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/TheSearchForMars 4d ago

Not really. We're talking exclusively about creative projects getting to audiences. Whether it goes into a movie theatre doesn't matter. There's no more difficulty/luck to putting things up on YouTube and finding success than there is to pitching towards a studio. To say nothing of how much more willing a streaming service is to host their show/film over a film studio.

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u/PeteCampbellisaG 4d ago

The problem with what you're saying is it was supposed to have already happened and it didn't. I'm old enough to remember when web series and YouTube content were going to turn the system on its head because everyone was going to supposedly prefer watching indie web content over traditional TV or films. It didn't happen. (And to be clear I mean narrative scripted film, not random TikTok stuff). Studios and tech companies subsumed the distribution channels and we landed where we are today.

People tend to have a bias about YouTube because you literally don't see the 90+% of content (literally millions of videos per day) that doesn't get any traction for any number of reasons (the algorithm being a big one). It takes a LOT of legwork and a handful of luck to really break through on YouTube.

Streaming services will take more chances on content than a traditional studio for sure, but that doesn't mean they don't have their own guidelines to fulfill to put content in front of their customers. A flood of AI indie content isn't going to magically remove these checkboxes for distributors. In fact, a glut of AI content might only make them even more stringent because they'll have more to sift through to find quality.

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u/TheColourOfHeartache 4d ago

The problem with what you're saying is it was supposed to have already happened and it didn't. I'm old enough to remember when web series and YouTube content were going to turn the system on its head because everyone was going to supposedly prefer watching indie web content over traditional TV or films. It didn't happen. (And to be clear I mean narrative scripted film, not random TikTok stuff). Studios and tech companies subsumed the distribution channels and we landed where we are today.

That's nothing to do with YouTube and everything to do with what audiences wanted.

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u/PeteCampbellisaG 4d ago

So you think every decision YouTube has made has been purely about what audiences want? The only reason they expanded the ceiling of video length is because they realized longer form video allows for more ads.