Disney and Universal file suit against Midjourney: Copyright on figures
Midjourney's image generator generates well-known characters such as Shrek, Darth Vader and Buzz Lightyear. Disney doesn't find that funny.
(Image: Alexandre Tziripouloff/Shutterstock.com)
Midjourney generates copyright-protected figures such as Shrek and Darth Vader without authorization. Disney and Universal are now jointly suing the provider of the image generator as rights holders. The lawsuit was filed in a US district court in California. It states that Midjourney is a “virtual vending machine that endlessly generates unauthorized copies of Disney's and Universal's copyrighted works.”
As the New York Times reports, the lawsuit claims that this is a “prime example of copyright free-riding and a bottomless pit of plagiarism”. Midjourney made no financial contribution, nor was the company involved in the development of the characters. Not only do Disney and Universal accuse Midjourney of the fact that it is even possible to generate the well-known characters, Midjourney also advertises that it is possible.
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According to the plaintiffs, Midjourney has not complied with requests to cease copyright infringements. Other AI providers had indeed complied and taken protective measures. However, even recently, OpenAI's Dall-E was still able to display characters from various films and series without any problems. If you currently ask Dall-E for a picture of Shrek, it refuses to generate an image. However, if you ask for Indiana Jones with a banana in his hand, such an image still appears.
(Image: generiert mit Dall-E.)
Copyright and AI: many unanswered questions
Of course, the question of copyright also affects video generators. Midjourney recently announced its intention to launch one on the market. Disney and Universal are already concerned in the lawsuit that the AI model behind it has been trained on their works and characters and is outputting them accordingly.
Several artists have already filed a lawsuit against Midjourney. They accuse the company of having used their work for AI training without permission. So far, it is completely unclear whether this is a copyright infringement. The major AI providers in the USA invoke the so-called fair use principle, which states that if it benefits everyone, it is permissible to use protected works. In addition, Midjourney says that every image generated by AI is made up of millions of fragments and compares the process with what a human sees and learns.
However, the current lawsuit is only about the output of the image generators. A Disney spokesperson told CNN: “We are confident in the promise of AI technology and optimistic about how it can be used responsibly as a tool to enhance human creativity.” But: “Piracy is piracy, and the fact that it's done by an AI company doesn't make it any less illegal.”
(emw)
