Media giant Warner Bros. is suing Midjourney, claiming in a newly filed lawsuit that the AI company offers a service that creates “infringing images and videos” without WB’s “consent or authorization” and stating that Midjourney “thinks it is above the law.”
The new WB lawsuit against Midjourney was filed on September 4 in a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In it, WB lawyers argue that Midjourney did nothing to protect rights holders from users being able to create images and videos using copyright-protected characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Scooby-Doo. WB’s legal team called the choice not to stop people from creating all of this infringing slop a “calculated and profit-driven decision.” It also claims that Midjourney is fully aware of the “breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement.”
In the lengthy filing, WB lawyers provide multiple examples of Midjourney’s AI generating near-carbon-copy recreations of famous WB-owned characters like The Joker and Batman. It also includes some examples of users sharing generated images of characters like Rick and Morty and R2-D2 in Midjourney’s own Discord server.
“Midjourney thinks it is above the law,” explained WB in its lawsuit. “It sells a commercial subscription service, powered by artificial intelligence technology, that was developed using illegal copies of Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrighted works. The Service lets subscribers pick iconic Warner Bros. Discovery copyrighted characters and then reproduces, publicly displays and performs, and makes available for download (i.e., distributes) infringing images and videos, and unauthorized derivatives, with every imaginable scene featuring those characters. Without any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property as if it were its own.”
Warner Bros. isn’t the first big entertainment company to go after Midjourney. Earlier this year, Disney and NBCUniversal teamed up to file a massive lawsuit against the AI company. Disney and NBC had similar complaints and evidence as that which WB has compiled. In response to Disney suing the company, Midjourney pushed back and claimed training its AI on copyrighted works was “fair use” and added that “copyright law does not confer absolute control over the use of copyrighted works.” The AI company also said that Disney and other media giants want to have it “both ways,” using AI and then suing AI companies. According to Midjourney’s lawyers, the company has many accounts tied to NBC and Disney email addresses, suggesting both media giants are using Midjourney’s services themselves.
As AI-generated content becomes easier to produce and cheaper to create, these types of lawsuits are likely to become more common, with rights-holders and artists attempting to fight back against the growing flood of AI-generated slop.