Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Midjourney For Copyright Infringement 83
Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a major copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, accusing the AI image generator of exploiting its movies and TV shows to train models and generate near-identical reproductions of iconic characters like Batman, Bugs Bunny, and Rick and Morty. From The Hollywood Reporter: The company "brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property" by letting subscribers produce images and videos of iconic copyrighted characters, alleges the complaint, filed on Thursday in California federal court. "The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners," said a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson in a statement. "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments."
For years, AI companies have been training their technology on data scraped across the internet without compensating creators. It's led to lawsuits from authors, record labels, news organizations, artists and studios, which contend that some AI tools erode demand for their content. Warner Bros. Discovery joins Disney and Universal, which earlier this year teamed up to sue Midjourney. By their thinking, the AI company is a free-rider plagiarizing their movies and TV shows. In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery points to Midjourney generating images of iconic copyrighted characters. At the forefront are heroes who're at the center of DC Studios' movies and TV shows, like Superman, Wonder Woman and The Joker; others are Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo characters who've become ubiquitous household names; more are Cartoon Network characters, including those from Rick and Morty, who've emerged as something of cultural touchstones in recent years. [...]
The lawsuit argues Midjourney's ability to return copyrighted characters is a "clear draw for subscribers," diverting consumers away from purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery-approved posters, wall art and prints, among other products that must now compete against the service. [...] Warner Bros. Discovery seeks Midjourney's profits attributable to the alleged infringement or, alternatively, $150,000 per infringed work, which could leave the AI company on the hook for massive damages. The thrust of the studios' lawsuits will likely be decided by one question: Are AI companies covered by fair use, the legal doctrine in intellectual property law that allows creators to build upon copyrighted works without a license? The lawsuit can be found here.
For years, AI companies have been training their technology on data scraped across the internet without compensating creators. It's led to lawsuits from authors, record labels, news organizations, artists and studios, which contend that some AI tools erode demand for their content. Warner Bros. Discovery joins Disney and Universal, which earlier this year teamed up to sue Midjourney. By their thinking, the AI company is a free-rider plagiarizing their movies and TV shows. In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery points to Midjourney generating images of iconic copyrighted characters. At the forefront are heroes who're at the center of DC Studios' movies and TV shows, like Superman, Wonder Woman and The Joker; others are Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo characters who've become ubiquitous household names; more are Cartoon Network characters, including those from Rick and Morty, who've emerged as something of cultural touchstones in recent years. [...]
The lawsuit argues Midjourney's ability to return copyrighted characters is a "clear draw for subscribers," diverting consumers away from purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery-approved posters, wall art and prints, among other products that must now compete against the service. [...] Warner Bros. Discovery seeks Midjourney's profits attributable to the alleged infringement or, alternatively, $150,000 per infringed work, which could leave the AI company on the hook for massive damages. The thrust of the studios' lawsuits will likely be decided by one question: Are AI companies covered by fair use, the legal doctrine in intellectual property law that allows creators to build upon copyrighted works without a license? The lawsuit can be found here.
Seems clear (Score:2)
From the summary, sounds like midjourney is a clear parasite that needs to go down....and definitely needs to go create its own content.
Re:Seems clear (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems clear that they're innocent, as you're allowed to train on other people's content for free.
Literally, not protected by copyright. At most you can claim trademark infringement for creations infringing trademark.
Incidentally, if you do accept that it's "parasitism" to learn from other people's content, can you name three artists who aren't parasitic that are alive today?
Re: (Score:2)
And you outlaw libraries, lest the content inside influences you in any way, and forms opinions that will be similar to what you read or saw. So.. museums, too.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not the training that is the issue. It's the production of essentially duplicate imagery that is copyrighted that is the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Were these images requested by agents of Warner Brothers Discovery? Seems like that would damage their case.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Since when are you not allowed to draw duplicate imagery?
It's "COPY"right not "DUPLICATION"right.
Again, you can go and argue trademark infringement for duplication. Not copyright.
Re: (Score:1)
Nice hallucination you have there. You AI fanbois are really the dumbest of the dumb.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably.
Re:Seems clear (Score:5, Interesting)
as you're allowed to train on other people's content for free.
Literally, not protected by copyright.
There's no clear case law on this. A derivative work does not have to be a direct clear total copy. It can also copy some elements of the work. The LLM model weights may well be judged to be a derivative work of at least some of their training data. Of course the "AI" companies claim that's not true, but they do that because it's in their interest to claim that. We have repeatedly seen LLMs generate long passages of copyright works. Putting a filter in front of the LLM to hide that is in fact just making this worse by making a copy and then hiding the fact. The same almost certainly applies to tricks which slightly adjust the learning strategies to reduce the chance of directly copied text.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be because it's not protected in law in the first place. You don't need case law for law that doesn't exist. This is easily visible in measures that publishers have to go through to keep their school books selling. They have to constantly publish new versions with new things in them, because otherwise students just resell the books to next year students.
Because they cannot protect "learning from our material". There's no law in existence that protects that. And there cannot be, because this would
Re: (Score:3)
My problem is that you are using the word "learning" for the process of mass integrating of data into a statistical model. I know that's the standard word, but that means there are now two separate meanings of the word "learn", one for humans and one for LLMs and similar and they are not properly related.
Re: (Score:2)
It is the word used because that's what it is.
LLM learning process is directly modeled on how humans learn. The difference comes from different strengths of each. LLMs have much more memory to fit learning material, whereas humans are embodied which enables much more contextual culling of irrelevant and wrong training data.
Re: (Score:2)
LLM learning process is directly modeled on how humans learn.
Can you please explain what you mean by this? Exactly what you say next already seems to contradict that, but also the fact that you teach humans by explaining a rule and giving a few examples whilst you teach a neural net by giving a huge set of classified examples. That doesn't seem to me to be modeled on human learning.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm saying that current best evidence indicates that LLM learning process is very similar to human process in everything. We have problems with same material. We have difficulties solving similar problems. It's why we hallucinate in a similar way.
The main difference is that we're embodied, and they have near infinite and near perfect memory. That means our process allows us to be better at culling information of negative, zero and low value for each stage of learning process, while theirs allows them to lea
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry you're incapable of grasping the difference. I recommend picking up any basic course on legal concept of copyright in US to help you comprehend. As they will in fact explain to you what copyright covers and what it doesn't cover.
Students do not pay for "training materials". They pay for "purchase of a copy of a copyrighted work". They can use this copy infinite amount of times. They can allow others to use it infinite amount of times. They can give this copy away to any number of people to learn f
Re: (Score:2)
Same as anyone else learning from materials that are publicly available.
Re: (Score:2)
By midjourney? Then why is this claim absent from the suit?
Reminder: "other people did this illegal thing, that means other completely unrelated people also should be found guilty" is an argument that has a good chance of getting a conviction.
For one arguing it, for contempt of court.
Re: (Score:2)
I made an analogy to source that is commonly understood to be a medium from which to learn from, which is well established in case law, to demonstrate that "learning from" is not protected in copyright law at all.
Do you understand that "analogy" by definition is something that is NOT what is being discussed?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you even know the word "plagerism"?
Re: (Score:3)
What's perfectly clear is how corrupt current copyright laws are. This just locking up our own culture behind corporate and classist paywalls. Most of this stuff should be in the public's domain already. What else is clear is how much this has cost us all and how much we lose everyday we don't have access to our own creativity and our works. We could be standing on the shoulders of giants instead of living in the barren empty wasteland of corporatocracy.
Re: (Score:2)
What's perfectly clear is how corrupt current copyright laws are.
The Mickey Mouse copyright extensions made that pretty clear long ago. There's probably a case for saying that training LLMs should be allowed as long as the model weights and enough knowledge to use them are made public. The problem is if big corporations are taking all that knowledge and hiding it in house then that's worse than the current problems with copyrights.
Re: (Score:2)
fair use should allow for the use of our own culture to further our progress, and not be perverted in order to unfairly profit at the expense of progress
Re: (Score:3)
I agree. I think the argument is just about how to do that. If a small AI company uses the copyright data from films that are making millions in profit anyway and comes up with a way for people to make films more cheaply, that's likely good. If a large tech giant takes art from small artists who are making challenging new art and floods the market with equivalent art that stops them earning then that's likely bad.
You need ways of stating that in law whilst at the same time having that law fair and equal for
Re: (Score:2)
The answer is in the term fair use itself, the authors gain from the use the make of the works of others, that's exactly why it's called fair use. We all benefit fairly from it. There's nothing inherently fair about profit, obviously.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate WB, but I think I hate these AI companies more.
For reference WB is the company that sues people for making homemade superman costumes.
"letting subscribers produce" (Score:2)
"letting subscribers produce images and videos of iconic copyrighted characters"
Midjourney is not the one committing the copyright infringement. Their users are (allegedly).
If Midjourney is encouraging users to commit copyright infringement, that would open them up to claims for contributory copyright infringement.
Midjourney may have a duty to take steps to prevent it, but it has yet to be established as to how far they should go in restricting users constitutionally protected freedom of expression in orde
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. If a user requests a copyrighted char, the user is putting in 0.1% or less, the rest is all Midjourney.
Re: (Score:1)
Their program clearly knows what Batman (etc.) looks like. It would be trivial for it to refuse to generate images that look like Batman.
Re: (Score:3)
The copying isn't in the generation. The copying happens when you make model weights from the input texts. At some level for some texts that might come under "fair use". Fair use, though, is an actual quantitative thing. Copy a whole text and you are in trouble. Copy one paragraph to comment on it and you'll be fine. Important texts are echoed enough in the training corpus, so whilst the places they are copied are probably fair use, likely the level of usage of their text in the LLM model weights will, in t
Re: (Score:2)
that would open them up to claims for contributory copyright infringement.
that or that lawyers can smell the whole lot of money midjourney is making. and warner sues left and right, non-stop. even if they lose it deters, or so they think.
Re: (Score:1)
Midjourney is not the one committing the copyright infringement. Their users are (allegedly).
In the same way that a site that hosts obfuscated and encrypted copyright mp3 files is not committing copyright infringement, the users are when they download and decrypt the file?
In other words, this is a moronic blinkered AI-bro argument.
Re: (Score:2)
"letting subscribers produce images and videos of iconic copyrighted characters"
Midjourney is not the one committing the copyright infringement. Their users are (allegedly).
If Midjourney is encouraging users to commit copyright infringement, that would open them up to claims for contributory copyright infringement.
Midjourney may have a duty to take steps to prevent it, but it has yet to be established as to how far they should go in restricting users constitutionally protected freedom of expression in order to protect third party copyrights. It is a slippery slope to require providers to police user actions to protect 3rd party rights -moreso when 1st amendment expressions are involved. The only law we have along those lines now is the DMCA.
And where does that end? Strange example upcoming. My SO looked a lot like Daryl Hannah from "Splash" times when she was younger. I can generate images using Daryl Hannah in the prompt that gives results that look just like either.
So who owns the image? Even if I don't give credit, if I posted the image without a name, people would still connect the image with Hannah.
A garbage lawsuit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Adobe makes Photoshop. Photoshop allows users to create images of Superman. The user can draw Superman, or put into a prompt, "Make this thing look like Superman". In both cases it is the *user* that is initiating the process to create Superman, which DC owns. Should Photoshop be banned?
The anti-AI trolls will pontificate that they are different, but they are not, not in a legal sense. The user was "trained" by watching Superman movies, so the user knows what superman looks like, and can thus draw him.
An LLM was "trained" by watching superman movies, so the LLM knows what superman looks like, and can thus draw him, *when prompted by the user.*
Courts have repeatedly found this to be the case. It's a garbage lawsuit. Throw it in the garbage.
Re: (Score:3)
If MidJourney and Photoshop are both tools, then so is a tool to download copyrighted films (which is clearly not respecting copyrights).
Copyright law already distinguishes between exact copies, derivative works, and fair use. All delineated by fuzzy boundaries. So it's contextual, based on circumstances. In the case of MidJourney, to comply with copyright law, they probably need to put up guardrails like GPT5 already has done. GPT5 will outright refuse to draw Superman, but MidJourney happily complies. If
Re: (Score:2)
And yet those tools are not illegal. Downloading a copyrighted file is considered not fair use. Making superman in Photoshop is, as long as it is for personal use. Likewise, using midjourney to make superman is the same, and should be considered fair use. If they want to sue the users who put these pictures on the web for others, then by all means they are free to do that, but suing Midjourney is just like suing Adobe. Garbage lawsuit.
Re: (Score:2)
In the real world where I live, we have both Xerox machines, computer printers, and this thing called The Internet. On my planet, nobody goes to the trouble of making one of those infringing images just to keep it framed in their living room for when their friends come over. No Siree, they do the work (however little or how much) and immediately PUBLISH and DISTRIBUTE that fucker. To at least one other person, but usually to as. may people as is possible. The Internet has a lot of possible in it.
The tools
Re: (Score:2)
If someone else's creation is making your image for you, YOU are not creating anything, prompt or no prompt.
If I ask a blacksmith to make me a sword, did I make the sword?
And the tool is making derivative works commercially so you'd be hard pressed to make a fair use argument.
Re: (Score:2)
then so is a tool to download copyrighted films (which is clearly not respecting copyrights).
If you set the problem at copyright status alone, which is flawed - anything created in a country where copyright is automatic, and not explicitly put in the public domain is copyrighted, even things where permission is graned to redistribute. FFS can we stop using copyrighted as a synonym for bad or wrong? What matters here is licensing or lack thereof, whether licensing is needed, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You know what else photoshop does?
If you try to process a scanned image of currency, it will refuse to do so. It recognizes that you're working with currency imagery and refuses to comply.
https://helpx.adobe.com/photos... [adobe.com]
Re: (Score:2)
So the government does not hold copyrights on the image on a dollar bill. You can actually make a copy of it... but apparently there are regulations that your size has to be different (20% larger or smaller) and your printout can only be one sided. Photoshop probably does not have to legally prevent users from working with a scanned dollar bill, but believes that the pros of banning the use in this way outweighs the cons. But they don't *have" to, legally.
Re: (Score:1)
And yet they do.
Midjourney could also make such a decision.
Re: (Score:1)
Fun fact....and I guess the statute of limitations has expired, so I can say this.
When I was in 10th grade, I decided to do an experiment. I made photocopies of $5 bills. Black and white, 2 sided.
Then I went to a local govt building that had a change machine. It was the kind that had a tray that pushed in. You put the bill in the tray, pushed it in, and got change.
Well, let me tell you what. That old piece of shit was like a slot machine that couldn't lose. I went through my entire stack of $5 photocopied
Re: (Score:2)
Have you tried scanning money? The scanner will refuse to do so. try it. they detect and prevent it.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the driver. That's all software things that mostly stop people from making a fool out of themselves. They would not create a convincing bank note anyway, but they could be tempted to try and then get problems for it even when it is not convincing.
Re: (Score:2)
You know what else photoshop does?
If you try to process a scanned image of currency, it will refuse to do so. It recognizes that you're working with currency imagery and refuses to comply.
https://helpx.adobe.com/photos... [adobe.com]
Yes, because there are only a few such images in the entire world, so it's easy to compare them. It would be simply impossible for the tool to check your upload against EVERY IMAGE IN THE UNIVERSE, which are all Copyright by default. Even a registry of a small number provided by a powerful group of moneyed stakeholders would be too hard to compare.
And if it did that, I would object. How does the tool know that I don't have rights to copy? How does it know I am going to publish? Get the fuck out of my busine
Re: (Score:2)
They match against specific patterns. One of them is this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Your argument is garbage. You sound like a disinformation AI. Companies aren't training one AI in the same sense one artist is trained. If an AI company wants 10,000 AI instances so it can support 10,000 simultaneous users, they aren't buying 10,000 copies of superman references to train off, which is how you would train 10,000 artists.
Re: (Score:2)
No, *your* argument is garbage, just like this lawsuit. The law makes no distinction between how an artist and an LLM is trained, because it is irrelevant. Courts have repeatedly ruled that this is irrelevant; what matters is what is produced and whether or not its fair use.
Did you know that I did not buy a single copy of a superman reference to train myself to be able to draw superman? Did you know that there's no law that says that somewhere in the past I had to have purchased *some* superman image to
Re: (Score:2)
Likewise courts have repeatedly found that "ingesting" content to train LLMs is not in and of itself illegal.
To the best of my knowledge, only one court found that. Judge Alsup made a huge blunder based on ignorance (it's the best light) of how Augmented Idiocy works. I fully expect any appeal to get that bad decision overturned.
I have also seen one court decision that upheld copyright infringement, so it seems we're at 50/50.
Re: (Score:2)
If you thought your argument was anything more than trolling you would have left your name attached,
Being able to name the judge in a case is not "name dropping", but it does show the person has taken the time to research the issue.
Re: (Score:2)
A single movie of superman easily has 10,000 images of superman in the video. Furthermore, studies show human vision is based upon moving images so we learn our recognition with a massive number of very similar images... at a higher frame rate too.
The expert human can be hired by many people to use their trained experience; the difference is the human has massive speed limits on their communication as well as their operating speed and the machines are much faster.
So should a faster more productive artist ne
Re: (Score:2)
Does a human needs to buy their references 10,000 times if they sell 10,000 copies of their work? It's not like (digital) artists would sell their works only once.
Re: (Score:3)
Adobe makes Photoshop. Photoshop allows users to create images of Superman. The user can draw Superman, or put into a prompt, "Make this thing look like Superman". In both cases it is the *user* that is initiating the process to create Superman, which DC owns. Should Photoshop be banned?
The problem is that the AI companies (Midjourney, Adobe, et. al) have knowingly and deliberately downloaded Superman into their systems -- so that when the user says, "Please do all the work of infringing on the Superman IP", the program does it.
It would be different if it was the user who uploaded Superman into the program and said, "Make the image of my father that we're editing look like this thing I uploaded".
I do not expect the tool to somehow police my content. Indeed, I would be upset if it did so. (
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that the AI companies (Midjourney, Adobe, et. al) have knowingly and deliberately downloaded Superman into their systems
You can only consider that a problem if you think a filmmaker watching someone's else's movie and deliberately learning something from the experience is a problem.
Of course AI artists should be trained on copyrighted material and be able to generate exact replicas if asked to by a human. There are plenty of fair-use scenarios where you can use copyrighted content, like parody and commentary. It is how the human uses the content generated by AI that makes it violate our laws, not the fact that the content ca
Re: (Score:2)
You paid an artist to make you a Superman image, guess what, the artist violated copyright in a way that is not supported by fair use, as did the AI.
And with Superman being a sufficiently delineated character, even an original drawing of him would be considered infringement, no actual copying necessary.
Not sure what point you are getting at here.
Re: (Score:2)
Midjourney is not like Photoshop. Photoshop is a tool that you need to operate yourself, which requires skill to produce high quality images. The commercial aspect is selling you the tool.
Midjourney is a service. The commercial aspect is doing the work for you.
It's like asking an artist to draw you a picture of Batman that looks just like the movie posters. If the artist is smart they will refuse because they know that doing that commercially is copyright infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be unfair to apply different laws to people of different skills. Either something is allowed or it is not. You can't make it depend on the amount of talent or training without creating inequality.
Re: (Score:2)
Adobe makes Photoshop. Photoshop allows users to create images of Superman. The user can draw Superman, or put into a prompt, "Make this thing look like Superman". In both cases it is the *user* that is initiating the process to create Superman, which DC owns. Should Photoshop be banned?
The anti-AI trolls will pontificate that they are different, but they are not, not in a legal sense. The user was "trained" by watching Superman movies, so the user knows what superman looks like, and can thus draw him.
An LLM was "trained" by watching superman movies, so the LLM knows what superman looks like, and can thus draw him, *when prompted by the user.* Courts have repeatedly found this to be the case. It's a garbage lawsuit. Throw it in the garbage.
The metric needs to be if someone uses the generated material to profit. Otherwise you get into the weeds real quickly. Batman is a guy in a pullover hoodie with funky little ears on top. Been different iterations of that, so it means WB probably thinks everything with little ears on top is Batman?
In another post here, I noted my SO looked a lot like Actress Daryl Hannah when they were both young. If an AI image of ms Hannah is infringing on her visage, what of a picture of the wife at the same age?
Note
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, If you have no understanding of copyright you should refrain from commenting on it.
1. You cannot copyright "looking like Daryl Hannah" as there is no creative work on that. You could copyright a picture of her as the photographer but that does not bar other people from taking her picture.
2. Fictional characters do get copyrighted, do some research on "sufficient delineation" As this is one of the metrics to determining copyright protection.
The Sufficient Delineation Test
The second test, and the one mos
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, If you have no understanding of copyright you should refrain from commenting on it.
I've only worked copyright issues for over 30 years, but do go on. I'm very eager to learn form the authority on the subject,
1. You cannot copyright "looking like Daryl Hannah" as there is no creative work on that.
The issue is not looking like daryl, the issue is as I stated, an image of my wife looked for all intents and purposes, like Daryl Hanna.
As Slashdot's expert on copyright laws, you would know ms Hannah might have concerns about her image being used.
Did she sign a model release for this? No? I had to get model releases for employees even though they knew they might be in publicity
Re: (Score:2)
There is a point about Midjourney that Disney also criticizes: They publish a gallery.
You can create Superman using Photoshop or AI, but whether you can upload it to a public gallery depends on factors such as if it is transformative or a parody, and in many cases you are not allowed to do it, even when its drawn by hand. Also fan art creators need to be very careful once they get popular enough that the companies get to know they exist.
Midjourney displays a gallery of all public generations and earns money
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Horseshit. Artists, authors and musicians have lost cases over and over again on this.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/25... [npr.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Horseshit. Artists, authors and musicians have lost cases over and over again on this. https://www.npr.org/2025/06/25... [npr.org]
The article you reference is a split decision - AI can train on works they purchased, but could be taken to court over using pirated copies. That makes sense to me. It also did not seem to address the issue of what is the legal status of the AI output, just how copyrighted works could be used for training. T.
The other question, is who is guilty of copyright/trademark infringement if they use AI to produce copies of copyrighted/trademarked material. AI is certainly a tool, but it is also creator of the w
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, creating a new Mickey Mouse cartoon clearly crosses the line and, IMHO, the AI company should be liable of infringement, since they are the ones who actually created the work.
The court case cited was not split or confused over the fact that what you just typed is false from a legal perspective (although you can obviously still have that opinion). The ruling was clear as day on this matter, even though there was more nuance when it came to the legality of how training material was obtained.
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, creating a new Mickey Mouse cartoon clearly crosses the line and, IMHO, the AI company should be liable of infringement, since they are the ones who actually created the work.
The court case cited was not split or confused over the fact that what you just typed is false from a legal perspective (although you can obviously still have that opinion). The ruling was clear as day on this matter, even though there was more nuance when it came to the legality of how training material was obtained.
Which was my point, thank you for agreeing with me, because that is just what I said: The article you reference is a split decision - AI can train on works they purchased, but could be taken to court over using pirated copies. Per TFA:
The thrust of the studios’ lawsuits will likely be decided by one question: Are AI companies covered by fair use, the legal doctrine in intellectual property law that allows creators to build upon copyrighted works without a license? On that issue, a court found ear
Re: (Score:2)
No US courts are going to shut down such a productivity enhancing tool. If we are fine destroying 95% of farming and 65% of factory jobs because of automation, our society will be fine with destroying 90% of artistic jobs because of AI.
Shutting down innovation to protect jobs is just about the dumbest idea there is. We should pray that 90% of today's jobs are destroyed over the next 50 years, so people can either move into more productive jobs (like the last 100 years of progress) or live lives with far mor
Re: (Score:2)
If I draw a picture of a character for fun... (Score:2)
...is it a crime?
If I learn to draw by drawing images I see online, is it a crime?
As long as nobody is profiting, I don't see the harm
If someone tried to sell the images, I would agree with the studios
We need less IP laws, not more
Re: (Score:3)
As long as nobody is profiting, I don't see the harm[.]/quote
That is EXACTLY what is happening. These companies' products are copying everything under the sun, then selling back access to those same works. And they are making a killing doing do. The two reasons Meta won are:
1) Weak arguments (which makes sense, considering their lawyers are world-renowned for losing)
2) Judges with no understanding of how these copy/storage/retrieval engines work.