Last year, Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit against Midjourney for copyright infringement. A few months later, Warner Bros. also sued for the same reasons. As Techcrunch reports, the AI company is now retaliating and trying to force media companies to disclose their own AI use.
Midjourney relies on the “fair use” rule
In their lawsuit, Disney and Universal accuse Midjourney of mass-producing images that “blatantly incorporate and copy famous characters,” including Universal’s Minions and characters The Lion King from Disney. Before the lawsuit, both studios said they had asked Midjourney to stop these copyright violations. Since the AI startup is said not to have made any changes, they were forced to take legal action.
Midjourney argues that training its AI models with copyrighted content falls under the “fair use” rule and is therefore permissible. However, initial legal assessments painted a less optimistic picture. Andres Guadamuz, lecturer in copyright law at the University of Sussex, told New Scientist: “It’s Disney, so Midjourney is f***ed, excuse my language. (…) Media conglomerates are becoming more and more interested in copyright-infringing content. The AI models are getting better and now you can easily create any character you can imagine.”
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Studios should disclose their AI use
The current dispute revolves around the documents that the media companies have to submit in the evidence process. A judge had ruled that they only have to provide information about their own use of generative AI if it resulted in “consumer-oriented” videos and images. Midjourney is currently trying to lift this restriction. The statement argues that this “unfairly” gives the studios an advantage because they “can cherry-pick only those documents that they believe support their claims of market disruption, while depriving Midjourney of documents that would support its defense.”
Midjourney argues that if studios use AI models for internal use in storyboarding or ideation, it would prove that it is industry standard to download copyrighted content without a license, including among film studios. The company also requires that all prompts used and the resulting results be disclosed. Meanwhile, according to Techcrunch, lawyer David Singer explained that the goal of the two companies is not to stop AI technology or to close Midjourney’s business. Disney and Universal simply want the AI startup to stop copying their films and television shows and distributing the AI content without permission.
