Disney, Universal Sue AI Company For Copyright Infringement

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In the first major Hollywood lawsuit, Disney and Universal are suing AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement — and they asked for a jury trial. Via NPR:

The 110-page lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a U.S. district court in Los Angeles, includes detailed appendices illustrating the plaintiffs’ claims with visual examples and alleges that Midjourney stole “countless” copyrighted works to train its AI engine in the creation of AI-generated images.

Many companies have gone after AI firms for copyright infringement, such as The New York Times (which sued OpenAI and Microsoft), Sony Music Entertainment (which filed a suit against AI song generator startups Suno and Udio) and Getty Images (against Stability AI). But this is the first time major Hollywood players have joined the fight against the AI landscape.

The suit accuses Midjourney, a well-known force in the AI image generation space with around 20 million registered users, according to data insights company Demandsage, of “selling an artificial intelligence (“AI”) image-generating service (“Image Service”) that functions as a virtual vending machine, generating endless unauthorized copies of Disney’s and Universal’s copyrighted works.”