All Eyes On Disney

Disney vs. Midjourney

We were obviously always heading in this direction. I’m just surprised it took this long to get here. If you haven’t seen, Disney and Universal have filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, an AI image generation tool. This is the most significant case we’ve seen so far involving AI models and copyright. Pay close attention, because the outcome is going to set the precedent for how AI can train its models and how much protection is given to intellectual property rights holders.

Images like this are being referenced in the lawsuit.

On June 11, a joint copyright infringement lawsuit was filed by The Walt Disney Corporation and Universal Pictures in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. There are a ton of parties involved in this, including Disney, Universal, Marvel, Lucasfilm, DreamWorks Animation, 20th Century Studios, and NBC Universal. Obviously Midjourney (CEO: David Holz) is the defendant in the lawsuit.

What Happens If the Hollywood Studios Lose?

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, given all the posts using Disney characters, the Studio Ghibli trend, and accounts like Stormtrooper Vlogs. Without transparency, both content moderation and protection against training algorithms with Disney IP could be lost. That’s why it’s extremely important for Disney and Universal to win this lawsuit. Another thing to pay attention to is the One Big Beautiful Bill, which passed in the U.S. House on May 22. If it becomes law, states would lose authority over AI regulation until 2035.

Image Credits: Hollywood Reporter

Disney has always relied on its strong IP and has spent billions acquiring new properties, along with creating films, TV series, and toys. This is why it’s so concerning if you’re a rights holder. Billions of dollars in IP are being used freely across the internet.

What Happens If the Hollywood Studios Win?

Even if Disney wins the case, it still raises questions about how IP will be policed on the internet and within AI. Up until now, everyone has been able to use whatever they want, however they want. We’re probably going to see strict guidelines in the future around how AI models are trained. The big question is how they’ll retrain existing models, depending on how this all plays out.

Will this begin to happen when you try to reference certain IP?

For example, if you type a prompt and ask for something to look like Iron Man, the models would need to be trained in a way where the output doesn’t resemble the character at all. Do AI companies retrain their models to filter out these words? Or does using IP in the prompt just stop working altogether?

What Does This Mean For Creators?

If you saw my last Night Light, I talked about Stormtrooper Vlogs. If Disney ends up winning, those videos will be much harder to create, because AI models won’t have the rights to use the Star Wars IP to create assets. A lot of the channels and art we’re seeing on the internet could face copyright takedowns, and AI tools like Midjourney or Veo 3 may no longer be able to create that kind of content.

Image Credit: NPR

It’ll force creators to be more careful about which characters they use and what they call those characters when writing prompts. I think there will have to be some kind of middle ground, but this is clearly going to affect creators. TikTok is flooded with videos that take advantage of other people’s IP.

The Big Takeaway

Disney and Universal’s lawsuit against Midjourney is a case you should be paying close attention to. If Disney wins, what does that mean for how AI trains its models using Disney’s IP? This will affect creators too. Right now, I’m seeing a ton of content in my feed that’s clearly being trained on copyrighted material.