Disney, Universal sue AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement

Filed in a Los Angeles federal court, Disney and Universal allege Midjourney pirated their libraries to create and share 'endless unauthorised copies' of iconic characters like Darth Vader and Minions

Disney and Universal have filed a copyright lawsuit against popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday, marking the first time major Hollywood companies have enter the legal battle over generative AI.

Filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, the complaint claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios to generate and distribute "endless unauthorised copies" of their famed characters, such as Darth Vader from Star Wars 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 claimed 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 did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David 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 Recording Industry Association of America, which is engaged in its own legal battles against generative AI companies, came out in support of Disney and Universal's lawsuit.

"This action by Disney and Universal represents a critical stand for human creativity and responsible innovation," RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement. But the music industry representative did point out that there are paths forward through partnerships that can advance both sectors.

Major AI developers do not 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.

The studio' case joins a growing number of lawsuits filed against developers of AI platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic 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 artificial intelligence company Stability AI.