Disney and Universal sue AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement

NEW YORK — Disney and Universal sued popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday, marking the first time major Hollywood companies have taken legal action against a maker of generative AI technology that could upend the entertainment industry.

The copyright lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios to generate and distribute ''endless unauthorized copies'' of their famed characters, such as Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise and the Minions from ''Despicable Me.''

''Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing," the companies state in the complaint.

The studios also say the San Francisco-based AI company ignored their requests to stop infringing on their copyrighted works and to take technological measures to halt such image generation.

Midjourney didn't respond to a request for comment but its CEO David Holz addressed the lawsuit in a weekly conference call with users Wednesday after someone asked if it would endanger the tiny startup's future.

''I can't really discuss any ongoing legal things because the world isn't cool like that, but I think Midjourney is going to be around for a very long time,'' Holz said. "I think everybody wants us to be around.''

In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Holz described his image-making service as ''kind of like a search engine'' pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity.

''Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?'' Holz said. ''Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine.''

The lawsuit against Midjourney comes as a number other AI companies have sought to make inroads into Hollywood and the video game industry, providing AI tools that can aid filmmakers and game developers in generating new video, synthetic voices and editing help.

A movie industry group, the Motion Picture Association, said in a statement Wednesday that ''strong copyright protection is the backbone of our industry'' and it supports a ''balanced approach to AI that both protects intellectual property and embraces responsible, human-centered innovation.''

Endorsing the lawsuit Wednesday as a ''critical stand for human creativity and responsible innovation'' was the Recording Industry Association of America, a music publishing group fighting its own legal battles against companies that make AI-generated music.

Major AI developers don't typically disclose their data sources but have argued that taking troves of publicly accessible online text, images and other media to train their AI systems is protected by the ''fair use'' doctrine of American copyright law. At the same time, many big tech companies are increasingly looking to make licensing deals to pay for the content their AI systems need.

The studios' case joins a growing number of lawsuits filed against developers of AI platforms in San Francisco and New York.

Meanwhile, the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry is underway in London, pitting Getty Images against Stability AI, maker of an image-generating tool that competes with Midjourney.

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O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.