The Walt Disney Company, along with Warner Bros. Discovery, and Universal Studios (Comcast) has filed a US copyright law suit against the Chinese AI startup MiniMax.
According to the complaint filed today, the Shanghai-based MiniMax has which owns generative AI apps Hailuo AI and Talkie, has disregarded US copyright law involving the trio’s copyrighted characters.
MiniMax is accused of stealing intellectual property from Hollywood studios and even calls their Hailuo AI app a “Hollywood studio in your pocket.”
Hailuo offers subscribers access to many well-known film characters, including popular Marvel, Star Wars, Disney, Warner Bros., and Universal-owned characters. Examples include Spider-Man, Darth Vader, Shrek, Bugs Bunny, and more.
The lawsuit gave examples, including Disney-owned Darth Vader
“If a MiniMax subscriber submits a simple text prompt requesting the character Darth Vader in a particular setting or doing a particular action, MiniMax generates and displays high quality, downloadable images and videos featuring Disney’s copyrighted Darth Vader (along with MiniMax Hailuo branding no less).”
That is far too close to the IP to argue a 25% difference. Then, to put their own branding on it too. Yikes!
The complaint states that MiniMax even used the US copyright-protected characters to advertise their service to customers in the United States.
Not the first AI company lawsuit
As we have previously covered, the same Hollywood studios are also suing AI company Midjourney for the same things.
Midjourney, located in SanFransico, has also been accused of using copyrighted characters by the three studios. Here are some examples,
While MiniMax has yet to respond Midjourney claimed that the Hollywood Studios wanted a “limited monopoly” that excluded “fair use.”
“Copyright law does not confer absolute control over the use of copyrighted works. The limited monopoly granted by copyright must give way to fair use, which safeguards countervailing public interests in the free flow of ideas and information.”
However, “fair use” would imply parody or something similar. Those Iron Man images are pretty close to the original IP.
Currently, generative AI images may not be copyrighted under US law, but the use of copyrighted characters for generative AI is different.
Midjourney also pointed out that Hollywood studios like Disney are seeing to profit from AI themselves,
“Plaintiffs cannot have it both ways, seeking to profit — through their use of Midjourney and other generative AI tools — from industry-standard AI training practices on the one hand, while on the other hand accusing Midjourney of wrongdoing for the same.”
In the case of Midjourney, they also claim that subscriber emails were tied to both Disney and Universal studios “suggesting the studios’ own employees are also using the service.”
MiniMax is just the most recent AI company that is being thrown into the lawsuit pile.
If they are generating recognizable copyrighted characters for profit, what else can these studios do?
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
Source: Bloomberg, Variety
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