Warner Bros Initiates Legal Action Against Midjourney for AI-Generated Images of Superman and Bugs Bunny

Warner Bros has initiated legal action against Midjourney, an AI company, for copyright infringement. The lawsuit claims Midjourney allows users to generate images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman and Bugs Bunny. This follows similar lawsuits by Disney and Universal in Los Angeles federal court. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, has not yet commented on the matter.

Representative image

The lawsuit accuses Midjourney of training its AI system using "illegal copies" of Warner Bros' works. It alleges that users are encouraged to create images and videos of iconic characters such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and the Powerpuff Girls in various scenarios. Even a simple prompt for a "classic comic book superhero battle" reportedly results in high-quality images of DC Studios characters like Superman, Batman, and Flash.

Copyright Dispute with AI Company

Warner Bros argues that Midjourney believes it is "above the law" and could easily prevent the misuse of intellectual property, similar to how it restricts content involving violence or nudity. The lawsuit claims that Midjourney's practices lead to "consumer confusion" about what is lawful, misleading subscribers into thinking that the infringing images and videos are authorised by Warner Bros Discovery.

The entertainment giant seeks damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work. In response to similar allegations from Disney and Universal, Midjourney has denied any copyright infringement. The company argues that its AI tool was trained on billions of publicly available images to learn visual concepts linked to language.

Midjourney's Defence

Midjourney contends that training a generative AI model using statistical information from copyrighted works is a transformative fair use. This argument is supported by recent court rulings in cases involving published authors against companies like Anthropic and Meta. Midjourney also states that it is the responsibility of its customers to adhere to its terms of use, which prohibit infringing on intellectual property rights.

In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz likened his service to a search engine that gathers a wide range of images from the internet. He compared copyright concerns about AI technology to how laws have adapted to human creativity over time.

"Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?" Holz said. "Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine."

As this legal battle unfolds, Warner Bros remains firm in its stance against what it perceives as unauthorised use of its intellectual property by Midjourney's AI tool. The outcome could have significant implications for how AI-generated content is regulated in relation to copyright laws.

With inputs from PTI