Warner Bros Discovery has sued Artificial Intelligence company, Midjourney alleging copyright infringement. According to Warner Bros, Midjourney helps its users to generate images of copyrighted characters using AI, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Powerpuff Girls and others.
Warner Bros has sued AI company Midjourney citing copyright infringement. This has once again brought into light the raging debate surrounding ethics of AI and theft of intellectual property.
With this suit, Warner Bros. became the third major studio in Hollywood to sue Midjourney. Previously in June, Universal and Disney had filed a joint lawsuit against the AI company in the Los Angeles federal court.
According to Associated Press, "The lawsuit alleges Midjourney trained its AI system on “illegal copies” of Warner Bros. works and encourages its users to pick iconic characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo or the Powerpuff Girls and create downloaded images and videos of those characters in “every imaginable scene.”"
Warner Bros. has said that it will be quite easy for Midjourney to limit generation of images whose ownership does not belong to them. The entertainment company believes that it must be compensated for damages with up to $150,000 per infringed work.
The lawsuit against the AI company further states that such tools lead to "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney’s massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its Service are somehow authorized by Warner Bros. Discovery", reports Associated Press.
Midjourney has not yet responded to the Warner Bros lawsuit but had denied all allegations of copyright infringement levelled by Disney and Universal back in June.
"Training a generative AI model to understand concepts by extracting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works is a quintessentially transformative fair use – a determination resoundingly supported by courts that have considered the issue", Midjourney had said.
The lawsuit is titled, Warner Bros Entertainment Inc et al v Midjourney Inc, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 25-08376.
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