What Disney did with the public domain, MidJourney, and the rest of the AI companies want to do with pretty much everything on the Internet. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, for instance, has consistently argued that training genAI on copyrighted data should be considered “fair use.” He’s not alone.
On the other side of the fence, Disney and Universal’s lawsuit is not just about damages, which the pair puts at $150,000 per infringed work, but about setting a precedent. They want to stop Midjourney’s image and soon-to-be-launched video generation services in their tracks.
At the same time, the film studios freely admit they’re already using genAI themselves. Disney CEO Bob Iger has said the technology is already making Disney’s operations more efficient and enhancing creativity. “AI might indeed be the most potent technology our company has ever encountered, particularly in its capacity to enhance and allow consumers to access, experience, and appreciate our entertainment.” He also, of course, stressed that, “Given the speed that it is developing, we’re taking precautions to make sure of three things: One, that our IP is being protected. That’s incredibly important.”
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