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Disney and Universal Sue A.I. Firm (Midjourney) for Copyright Infringement. (NYT, archived)
What took you so long, Diz?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/business/media/disney-universal-midjourney-ai.html
Archived: https://archive.is/ekIQm#selection-4397.0-4397.61
The suit, against Midjourney, is the first time major Hollywood companies have sued over A.I.-generated images.
MERE COINCIDENCE!
Disney and Universal sued a prominent artificial intelligence start-up for copyright infringement on Wednesday, bringing Hollywood belatedly into the increasingly intense legal battle over generative A.I.
The movie companies sued Midjourney, an A.I. image generator that has millions of registered users. The 110-page lawsuit contends that Midjourney “helped itself to countless” copyrighted works to train its software, which allows people to create images (and soon videos) that “blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters.”
“Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism,” the companies said in the lawsuit, which was filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles.
...
A.I. startups like Midjourney, which was founded in 2021, train their software with data scraped from the internet and elsewhere, often without compensating creators. The practice has resulted in lawsuits from authors, artists, record labels and news organizations, among others. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims, saying their actions fall under “fair use.”)
The movie companies sued Midjourney, an A.I. image generator that has millions of registered users. The 110-page lawsuit contends that Midjourney “helped itself to countless” copyrighted works to train its software, which allows people to create images (and soon videos) that “blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters.”
“Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism,” the companies said in the lawsuit, which was filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles.
...
A.I. startups like Midjourney, which was founded in 2021, train their software with data scraped from the internet and elsewhere, often without compensating creators. The practice has resulted in lawsuits from authors, artists, record labels and news organizations, among others. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims, saying their actions fall under “fair use.”)
More "coincidences" at the link.
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