Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage
Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage
Midjourney 要求好莱坞制片厂披露其 AI 使用细节
As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, AI startup Midjourney is seeking to compel those studios to reveal how they use AI themselves. Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for alleged copyright infringement last year, noting that the startup’s image-generation models could create images of characters, such as Bart Simpson and Darth Vader, who are owned by the studios. A few months later, Warner Bros. sued Midjourney as well. The startup argues that training its AI models on images of copyrighted characters is permitted under fair use.
作为与三家好莱坞制片厂正在进行的法律纠纷的一部分，AI 初创公司 Midjourney 正试图强制这些制片厂披露他们自身是如何使用 AI 的。去年，迪士尼（Disney）和环球影业（Universal）起诉 Midjourney 涉嫌版权侵权，指出该初创公司的图像生成模型可以创作出诸如巴特·辛普森（Bart Simpson）和达斯·维达（Darth Vader）等由这些制片厂拥有的角色图像。几个月后，华纳兄弟（Warner Bros.）也起诉了 Midjourney。该初创公司辩称，在受版权保护的角色图像上训练其 AI 模型属于“合理使用”范畴。
The current dispute revolves around the documentation the studios will need to produce during the discovery process. A judge previously ruled that the studios would indeed have to provide information about their generative AI usage – but only when it led to “consumer-facing” videos and images. In its latest filing, Midjourney seeks to overturn that limitation, arguing that it “unfairly” allows the studios “to cherry-pick only those documents they believe support their market harm claims while depriving Midjourney of documents that would support its defenses.”
目前的争议围绕着制片厂在证据开示（discovery）过程中需要提供的文件展开。此前，法官裁定制片厂确实需要提供有关其生成式 AI 使用情况的信息，但仅限于涉及“面向消费者”的视频和图像时。在最新的法庭文件中，Midjourney 试图推翻这一限制，辩称这“不公平地”允许制片厂“只挑选那些他们认为支持其市场损害主张的文件，同时剥夺了 Midjourney 获取那些能支持其辩护的文件。”
Midjourney goes on to claim that the “documents [the studios] are withholding are precisely those that would reveal whether, behind closed doors, they are doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.” For example, the startup says that if the studios are developing image-generating AI models “for internal use in storyboarding or ideating content for film or TV, that evidence would equally demonstrate that it is an industry custom, even among the studios themselves, to download and train AI on unlicensed copyrighted content.”
Midjourney 进一步声称，制片厂“隐瞒的文件恰恰是那些能够揭示他们在闭门造车时，是否正在做着他们起诉 Midjourney 的同样事情。”例如，该初创公司表示，如果制片厂正在开发图像生成 AI 模型“用于电影或电视的故事板制作或内容构思，那么这些证据同样可以证明，即使在制片厂内部，下载未经授权的受版权保护内容来训练 AI 也已成为一种行业惯例。”
In the filing, the startup also argues that the studios should reveal all the prompts they used in Midjourney, as well as the resulting outputs, not just the prompts that produced the allegedly infringing images. The studios’ lead attorney David Singer previously claimed Midjourney was seeking this documentation as part of a “fishing expedition.” He also said the studios “do not seek to stop AI technology or even shut down Midjourney’s business,” but rather “simply want Midjourney to stop copying their movies and TV shows and to stop distributing, publicly displaying, publicly performing, and creating derivative works that include copies of [their] famous characters without authorization.”
在文件中，该初创公司还主张，制片厂应该披露他们在 Midjourney 中使用的所有提示词（prompts）以及生成的输出结果，而不仅仅是那些产生所谓侵权图像的提示词。制片厂的首席律师大卫·辛格（David Singer）此前曾声称，Midjourney 寻求这些文件是“钓鱼式取证”（fishing expedition）的一部分。他还表示，制片厂“并不寻求阻止 AI 技术，甚至不是要关闭 Midjourney 的业务”，而是“仅仅希望 Midjourney 停止复制他们的电影和电视节目，并停止未经授权的分发、公开展示、公开表演以及创作包含其著名角色副本的衍生作品。”