Disney, Comcast Sue AI Image Generator Midjourney

Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp. teamed up to sue Midjourney Inc., accusing the startup of copyright infringement in the latest sign of tension between major media companies and a new crop of artificial intelligence businesses.

Midjourney, which launched publicly in 2022, allows people to create vivid, AI-generated images using prompts. Like its competitors ChatGPT and Stability AI, Midjourney built its AI models with datasets that pull imagery from across the internet. While the companies argue that the practice is legal under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law, it has stoked outrage and lawsuits from a wide range of creative businesses.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in California on Wednesday, Disney and Comcast gave multiple examples where they say Midjourney violated copyrighted characters from films and TV shows including Star Wars, The Simpsons, Shrek and Minions. The companies said they asked Midjourney to stop, but their requests have been ignored. They are seeking $150,000 per infringement.

“Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing,” the suit says.

A representative for Midjourney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The rise of sophisticated AI technology has sparked a debate over the legality of training AI models on massive amounts of data, including text, images and video that’s produced by others. Traditional media businesses that own copyrights say the companies building those models should pay them in order to train on their work.

Companies like Disney and Comcast, which owns Universal Studios, are balancing their desire to experiment with AI as a way to enhance their film and TV work, with a need to protect their valuable copyrights. Disney just partnered with video-game publisher Epic Games to use AI to bring Darth Vader’s voice to Fortnite.

The potential of AI to displace writers and actors was a major fault line in strikes two years ago that saw their unions gain some protections.

Founded by David Holz, who remains the company’s chief executive officer, Midjourney is a small startup but has had an outsize impact in the cultural zeitgeist. It’s been used to create viral images such as the late Pope Francis in a puffer jacket and fake images of President Donald Trump getting arrested.

Access to Midjourney is available through the messaging app Discord and, since last year, also through the company’s website. The Midjourney Discord server currently has more than 21 million members.