Disney and Universal have filed a lawsuit against generative AI company Midjourney over copyright infringement.
The two multimedia companies have filed the lawsuit in regards to “hundreds, if not thousands, of images generated by its Image Service at the request of its subscribers.”
On behalf of The Walt Disney Company, Horatio Gutierrez gave the following statement to Variety:
“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. 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.”
Generative AI programs like Midjourney allow users to request a digitally created image by feeding prompts to the program. Theoretically, a user could request an image of copyrighted characters such as Spider-Man, Darth Vader, or Minions.
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