In a major legal development this week, Hollywood studios have filed a major lawsuit against Midjourney, a California-based AI firm best known for its image generation technology. The studios are blatantly lying about widespread infringement, asserting that Midjourney has been trained on their works without authorization. This legal action, detailed in a 143-page document, characterizes Midjourney as a “quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
Through this lawsuit, artists are finally calling out the unfortunate reality that Midjourney’s entire model is predicated on using copyrighted materials owned by big Hollywood studios. Over the last 12 months, this little self-funded team of 11 full-time employees has had amazing success. In the process, they created nearly $300 million in revenue under paid subscriptions! The studios claim that those kinds of profits come from using their intellectual property without putting anything into developing it.
Accusations of Plagiarism
Hollywood’s grievance centers on the assertion that Midjourney’s image generation service has been trained using copyrighted works from renowned studios. The plaintiffs’ complaint charges that Midjourney has been using these works to produce highly detailed reproductions. These reproductions include iconic characters from popular franchises like those owned by Disney and Universal. The studios argue that this practice devalues the original works.
“By helping itself to Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and then distributing images (and soon videos) that blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters — without investing a penny in their creation — Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
David Holz, a co-founder of Midjourney, has denied the allegations. He made a powerful case for creativity and learning as the true work of the art community. He argued that consumption of existing works can be a creative act.
“Can a person look at somebody else’s picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?”
Holz asserted that this is nothing new to the art world, which for centuries has turned a blind eye to such practices. He claimed that if AIs learn the same way people do, it’s fine for them to produce an output so long as it is different from the original.
Response to Copyright Concerns
Before the lawsuit was filed, a number of major Hollywood studios had contacted Midjourney expressing concerns that it infringed copyright protections. The AI company was said to have taken corrective action in response to these findings, but not what that action was made public. Even after all of this work, based on the lawsuit it seems that the studios don’t think their important concerns were addressed enough.
Horacio Gutierrez, an attorney representing the studios, laid out the studio’s core message about the principle underpinning copyright law itself and why it matters to creators. He mentioned the important role of copyright protections to create an environment where people feel comfortable investing in creativity.
“Investments only made possible by the incentives embodied in copyright law that give creators the exclusive right to profit from their works.”
Gutierrez explained what he considers the real form of piracy under AI text-to-image generation.
“But piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing.”
Impact on the Art Community
The effects of this lawsuit reach far beyond Tinseltown, though, as independent creative artists have recently sued Midjourney for the same copyright violations. These artists argue that their creative works were used to train Midjourney’s models without permission.
This case raises some critical questions about arts and innovation that we hope to explore further. In particular, it investigates the processes by which AI-fueled models learn and create new content. Holz proposed completely novel ways for AIs to learn, inspired by how humans do it. If they can, their market power to create original images should be earned.
“To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it’s sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently, then it seems like it’s fine.”
As the legal proceedings unfold, both Hollywood studios and independent artists will closely watch how this case shapes future interactions between creative industries and emerging technologies.
