Infringement on protected works is at the heart of a groundbreaking new lawsuit filed by Disney and NBCUniversal against AI platform Midjourney.
The complaint, submitted Wednesday in Los Angeles Federal District Court, accuses Midjourney of using copyrighted images without authorization to train its image-generating artificial intelligence tools. It marks the first high-profile lawsuit of its kind from major Hollywood studios.
“Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing,” Disney said in its complaint.
Midjourney: Infringement on Protected Works
The lawsuit claims Midjourney gained unauthorized access to visual assets, including characters from Star Wars, Minions, Spider-Man, and Buzz Lightyear, and used them to train its AI image generation models. According to the studios, Midjourney’s software can create near-replicas of these iconic characters, violating intellectual property laws.
