LogInHollywood studios are joining the cause.
Universal Pictures
The issue of AI using humans' work without permission is getting more heated: Disney and NBCUniversal are suing Midjourney for copyright infringement.
According to Axios, it's the first legal action taken by major Hollywood studios against a generative AI company. The complaint, filed in California, accuses Midjourney of direct and secondary copyright infringement by using the studios' IPs to train their LLM.
The document offers many examples of "stolen" characters from The Lion King, Aladdin, Minions, and other movies. Disney and NBCUniversal say that they tried to talk to Midjourney before the lawsuit, but it did not take the issue seriously.
Midjourney "continued to release new versions of its Image Service, which, according to Midjourney's founder and CEO, have even higher quality infringing images," the complaint says. Midjourney "is focused on its own bottom line and ignored Plaintiffs' demands."
"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," said Horacio Gutierrez, senior executive vice president, chief legal and compliance officer of The Walt Disney Company. "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."
"We are bringing this action today to protect the hard work of all the artists whose work entertains and inspires us and the significant investment we make in our content. Theft is theft regardless of the technology used, and this action involves blatant infringement of our copyrights," added Kim Harris, executive vice president and general counsel of NBCU.
Two years ago, George R.R. Martin and 16 other authors filed a class action lawsuit against ChatGPT's developer OpenAI, accusing it of copyright infringement. It seems like we'll hear more such news from all kinds of industries.
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