How to Train your … AI Model… #midjourney #howtotrainyourdragon #nightfury pic.twitter.com/bW8SxWHND5
— Jonah (@MrSpocksEars) December 5, 2022
The central catch 22 with generative artificial intelligence, is that it is being used to mimic the work of people — an artist’s voice, music, style, words, stand up, etc — but it can’t even begin to do that unless it’s been “trained” on… the work of people. You’d think the simplest solution would be to let humans continue toiling at our works of expression, and leave AI out of it. But the particular set of humans in charge of AI companies see the technology as a way to cut the cost of human labor, and make millions in the process. Similarly, these tech bro bosses don’t want to pay for the materials they use to train AI — again, materials created by sentient beings whose own life experiences, troubles, epiphanies, made it possible for them to create their unique works in the first place. We’ve seen multiple lawsuits from artists and corporations suing AI companies for using work without permission or compensation. On Wednesday, Disney and Universal joined legal forces to become the first major Hollywood studios to sue an AI company, Midjourney, for copyright infringement:
Is ‘fair use’ fair play? The two Hollywood heavyweight studios argue that Midjourney allows its users to “blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters,” such as Shrek and Spider-Man. “Piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing,” Horacio Gutierrez, Disney’s chief legal officer, said in a general statement. The lawsuit challenges one of the AI industry’s fundamental assumptions: that it should be allowed to train upon copyrighted materials under the principle of fair use. How the case gets resolved could have major implications for both AI and Hollywood going forward.
Why suing is important: “I really think the only thing that can stop AI companies doing what they’re doing is the law,” says Ed Newton-Rex, the CEO of nonprofit organization Fairly Trained, which provides certifications for AI models trained on licensed data. “If these lawsuits are successful, that is what will hopefully stop AI companies from exploiting people’s life’s work.”
Hollywood studios enter the fray: But while some in Hollywood hope AI will make filmmaking more efficient and less expensive, many more have grown concerned about the AI industry’s usage of copyrighted material. This concern has come to a head with the Disney-Universal lawsuit, which is the first major lawsuit brought by Hollywood studios against an AI company. The lawsuit seeks damages and an injunction that would immediately stop Midjourney’s operations—and casts generative AI theft as a problem that “threatens to upend the bedrock incentives of U.S. copyright law.”
Licensing content–the real fair use of AI: In February, a Delaware judge dealt a blow to the AI industry’s “fair use” argument, ruling that a legal research firm was not allowed to copy the content of Thomson Reuters to build a competing AI-based legal platform. If the Disney-Universal lawsuit is similarly successful, that would have major implications for both AI and Hollywood, says Naeem Talukdar, the CEO of the AI video startup Moonvalley. Many AI companies might have to retrain their visual models from the ground up with licensed content. And Hollywood, if given legal clarity, might actually accelerate its usage of AI models built upon licensed content, like ones built by Moonvalley and Natasha Lyonne’s and Bryn Mooser’s Asteria Film Co.
Still a long road ahead: Newton-Rex says that this dispute over AI and copyright will not be resolved any time soon. “Billion-dollar AI companies have staked their entire businesses on the idea that they are allowed to take people’s life’s work and build on it to compete with them. I don’t think they’re easily going to give that up because of one lawsuit,” he says. Nevertheless, he says that the announcement of this lawsuit is “really good for creators everywhere.”
“Piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing.” Am I the only one who couldn’t help but start conjuring the image of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride when the Disney lawyer started kicking around the term “piracy,” or do I have fellow juveniles out there? Anyway, this day has been coming for a while, when the big studios joined the fight. I truly hope the outcome of this lawsuit sets precedents that help and protect artists. Cause let’s be real here, the heads of Hollywood studios (Hi, Bob Iger!) have more in common with the AI tech bosses they’re now suing, than they do with all the creators whose “life’s work” is at issue. Artists want to retain control over how their work is used (and be fairly compensated for it); Disney wants to retain control over every possible dime made off of copyright they own.
Still, woe unto you now, AI: The Mouse is on your artificially generated from stolen copyrighted material tail.
Lilo & Stitch #stitch #LiloAndStitch #AIart #fypシ #midjourneyart #fondodepantalla #qintiai #disneyai #Disney #disneyfanart #Wallpapers4k pic.twitter.com/u17Gu4WpxL
— QintiAI | AI Art Studio (@qintiai) June 6, 2025
Prompt: tinkerbell flying above the forest with toadstools on the ground#Grok #GrokAi #AiArt #AiArtworks #AiArtwork #DisneyAi #TinkerBell #TinkerBellAi pic.twitter.com/3hYEkmhaYI
— Lilith Frances (@LilithsPage) February 6, 2025
Bravo Disney! Enough with all this AI thing.
This is a very well written and measured take. Bravo Kismet.
Agree, it was a good read!
The Disney execs likely could have anticipated AI companies would Hoover up Mouse House IP to train their models.
Did they not realize the AI leopards would eat Mickey’s face before now? Or was the Disney legal team building a massive solid legal case the whole time and just choosing their moment?
They had to fight off the nutsos in charge of Florida first. Anyhoo, I’m glad they’re doing this. I’m irked every time I google something & at the top of the results I get AI crapola. Scrolling further down I’ll see the origins of what I just saw in the AI block, only this time coming from the source which therefore means it’s actually cited. AI just plagiarizes, no citations whatsoever.
I’m also irked in MS Word & Outlook email where now I’ve got that stupid assistant thingie at top that wants to write my words for me. NO!!!!
As little love as I have for the Mouse, I have far less for AI. If their suit can help curb its use, I’m all for it. Let the artists make art, let the AI figure out how to clean my house or something useful.
So these tech bros have all this computing skill and the best idea they can come up with is art theft?
Good.
AI steals from actual artists.
I hate when people share it.
Same! And I’ve been so disappointed to see friends using it (and often just for silly reasons to “play around with it.” Friends, just step away!
Thank you, CB.
I started following this site for the Sussex content, especially after I abandoned Twitter, but I really appreciate articles like this in the mix.
Smart, readable, with receipts and good information. Well done.
Thanks for writing about this, Kismet. People need to realize that we’re all worse off with this kind of intellectual theft.
Be it Disney and Midjourney — or maybe, sometime in the future, Getty Images and Stable Diffusion, or Canva, or whatever.
My colleagues and I are publishing our research in Open Access journals wherever possible, but our work is then scraped from the sites, and used without our permission in predatory journals that are proponents of junk science — just because someone who doesn’t work in research wants credits for improving their h-index.
AI is artificial, but nowhere near being intelligent. And we still have the tools to prove theft and malicious intent. But for how much longer is beyond me.
So — fingers crossed for the Mouse to create a precedent in copyright law.
🤞🏼
Good for them. They have the $$$ behind this to really go after them.
Also, in that AI Lilo & Stitch example? That’s not the Lilo I remember from the original animated movie (haven’t seen the follow-up yet). That little girl was Hawaiian, this one has been European-ified.
Rooting for the mouse on this one.