Disney and Universal have filed a joint lawsuit against AI-powered imaged generator Midjourney, accusing it of mass copyright infringement for allowing users to generate images resembling characters from Star Wars, Shrek, The Simpsons, and Minions without authorization.
The suit, filed in California, claims Midjourney trained its AI on copyrighted material and now acts as a “virtual vending machine” for pirated content. The joint lawsuit of Disney and Universal is the most aggressive legal action yet by major studios against an artificial intelligence image generator—and a pivotal test of how U.S. copyright law applies to AI.
The studios are seeking damages, a jury trial and a bar against Midjourney from further copyright infringement. Clearly, the suit would eventually set a precedent that will have deep and significant impact on the future development of AI, not only in the US but elsewhere in the world.
Midjourney, which has faced similar allegations since 2023, had claimed in the past that its outputs are transformative and thus fall under fair use—an argument that courts have yet to decisively rule on in the context of AI.
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