Disney accuses Google of using AI to infringe image copyrights

Los Angeles. – Disney accused the tech giant Google of training and developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) services with works from the entertainment company that it then distributes without its consent, which constitutes a copyright infringement “on a large scale”, while announcing a multi-million dollar deal with OpenAI. “Google is infringing Disney’s copyrights on a large scale by copying a large corpus of Disney copyrighted works without authorization to train and develop generative artificial intelligence models and services,” stated the law firm Jenner & Block on behalf of Disney in a letter, reviewed this Thursday by Variety. The tech company then uses the generated models to “exploit and commercially distribute copies of its protected works to consumers in violation of Disney’s copyrights,” added the document, presented to Google’s general counsel. Furthermore, the entertainment giant alleged that many of the infringing images “bear the Google Gemini logo, falsely implying that Google’s exploitation of Disney’s intellectual property is authorized and endorsed” by the company.

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The letter also lists some of the mythical Disney characters affected by the AI services used by Google, including ‘Frozen’, ‘The Lion King’, ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Toy Story’ or ‘Monsters Inc.’, as well as other franchises such as ‘The Simpsons’ or ‘Star Wars’. The accusations against Google arise after the letters sent to Meta and Character AI to cease these activities, as well as the litigation filed alongside the companies NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery against the AI companies Midjourney and Minimax. Disney’s writing also coincides with the investment agreement of more than 1 billion dollars in OpenAI, which includes authorization for ChatGPT and the video generation tool Sora to use its characters and properties to generate short videos from user prompts, signed this Thursday.