Disney, Universal sue image creator Midjourney for copyright infringement

In a significant legal move, entertainment giants Walt Disney and Comcast's Universal have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney, the popular AI-powered image generation service.

The core of the complaint, filed in a Los Angeles federal court, alleges that Midjourney has used the studios' vast libraries of copyrighted characters, including iconic figures like Darth Vader, Elsa from "Frozen," the Minions, and many others, to train its AI models and subsequently generate new images of these characters without permission.

According to the lawsuit, Midjourney is acting as a "bottomless pit of plagiarism." Executives from both Disney and Universal emphasized their support for responsible AI development but drew a clear line, stating that using copyrighted material for training and generation without authorization constitutes outright piracy, regardless of the technology involved.

The studios claim they requested Midjourney cease infringing on their works or implement measures to prevent the creation of infringing images, but the company reportedly continued to release updated versions of its service capable of generating even higher-quality unauthorized character likenesses. Midjourney's CEO previously acknowledged using "a big scrape of the Internet" for data, citing difficulties in obtaining consent for such a massive collection.

Seeking redress, Disney and Universal are asking the court for a preliminary injunction to halt Midjourney from continuing to copy their works or operate its service without effective anti-infringement controls. They are also pursuing unspecified monetary damages.

This lawsuit adds to a growing wave of legal challenges faced by AI companies regarding their use of copyrighted materials for training data. It follows a previous case where a federal judge allowed a copyright infringement suit brought by 10 artists against Midjourney and other AI firms to proceed.