Midjourney Thinks Hollywood Should Fess Up About Using AI - Gizmodo

Ah, Midjourney — the AI art generator that spent the last few years getting sued by basically every artist with a pulse — has now decided that Hollywood should come clean about using AI. In a motion filed by its lawyers, Midjourney is demanding that Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. ‘reveal in full’ how much they are using generative AI. Because nothing says ‘moral high ground’ quite like a company that trained on everyone else's work without permission now demanding transparency from the next guy down the food chain. The sheer chutzpah is almost admirable — if you ignore the fact that Midjourney itself has been about as transparent as a brick wall about its own training data.

This follows a judge's ruling in June that limited Midjourney's ability to discover the studios' genAI usage — a ruling that apparently struck the company as deeply unfair. So now they're asking the court to rethink, arguing that the studios should be forced to ‘fess up.’ Because when you're losing the discovery war, the next best thing is to frame it as the studios being secretive. It's a bit like a pickpocket demanding to see everyone else's wallets, but hey — in the world of AI litigation, everyone's a bit of a hypocrite.

Of course, the studios aren't exactly paragons of virtue either. Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. have been quietly using AI for everything from script analysis to visual effects — and none of them are exactly rushing to disclose their usage. So Midjourney's motion is less about truth and more about forcing the opposition to show their cards in a legal battle that has already dragged on for months. Expect more of this sort of ‘you first’ transparency theatre as every company tries to weaponise disclosure while hiding its own. Popcorn, anyone?