A Tech Giant May Accidentally Save Hollywood From AI

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 8 seconds ago

From the very beginning of the generative AI hype, many of us have been asking the same question Nute Gunray once asked Senator Palpatine: “is this legal?” After all, any one of us could get in serious legal trouble if we made money by selling someone else’s writing, art, or music, but these AI companies basically scraped the entire internet for content. That’s always been the moral problem with generative AI: when it generates art, it’s not actually drawing something from scratch. Instead, it’s drawing based on what has been stolen from thousands of artists. It was only a matter of time before someone with deep enough pockets started suing.

That’s exactly what happened when Warner Bros. sued Midjourney, the AI image lab. The studio’s case was straightforward: they are accusing the tech company of copyright infringement on an absolutely massive scale. Midjourney, meanwhile, has claimed that what it is doing falls firmly within the boundaries of fair use. However, their defense has also taken the angle that WB has no leg to stand on because of their own use of AI. Now, Midjourney has asked a judge to have the studio divulge exactly how they use this technology. If Midjourney gets their way, it could cause a big enough backlash to do the impossible: save Hollywood from AI.

Hollywood’s Deal With The Devil

On Warner Bros.’ side, the lawsuit against Midjourney is relatively cut and dry. They are arguing that the AI company has enabled massive copyright infringement by allowing users to create images featuring characters like Superman. Not just images created from scratch (like fan art) but clearly ripping off existing art. As part of their case, the studio submitted side-by-side images of Superman. One was from the DC Animated Universe, and the other was a Midjourney creation that looked insanely similar, right down to the Metropolis background. In turn, Midjourney has argued that they are engaged in fair use and that WB is guilty of relying on AI to create movies.

Normally, those kinds of dirty details would come out during the discovery phase of the trial. However, in June, a magistrate judge ruled that Warner Bros. would only have to reveal information about consumer-facing uses of AI. This week, Midjourney filed a motion to overturn that decision and force the studio to fully divulge how it has been using AI. As Midjourney’s lawyer, Bobby Ghajar, put it, “If Plaintiffs are doing the very thing they seek to punish, that evidence goes to the heart of Midjourney’s fair use and unclean hands defenses.” Basically, Midjourney believes that if WB is relying on their own stolen data, they don’t have a right to sue anyone else.

Is The Studio Going Down?

Now, this is the rare case where I find myself rooting for an AI company. Not because I want this technology to succeed; rather, if Midjourney gets their wish and Warner Bros. discloses all of their uses of AI (including fully granular detail of how this tech is used to market and make movies), it would cause a huge backlash against the studio. Right now, moviegoers are adamantly against AI, with many A24 fans claiming they plan to boycott future films after that studio entered into an AI partnership with Google. What execs at all these studios are hoping for is that we just don’t notice how and where they used AI in each film.

If one major studio (especially one getting a huge buyout from Paramount) is forced to disclose all of the ways they are using AI to make films, it may cause consumers to demand transparency from other studios. In a perfect world, this would force most studios to abandon AI in order to save themselves. We’re already at a point where it’s a marketing tactic to avoid AI; for example, Obsession director Curry Barker hired human artists to create AI-style images in the film, and the credits explicitly forbid AI companies from training on the film’s content. Hopefully, studios will start publicly shunning AI just to win over moviegoers who prefer completely human-generated films.

The Only Way To Save Hollywood

In short, I don’t care if Midjourney wins this battle so long as AI loses the war. The company is betting everything on this reverse Uno strategy of making Warner Bros. look like hypocrites, but that strategy may very well blow up in their face. Right now, public backlash against AI is greater than ever, and businesses all over the world are starting to realize they aren’t actually profiting from their investment in this hot new technology. Basically, this is the worst time for WB to reveal how creatively bankrupt and reliant on AI they are, and if they are forced to do so, they could take other major studios down with them.

Saving Hollywood from AI and forcing the biggest studios to rely on actual humans to create art? That’s what I call a win/win!