Disney and Universal sue AI image creator Midjourney, alleging copyright infringement

In their lawsuit, the entertainment giants called Midjourney's popular AI-powered image generator a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" for its alleged reproductions of the studios' best-known characters. The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios, making and distributing without permission "innumerable" copies of their marquee characters such as Darth Vader from Star Wars, Elsa from Frozen, and the Minions from Despicable Me. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Horacio Gutierrez, Disney's chief legal officer, said in a statement: "We are bullish on the promise of AI technology and optimistic about how it can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity, but piracy is piracy, and the fact that it's done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing." NBCUniversal's executive vice-president and general counsel, Kim Harris, said the company was suing to "protect the hard work of all the artists whose work entertains and inspires us and the significant investment we make in our content". Instead, the studios argue, Midjourney continued to release new versions of its AI image service that boast higher-quality infringing images.