Disney Says Google AI Infringes Copyright 'On a Massive Scale' 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Wild West of copyrighted characters in AI may be coming to an end. There has been legal wrangling over the role of copyright in the AI era, but the mother of all legal teams may now be gearing up for a fight. Disney has sent a cease and desist to Google, alleging the company's AI tools are infringing Disney's copyrights "on a massive scale." According to the letter, Google is violating the entertainment conglomerate's intellectual property in multiple ways. The legal notice says Google has copied a "large corpus" of Disney's works to train its gen AI models, which is believable, as Google's image and video models will happily produce popular Disney characters -- they couldn't do that without feeding the models lots of Disney data.
The C&D also takes issue with Google for distributing "copies of its protected works" to consumers. So all those memes you've been making with Disney characters? Yeah, Disney doesn't like that, either. The letter calls out a huge number of Disney-owned properties that can be prompted into existence in Google AI, including The Lion King, Deadpool, and Star Wars. The company calls on Google to immediately stop using Disney content in its AI tools and create measures to ensure that future AI outputs don't produce any characters that Disney owns. Disney is famously litigious and has an army of lawyers dedicated to defending its copyrights. The nature of copyright law in the US is a direct result of Disney's legal maneuvering, which has extended its control of iconic characters by decades. While Disney wants its characters out of Google AI generally, the letter specifically cited the AI tools in YouTube. Google has started adding its Veo AI video model to YouTube, allowing creators to more easily create and publish videos. That seems to be a greater concern for Disney than image models like Nano Banana. "We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them," Google said in a statement. "More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google-extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content."
The cease and desist letter arrives at the same time the company announced a content deal with OpenAI. Disney said it's investing $1 billion in OpenAI via a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate AI-powered short videos and images featuring more than 200 characters.
The C&D also takes issue with Google for distributing "copies of its protected works" to consumers. So all those memes you've been making with Disney characters? Yeah, Disney doesn't like that, either. The letter calls out a huge number of Disney-owned properties that can be prompted into existence in Google AI, including The Lion King, Deadpool, and Star Wars. The company calls on Google to immediately stop using Disney content in its AI tools and create measures to ensure that future AI outputs don't produce any characters that Disney owns. Disney is famously litigious and has an army of lawyers dedicated to defending its copyrights. The nature of copyright law in the US is a direct result of Disney's legal maneuvering, which has extended its control of iconic characters by decades. While Disney wants its characters out of Google AI generally, the letter specifically cited the AI tools in YouTube. Google has started adding its Veo AI video model to YouTube, allowing creators to more easily create and publish videos. That seems to be a greater concern for Disney than image models like Nano Banana. "We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them," Google said in a statement. "More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google-extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content."
The cease and desist letter arrives at the same time the company announced a content deal with OpenAI. Disney said it's investing $1 billion in OpenAI via a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate AI-powered short videos and images featuring more than 200 characters.
Good (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes. Two companies with dodgy behavior and deep pockets getting set for a court battle. Bring out the popcorn!
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
I am rooting for Disney to win and set a precedent that training an AI on copyrighted content without permission from the copyright holder of that content is illegal. Bring down the whole "generative AI" house of cards (since basically all these AIs are trained on content without permission)
The Patent Wars - AI Edition. (Score:1)
I am rooting for Disney to win and set a precedent that training an AI on copyrighted content without permission from the copyright holder of that content is illegal. Bring down the whole "generative AI" house of cards (since basically all these AIs are trained on content without permission)
Just for shits and 'fringements sake, let's say we program that Artificial Intelligence to do exactly that. Program to not use any form of copyrighted, trademarked, or patented content whatsoever.
Exactly how far does that "intelligence" get to wander with those kind of restrictions? "Hey AI, tell me all about Santa Claus" without stepping on anyone else's toes? You couldn't even make it to a fourth Ho in Ho Ho Ho without Cardi B's prostituting patented legal team of Mistle-Hoe's slapping you in the face
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
I am rooting for Disney to win and set a precedent that training an AI on copyrighted content without permission from the copyright holder of that content is illegal. Bring down the whole "generative AI" house of cards (since basically all these AIs are trained on content without permission)
That precedent you are looking for has already been set. Just in the opposite direction from what you desired.
Most recently in Bartz v Anthropic it was held that training on copyrighted material without the copyright holders permission was transformative and thus protected under fair use. This ruling also held that training on illegally acquired copies of the material was a violation which irreparably tainted the resultant model.
Multiple recent rulings (Kadrey v Meta as well as Bartz v Anthropic) have further held that the output of an AI can be still be infringing (even if the training of the model was not infringing) if it substantially competes with the content on which it was trained. This is not blanket precedent, but an indication that each situation is different and economic impacts should be taken into account when determining if fair use applies.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
That's one small gain for some content companies; one massive step backward for all humankind.
I am rooting, as always, for the entire canard of modern IP law to be vaporized with prejudice.
In a world that runs on technology and content, everything is IP.
IP controls are the absolute best way to incentivize and ensure future consolidation of every nanometer of human civilization into one giant globe-spanning monopoly that owns everything and everyone.
We will not avoid the trillionaire Weyland-Yutani dystopia so long as IP exists the way it does now. Indeed, we may already be past the event horizon of inevitability.
To watch the 21st century progress of IP law among voracious competing tech/content firms is nothing more than watching a recap of the 13th through 20th centuries as voracious entities like the Dutch East India Company and all the European colonial powers competed for exclusive control of new territories.
When the hunter-seeker drones and genome-specific contagions come for you and your children, and all the tools you might use to defend yourself are illegal, remember that you and your children built the drones and diseases with your own hands - with every purchase, every tap, every stream, every meme, every prompt, every license, every subscription.
We built the circus of this Colosseum, together. And now, do you hear it, Clarice? The roaring of the lions?
Ask not for whom the lions roar, citizen. They roar for thee.
Re: Good (Score:2)
You are hereby forbidden from learning anything from this comment!
But you weren't going to anyway, were you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's not training on copyrighted data that is a violation of copyright. Access to a copyrighted work is not something that is an exclusive right given to copyright owners.
But you know what is (as I quote from the law):
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
What they can g
Don't fuck with The Mouse! (Score:2)
Re: Don't fuck with The Mouse! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
In California it's $15/day. And it doesn't include the first day.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/ca... [sacbee.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: lets have an $25/day jury deside who wins! (Score:1)
It's a shake down (Score:5, Informative)
Disney is already licensing their content to OpenAI.
https://www.wsj.com/business/m... [wsj.com]
This isn't an AI vs Art showdown. This is just a licensing deal shakedown.
Re: It's a shake down (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: It's a shake down (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: It's a shake down (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:It's a shake down (Score:4, Insightful)
Disney is already licensing their content to OpenAI.
https://www.wsj.com/business/m... [wsj.com]
This isn't an AI vs Art showdown. This is just a licensing deal shakedown.
Yep, but the last thing Disney wants is for copyright to be weakened... They'll have everyone doing to them what they did to the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, et al. that were never copyrighted.
Let them fight! (Score:4, Informative)
Small businesses will suffer for this (Score:4, Insightful)
We have no more public domain. Almost everything in the past century is copyrighted by someone, and disney has bought up a significant portion of the creative works that came out, despite being a company that started on the public domain.
If we had the same setup back then, the works that were put out in the 1930s and 1940s would have been under copyright still from the late 1800s.
Throw in on top of that, most of the usage is for non-commercial use for their copyrighted stuff. If someone is using it to make prints of their IP and sell them? Throw the book at them.
If I use it to make a parody of Disney's work, that's allowed legally.
That said, Disney wants a cut of all the AI stuff. This will probably end up being settled out of court with some kind of deal between Disney and Google. At the same time, we'll start seeing smaller AI companies crushed because they're too small to implement whatever content filters and other stuff needed to accomidate the scale of what they want.
We saw the same thing happen with file sharing sites back in the day, anyone could host a server, but anyone who opened to the public and couldn't deal with filtering for copyrighted things constantly got crushed. Now we're at a point where if you aren't Google or Microsoft or some large cloud provider you can't start a file sharing company. We're seeing the same idea being used to go after AI, since its a tool that can be used to violate copyright.
For copyrighted things the burden is placed on the companies that provide services, instead of the much harder to track individuals.
you and you! (Score:2)
FIGHT TO THE DEATH
Rooting for google (Score:3, Interesting)
Hope Google makes Disney and the whole IP ecosystem eat humble pie on this one. It's like saying you owe Disney for watching their movies/cartoons and learning something from them. Get bent. Pay for the viewing and whatever lessons I extract from it (even if I learn to draw some of the similar characters) are mine. Same for AI. This needs to happen. Google is worth 3.8 trillion right now, Disney under 200 billion, shove a bit of money down their throat to set a precedent so nobody ever tries this again.
Re: (Score:2)
Anything that damages disney (Score:3)
these predictable fucks (Score:3, Insightful)
bet they're trying to create a position where only their own AI should be able to produce their own content
fuck you disney, $100b a year for your cartoons (live action or otherwise) not enough for you? how's zero sound?
it's time to democratize democracy, not succumb to more power grabs and double down on all the obvious wrongs we're already doing
Disney .... AND OPENAI .... accuse Google bla bla (Score:5, Informative)
Disney invests $1B in OpenAI in deal to bring characters like Mickey Mouse to Sora AI video tool [apnews.com]
Not necessarily Disney data (Score:2)
Not true. Google could have fed the models data produced by other people, e.g. fan fiction, parodies, etc. (But, that being said, we all know that Google probably did feed their models with actual Disney content, wink-wink.)
Re: (Score:2)
End copyright? (Score:3)
I think there are aspects that have to be considered:
Given those two consideration, I entirely support the use of copyrighted works for AI training, with zero compensation to the copyright owners. Copyright should be reduced to a sensible term, or eliminated entirely. Then we can revisit this topic.
ALL AI infringes copyright "on a massive scale" (Score:2)
Period.
coindicence? (Score:2)
They just pumped 1B into OpenAI and license these same characters
I think not!