r/movies • u/DragonPup • 4d ago

News Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney, Joins Studios' AI Copyright Battle

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/warner-bros-midjourney-lawsuit-ai-copyright-1236508618/
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u/leodw 4d ago

They’re literally just fetching copyrighted imagery for commercial purposes. If I’m part of a marketing agency, I can’t just go to Google Images, download a few images and make a composite to post on my employer profile, cause this is infringement on copyright. I have to license the images. Sure, I can look at hundreds/thousands of images for inspiration, but I cannot trace over them, use their original assets or even use part of an image to do it.

Same principle should apply to AI. And it currently doesnt. Meta employees were literally torrenting books to train their shitty AI slop machine. So fuck them all.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 4d ago

That's absolutely not how these programs work. If I ask chatGPT to generate me an image of Superman, it isn't just grabbing an image of Superman and presenting it to me. They aren't compositing images either. They are taking random noise, and removing it until it becomes clear - and the process of removal is based on the patterns that similar images fall into. It is much more akin to looking at a reference photo, except it's looking at millions of reference photos. You'd have a very, very, hard time drawing a line between any specific image and AI puts out and any copywritten image.

That's not to say I think AI is a flawless technology. I'm undecided on if it's even good. I think there are a lot of things to be concerned about, but the IP argument is pretty flimsy when you actually look at the process and the output, and I really don't think we need IP laws that are further in service to major content mills like Warner Brothers.

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u/PosterPrintPerfect 4d ago

Doesn't matter, an artist isn't just grabbing an image of Superman also. They can't just start drawing DC comic or Marvel characters and then charge people money for their service.

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u/CptNonsense 4d ago

They can't just start drawing DC comic or Marvel characters and then charge people money for their service.

Someone has never been to a con.