CNN

Walt Disney and Universal filed a copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, an artificial intelligence image generator, in a federal district court in Los Angeles. The complaint alleges that Midjourney has infringed the copyrights of both studios by generating and distributing “countless unauthorized copies” of iconic characters, including Darth Vader from “Star Wars,” Elsa from “Frozen,” and the Minions from “Despicable Me.” The studios describe Midjourney as a “bottomless pit of plagiarism” that has used their content libraries without authorization.

In the lawsuit, Disney and Universal assert that Midjourney ignored their requests to cease the infringement of their copyrighted works and to implement technological measures to prevent the generation of images featuring their characters. Furthermore, the studios argue that instead of complying with these requests, the company has continued to release new versions of its service that allow the creation of higher-quality infringing images.

For his part, Midjourney’s CEO, David Holz, has defended his platform by comparing it to a “search engine” that collects images from the internet, suggesting that its operation is similar to the human creative process. However, the suing studios maintain that creating images based on their intellectual property without proper consent constitutes a direct violation of their copyrights.

Disney and Universal have indicated that Midjourney has approximately 21 million subscribers and generated $300 million in revenue in the last year. As a result, in their lawsuit, they seek compensations of up to $150,000 for each infringed work, as well as a court order to prevent future infringements. Additionally, the complaint includes an annex detailing over 150 works that have allegedly been infringed, which could result in damages exceeding $20 million.

This litigation is part of a broader context of increasing lawsuits against developers of artificial intelligence platforms, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, reflecting the entertainment industry’s concerns over the unauthorized use of its content. The resolution of this case could have significant implications for the regulation of artificial intelligence in content creation and the protection of intellectual property rights.