier requests to cease violating their intellectual property rights, according to The Wall Street Journal. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, includes dozens of examples of images generated by Midjourney that depict the studio’s copyrighted characters, like Homer Simpson and Darth Vader.

The studios are seeking monetary damages, a jury trial, and an order barring Midjourney from further copyright infringement. Midjourney didn’t immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Tech companies including OpenAI have pushed for legal cover to train on publicly available works, including copyrighted works, without having to ask creators for authorization or compensate them. As The Wall Street Journal notes, some film and television studios have experimented with generative AI tech, but in a relatively limited fashion.

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