Universal and Disney Launch Legal Attack Against AI Company
An AI image generating company is being sued by two of the entertainment world’s biggest ventures.
Midjourney, which is based in San Francisco, is being accused by Disney and Universal of making "innumerable" copies of characters they have created and own the copyright on. Indeed, the two companies go as far as calling Midjourney’s image generator a "bottomless pit of plagiarism," says BBC News.
The two studios have joined together to launch the lawsuit, which they have filed with a federal district court in Los Angeles. In it, they claim that the AI venture made $300m (£221m) last year alone. Some of this money, they claim, has been made from generating images of characters including Star Wars' Yoda, Frozen's Elsa and Marvel's Spiderman.
Disney's chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez said that his company believes that AI "can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity". However, this is not what Midjourney is doing, he stated. "But piracy is piracy, and the fact that it's done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing," he said.
AI is being used increasingly in mainstream films, however, the studios want to stop other companies from abusing their IP. This case could be a landmark in this battle; but it is sure not to be the last.
