Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are once again joining the fight — this time, a lawsuit against Midjourney, the AI firm that is already being sued for copyright infringement by Disney and Universal Pictures.
According to the LA Times, the suit, which was filed this past June, was joined by Warner Bros. Discovery thanks to the AI image generator producing “blatant rip-offs” of characters, including DC Comics Trinity, as well as those from their sub-companies, Warner Bros, DC Comics, Turner Entertainment Co., Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc., and Cartoon Network, who WBD sued on behalf of.
Said Warner Bros. Discovery in a statement, “The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners. Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.”
Midjourney, which has been around since 2022, is accused of not just training its image software on copyrighted images, but WBD also has the receipts to back it up: they have side-by-side renderings of characters such as Scooby-Doo, next to identical elements generated by Midjourney. And an image shared by The Hollywood Reporter from the suit shows a Midjourney output that is unmistakable as Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty. And Midjourney will even return results like this without specific requests by name: THR notes getting DC superheroes when prompting Midjourney for “classic comic book superhero battle.”
Added Disney, who has also alleged that Midjourney ripped off their stable of characters and concepts, “Disney is committed to protecting our creators and innovators, and we’re pleased to be joined by Warner Bros. Discovery in the fight against Midjourney’s blatant copyright infringement.”
This also, by the way, is not some free, open source software: tiers range from $10 to $120 a month, and the tool was estimated to make $200 million a year, as of two years ago.
And one additional interesting note: AI is a plagiarism machine that is destroying the environment. There is no ethical use for it. If you use AI, you did a bad thing, and you should feel bad. Thanks!
Comic Book Club Live Info:
Discover more from Comic Book Club
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.