{"id":64584,"date":"2025-08-07T07:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T07:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/64584\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T07:44:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T07:44:15","slug":"midjourney-says-disney-cannot-prohibit-ai-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/64584\/","title":{"rendered":"Midjourney Says Disney Cannot Prohibit AI Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMidjourney<\/a> issued its first response to a lawsuit brought by Disney<\/a> and Universal, arguing that the studios have no power to prevent AI training on its works.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studios accused Midjourney <\/a>\u2014 a startup AI image platform \u2014 of \u201cvast, intentional, and unrelenting copyright infringement\u201d in a suit filed in June, claiming that users on the platform were able to produce nearly identical copies of the studios\u2019 copyrighted characters.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a response filed Wednesday evening<\/a>, Midjourney argued that AI training is protected \u201cfair use.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCopyright law does not confer absolute control over the use of copyrighted works,\u201d Midjourney\u2019s lawyers argued. \u201cThe limited monopoly granted by copyright must give way to fair use, which safeguards countervailing public interests in the free flow of ideas and information.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMidjourney also argued that the studios are trying to \u201chave it both ways,\u201d using AI tools themselves while seeking to punish a popular AI service. According to the filing, Midjourney is a popular tool among visual effects companies and other vendors that work with Disney and Universal. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe response also states that \u201cmany dozens\u201d of Midjourney\u2019s subscribers have email addresses linked to Disney and Universal \u2014 suggesting the studios\u2019 own employees are also using the service. Midjourney\u2019s lawyers also note that Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke approvingly of AI during an annual meeting in March<\/a>, saying that \u201ctechnology is an invaluable tool for artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiffs cannot have it both ways, seeking to profit \u2014 through their use of Midjourney and other generative AI tools \u2014 from industry-standard AI training practices on the one hand, while on the other hand accusing Midjourney of wrongdoing for the same,\u201d the filing states.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Disney-Universal lawsuit largely focuses on AI outputs, arguing that Midjourney users are creating images that are substantially similar to the studios\u2019 copyrighted works. In that sense, the suit is different from other lawsuits that have argued that AI training alone constitutes infringement.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn response, Midjourney states that its users are required to adhere to the terms of service, which forbid infringing on intellectual property rights. But merely creating images similar to copyrighted works is not enough to show infringement, the company\u2019s lawyers argue.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIndeed, there are any number of legitimate, noninfringing grounds to create images incorporating characters from popular culture like those claimed by Plaintiffs, including non-commercial fan art, experimentation and ideation, and social commentary and criticism,\u201d Midjourney\u2019s lawyers wrote. \u201cPlaintiffs seek to stifle them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMidjourney is represented by Bobby Ghajar, John Paul Oleksiuk, Judd Lauter and Ellie Dupler of Cooley LLP. Ghajar also represents Meta in a case in which authors have accused the company of illicitly training its AI language model on their books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Midjourney issued its first response to a lawsuit brought by Disney and Universal, arguing that the studios have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,3716,47657,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-64584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-disney","12":"tag-midjourney","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}