Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit against the Midjourney Artificial Intelligence Startup, accusing the company to violate copyright by using protected works to train its image generation software. The information is from the newspaper The New York Times.
The lawsuit, filed with the United States in Los Angeles, claims that Midjourney has “appropriated countless works” to create images that incorporate famous characters from the two entertainment giants such as Darth Vader, Minions, Elsa de Frozen, Shrek and Homer Simpson.
Founded in 2021, Midjourney allows millions of users to create images and soon videos through its platform.
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The company uses data collected from the internet to train its algorithms, a practice that has generated various lawsuits of authors, artists and other entities, which claim misuse of their creations without compensation.
Disney and Universal are the first major studios to file a lawsuit against an AI company for this reason.
In a statement, Horacio Gutierrez, Legal Director of Disney, said the company sees potential in AI technology, but “piracy is piracy,” regardless of the environment.
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Kim Harris, legal director of NBCuniversal, stressed that the action aims to protect the work of artists and the significant investment made in original content.
The process is seen as a warning to other AI companies that use protected material without authorization.
