Walt Disney alleges copyright violations in lawsuit against AI startup
US entertainment giant Walt Disney and other studios have filed a lawsuit against an artificial intelligence startup, claiming it violated their copyrights when creating images with generative AI.
US media say this is the first time major Hollywood companies have filed a lawsuit over allegations of copyright infringement involving AI.
Companies related to Walt Disney and NBCUniversal filed the lawsuit against AI startup Midjourney on Wednesday in a federal district court in California.
The lawsuit alleges that services offered by Midjourney created images resembling characters in the global hit Star Wars and other films without permission. They included images that the companies say were created with generative AI.
The plaintiffs criticized Midjourney in the lawsuit as being "the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism." They are asking the court to issue an injunction order prohibiting actions including the generation and distribution of images that violate their copyrights.
The companies said they decided to file the suit after Midjourney did not respond to their request to take measures.
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Japan Today
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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Members of The Beach Boys, from left, Mike Love, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston, pose with their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, during a ceremony in Los Angeles on Dec 30, 1980. By DAVID BAUDER Sometimes there are strange symmetries in death, as in life. The twin passings of Sly Stone and Brian Wilson this week brought that into sharp relief. Both were musical geniuses who paid a high price for their gifts. They burned bright, with art they created at their peaks that became more moving and meaningful with time, only to see their creative lights extinguished suddenly through mental health and addiction issues. Both were 82 when they died — Stone on Monday and Wilson on Wednesday. 'It's such an unsettling coincidence,' said Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor at Rolling Stone. 'These two figures, they were very different and massively influential, and each ran into a wall of their own problems in many ways. 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But they had three writers, including Sean's dad, John Lennon. Wilson was largely alone, and he heard impatience and doubt from other Beach Boys, whose music he provided. He felt the pressure in trying to follow up 'Pet Sounds,' and 'Smile' became music's most famous unfinished album. Wilson, a damaged soul to begin with because of an abusive father, never reached the heights again. He descended into a well-chronicled period of darkness. Stone's skills came in creating a musical world that others only dreamed of at the time. The Family Stone was an integrated world — Black and white, men and women — and the music they created was a potent mixture of rock, soul and funk. It made you move, it made you think. For a period of time from 1967 to 1973, their music was inescapable — 'Dance to the Music,' 'Everybody is a Star,' 'Higher,' 'Hot Fun in the Summertime,' 'Sing a s Simple Song,' 'Family Affair,' 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).' Their performance at Woodstock was a milestone. 'His songs weren't just about fighting injustice, they were about transforming the self to transform the world,' musician and documentarian Questlove, who lovingly tended to Stone's legacy, wrote this week. 'He dared to be simple in the most complex ways — using childlike joy, wordless cries and nursery rhyme cadences to express adult truths. His work looked straight at the brightest and darkest parts of life and demanded we do the same.' From his peak, the fall was hard. Years of drug abuse took its toll. Periodic comeback attempts deepened a sense of bewilderment and pity. Music is littered with stories of sudden, untimely and early deaths. Yet until this week, both men lived on, somewhat improbably passing average life expectancies. Wilson, by many measures, achieved some level of peace late in life. He had a happy marriage. He was able to see how his music was revered and appreciated and spent several years performing it again with a younger band that clearly worshiped him. It was a postscript not many knew, said journalist Jason Fine, who befriended Wilson and made the 2021 documentary, 'Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road.' 'That sort of simple message he really wanted to give people through his music going back to the '60s — a sense of warmth, a sense that it's going to be OK in the same way that music lifted him up from his darkness, he'd try to do for other people,' Fine told The Associated Press in an interview then. 'I think now, more than earlier in his career, he accepts that he does that and that's a great comfort to him.' Stone emerged to write an autobiography in 2023. But less is known about his later years, whether he found peace or died without the full knowledge of what his music meant to others. 'Yes, Sly battled addiction,' Questlove wrote. 'Yes, he disappeared from the spotlight. 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