Warner Bros Discovery initiates a lawsuit against Midjourney, AI image generator, alleging copyright violation
In a significant turn of events, Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros Discovery have joined forces to file lawsuits against the generative AI service, Midjourney. The company, based in San Francisco, is accused of copyright infringement for producing images that are direct lifts of copyrighted material.
Midjourney, founded by David Holz, is a service that generates images based on text prompts. The lawsuit alleges that the service has been producing images that resemble iconic characters from these media giants, such as Superman, Woody from Toy Story, and numerous other examples visible on Midjourney's Discord server and Subreddit.
The lawsuit, filed via Culture Crave, states that Midjourney could stop its theft and exploitation of intellectual property, but instead, it allegedly chose to offer no protection for copyright owners. The class action lawsuit, filed by a group of artists in 2023, claims that Midjourney had technology protection measures attached to its video service, but "inexplicably" chose to remove them.
The legal wrangling over generative AI is likely to continue, as this technology is not easily containable. The combined legal teams of Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros Discovery bring a significant amount of power to the legal fight against Midjourney. Many of Midjourney's competitors have implemented technological measures to prevent the generation of infringing outputs.
The fate of Midjourney may serve as a precedent for the entire industry, potentially influencing how tech giants handle other people's intellectual property. Warner Bros Discovery's lawsuit against Midjourney accuses it of "brazenly dispensing Warner Bros Discovery's intellectual property as if it were its own."
Andy Chalk, a veteran in the gaming industry, has been following this development closely. Chalk, who has been gaming on PCs since the very beginning, starting with text adventures and primitive action games on a TRS80, joined the team at PC Gamer in 2014, after writing videogame news for The Escapist since 2007. He covers all aspects of the gaming industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill.
As the legal battle unfolds, the industry watches closely to see how Midjourney responds and what implications this lawsuit may have for the future of generative AI.
