philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Inside Disney’s Campaign to Protect Darth Vader From AI

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Midjourney was a ripe target. Founded in 2022, its model allows people to generate an image using a text prompt. It was clear to Walt Disney Co. that the model had been trained on characters such as Darth Vader and Deadpool, and the company sent Midjourney several notices asking the startup to take down material it believed infringed upon its copyrights. Those notices were ignored, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month. Midjourney declined to comment on the suit.

Disney’s top lawyer Horacio Gutierrez took the lead on this legal fight, but he asked his peers in Hollywood to join. Some, like Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., were distracted with their own corporate dramas. Others, like Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., have different priorities. Yet Comcast Corp., the owner of NBCUniversal, agreed to participate.

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Media companies continue to be litigious. Major newspapers (the New York Times), record labels (all three majors) and Hollywood studios have sued AI companies. But those engaged in litigation also say they want to work with these new companies. Publishers, including the Atlantic and Vox Media, have licensed their work to OpenAI while record labels have struck partnerships with YouTube.

Hollywood studios already use AI technology in many phases of their business. The Wonder Project used AI to cut the cost of shooting its hit Amazon show House of David while Lionsgate struck a deal with AI startup Runway to build a model trained on some of Lions Gate’s IP. ...

“The goal is you’re making higher quality content for lower prices,” Lionsgate Vice Chairman Michael Burns said at Runway’s AI Film Festival in Santa Monica earlier this month. ...

The Trump administration fired the head of the copyright officenot long after she issued a report contending that some usage of copyrighted materials to train models was legal while others were not. ...

See the full story here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-06-22/inside-disney-s-campaign-to-protect-darth-vader-from-ai