Midjourney wants to expose studios’ use of AI in the copyright battle

Midjourney tries to convince Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. to reveal how they use artificial intelligence as it defends itself against a potentially ruinous copyright lawsuit.

The studios sued the AI ​​image lab last year, accusing it of enabling mass infringement of their copyrighted characters. Midjourney has claimed “fair use” and argued that the studios engage in the exact same AI practices.

In June, a magistrate judge limited Midjourney’s ability to obtain information from the studios about their AI use, saying the studios would only have to turn over information about “consumer-facing” AI applications.

Midjourney’s lawyers filed a motion this week urging Judge John Kronstadt to overturn that decision, arguing that the studios should reveal more about how AI is used behind the scenes.

“If plaintiffs do the very thing they seek to punish, that evidence goes to the heart of Midjourney’s defense against fair dealing and unclean hands,” wrote Midjourney’s attorney Bobby Ghajar.

Midjourney wants the three studios to reveal their AI business plans, research reports, training datasets, model weights and other data showing how they use AI tools to create and market movies and TV shows. The company has also sought presentations at the studios’ board meetings on AI.

The studios agreed to only pass on information about consumer-facing AI applications, but not internal AI tools.

In a June 15 ruling, Judge Joel Richlin denied Midjourney’s attempt to obtain broad information about the studios’ AI use, finding it was irrelevant to whether Midjourney infringed on the studios’ copyrights.

Halfway through the journey movement argues that we should also be allowed to dig deeper.

“If Plaintiffs develop image-generating AI models – trained on unlicensed, third-party copyrighted data – for internal use in storyboarding or devising content for film or TV, that evidence would equally demonstrate that it is an industry practice, even among the studios themselves, to download and train AI on unlicensed copyrighted content,” Ghajar wrote.

The studios’ lead attorney, David Singer, has previously argued that Midjourney wants to go on a “fishing expedition” to distract from his own misconduct.

“Plaintiffs do not seek to halt AI technology or even shut down Midjourney’s operations,” Singer wrote in opposing Midjourney’s initial discovery motion. “Plaintiffs simply want Midjourney to stop copying their films and TV shows and to stop distributing, publicly displaying, publicly performing, and creating derivative works containing unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs’ famous characters – the same rights that any copyright holder would assert against any infringer, AI-powered or otherwise.”