Again in June 2025, Disney and Common filed a joint lawsuit in opposition to the AI analysis lab Midjourney. Now, Midjourney has submitted its response to the litigation.
Who’s Midjourney?
Midjourney, Inc. is an AI analysis firm primarily based in San Francisco. The corporate produced a generative AI platform, additionally referred to as Midjourney, which was first made out there in July 2022. Since then, the AI mannequin has gone by way of a number of iterations and model 7 was launched in April this yr. Midjourney generates digital pictures from text-based prompts. You may create pictures utilizing Discord bot instructions or by way of the official Midjourney web site.
Why has Disney issued a lawsuit?
The lawsuit from Disney and Common alleged that the Midjourney generative AI mannequin is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.” It’s because Disney and Common declare that Midjourney generates “innumerable” copies of copyrighted characters. These embody Darth Vader, Yoda, Spiderman, the Unimaginable Hulk and Elsa from Frozen.
Horacio Gutierrez, Disney’s chief authorized officer, additionally mentioned that AI “can be utilized responsibly as a device to additional human creativity”. Nonetheless, he added, “However piracy is piracy, and the truth that it’s executed by an AI firm doesn’t make it any much less infringing.”
How has Midjourney responded?
Midjourney’s response units out the corporate’s place that coaching a generative AI on copyrighted pictures is truthful use. It additionally denies that Midjourney is answerable for the photographs created by the device. Somewhat, it describes the platform as “an instrument for consumer expression. It assists with the creation of pictures solely on the path of its customers, guided by their directions.”
As well as, Midjourney denies that it’s profiteering from copyright infringement. As a substitute, it argues that “this case is about whether or not Plaintiffs’ alleged copyrights entitle them to ban the usage of their works to coach generative AI fashions.”
Stories counsel that Midjourney earned as a lot as $300 million in income from subscribers to its generative AI. In consequence, Disney and Common are searching for damages, in addition to an injunction to cease Midjourney from creating pictures that infringe their copyrights. Nonetheless, Midjourney’s submission states that the 2 studios “can’t have it each methods, searching for to revenue—by way of their use of Midjourney and different generative AI instruments—from industry-standard AI coaching practices on the one hand, whereas alternatively accusing Midjourney of wrongdoing for a similar.”
What we expect
The info used to coach generative AI has been an space of dispute for a while. Midjourney claims that the coaching of their AI is roofed by the precept of truthful use. Nonetheless, the lawsuit from Disney and Common is aimed on the output from the generative AI, moderately than what it was skilled on. Midjourney additionally needs to place duty for the content material of the photographs on the customers of the service. It’s clear that the way forward for AI goes to be determined within the courts, and the authorized battle has an extended strategy to run.
