"Piracy is piracy," says Disney's chief legal officer, as the studios aim to show that tools allowing personalized AI slop creations of characters like Darth Vader or Shrek run afoul of their IP.

NEW YORK (AP) — Disney and Universal have filed a copyright lawsuit against popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday, marking the first time major Hollywood companies have enter the legal battle over generative AI.

Disney and NBCU filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Midjourney, a generative AI start-up, alleging copyright infringement. The companies alleged that Midjourney’s own website “displays hundreds, if not thousands, of images generated by its Image Service at the request of its subscribers that infringe Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works.”