Studios 'Cannot Have It Both Ways,' AI Firm Says in Copyright Infringement Fight

The studios suing Midjourney "cannot have it both ways," trying to profit from the use of Midjourney's AI tools while accusing it of wrongdoing, the company told a federal court last week. Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney for direct and secondary copyright infringement over use of the generative AI service to create unauthorized copies of the studios' content (see 2506110043). In an answer to the complaint alleging direct and secondary copyright infringement, Midjourney said training a generative AI model by lifting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works "is a quintessentially transformative fair use." Its AI platform is for user expression, and there's no way it can know if a particular image is infringing, short of receiving notice from a copyright owner and information about how the image is being used. There are numerous non-infringing grounds for creating images that use characters claimed by the studios, such as noncommercial fan art and criticism, Midjourney said. "Plaintiffs seek to stifle them all."