In the next chapter of Big Entertainment vs. Big Tech, Disney and Universal have filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Midjourney over tools that allow users to create images and videos that can manipulate its famous characters at the click of a prompt.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday by Disney Enterprises, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century, Universal City Studios Productions and DreamWorks Animation, describes the David Holz-run generative AI firm Midjourney as a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
The complaint details how Midjourney’s tools easily allow users to create image-based works based on the intellectual property of Disney and Universal — think: Darth Vader or Shrek at the beach, etc. This is commonly called “AI Slop,” and many likely already see it in their social media feeds.
“If a Midjourney subscriber submits a simple text prompt requesting an image of the character Darth Vader in a particular setting or doing a particular action, Midjourney obliges by generating and displaying a high quality, downloadable image featuring Disney’s copyrighted Darth Vader character,” the complaint reads.
The top legal officer of Disney put it more simply in a strongly-worded statement accompanying the lawsuit: “Piracy is piracy.”
“Our world-class IP is built on decades of financial investment, creativity and innovation—investments only made possible by the incentives embodied in copyright law that give creators the exclusive right to profit from their works,” stated Disney chief legal officer Horacio Gutierrez. “We are bullish on the promise of AI technology and optimistic about how it can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity. But piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing.”
The full complaint is below:
More to come.