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The two major Hollywood studios are suing Midjourney, a popular AI image generator over the use and distribution of intellectual property.
Disney and NBCUniversal (NBCU) are working together to file a complaint against AI Image Company.
The complaint, filed in federal court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, cited the complaint saying it was multiple instances of fraudulent work.
Some of the intellectual property featured in Big Hollywood Studios include The Simpsons, Star Wars, Descabulary Me, and Minion.
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The complaints filed in federal court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles cited multiple examples of claims that it was fraudulent work. In the complaint, Midjourney is said to be “a typical copyright-free rider and Bottoml.” (Photo provided in lawsuits by Disney and NBCU/FOX News)
In the complaints, Midi Joanie is called “the bottomless hole of typical copyright-free rider and plagiarism.”
Fox Business contacted Midjourney about the lawsuit but did not receive an immediate response.
Horacio Gutierrez, chief legal and compliance officer at Walt Disney Company, said it was built over decades in a world-class intellectual property statement from Fox Business Disney.
Gutierrez also said that financial investment, creativity and innovation have been made possible by copyright law.
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Midjourney is sued by Disney and NBCU for allegedly using copyrighted intellectual property without consent. (Lionel Bonaventure via Getty Images/Getty Images)
“We are bullish on the promises of AI technology and are optimistic about how we can use it responsibly as a tool to further enhance human creativity,” Gutierrez said in a statement. “However, the fact that copyright infringement is copyright infringement and is being carried out by AI companies does not infringe it.”
According to Axios, this is the first legal action taken by a major Hollywood studio against a generator AI company.
According to the lawsuit, the studio said it asked Midi Joanie to stop infringing copyrighted materials.
The complaints filed in federal court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles cited multiple examples of claims that it was fraudulent work. These AI-created images of “minions” are one of many images created by the Midjourney AI generator (Photo provided in lawsuits by Disney and NBCU/FOX News)
“Midjourney, which attracted millions of subscribers last year and earned $300 million last year, focuses on its own revenues and ignores the plaintiffs' demands,” the lawsuit states.
Midjourney has also started promoting new generation AI video creators, along with a new version of the image service.
“Creativity is the cornerstone of our business,” Kim Harris, vice president and general counsel at NBCuniversal, told Fox Business in a statement.
“We are bringing this action today to protect all artists' efforts, where work entertains, inspires us, and brings a big investment in content,” Harris said. “Theft is theft regardless of the technology used, and this action includes blatant copyright infringement.”
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The lawsuit also said in 2022 that Mid Journey founder David Holtz interviewed him saying he never asked Forbes and the copyright owner's consent.
“No. There's no way to get 100 million images and know where they came from. If there's embedded metadata about copyright owners and so on, that would be cool,” Holtz said.
Holtz also concluded his thoughts in an interview, saying there was no registration or way to trace the ownership on the internet, the lawsuit said.
Both Disney and NBCU require Midjourney to remove its properties and content.
The companies also requested to identify the model that Midjourney used to train AI and what steps to take to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
Nick Butler is a reporter for Fox Business. Any hints? I'll reach out to nick.butler@fox.com.
