AI Art Controversy: Midjourney Faces Legal Heat for Copying Artist Styles

The realm of artificial intelligence (AI) has been disrupted by a significant legal battle pitting technology against traditional artistry. Midjourney, an AI image generation company, finds itself at the center of a class action lawsuit, accused of deliberately training its services to replicate the styles of a list of artists without authorization.

The case, which commenced in January 2023, was initiated by artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz. It targets a nexus of AI tech providers—including Midjourney, Stability AI, and online art community DeviantArt—each implicated in the alleged infringement of copyright laws.

Stability AI, known for developing the open-source AI program Stable Diffusion, which generates images from textual prompts, faces scrutiny over its use of copyrighted material in training its algorithms. Likewise, DeviantArt, where thousands of artists upload and trade their creations, allegedly employed the Stable Diffusion 1.4 AI model as part of a commercial, subscription-based image generation service.

The plaintiffs claim that billions of images from artist portfolios on DeviantArt were used to train this model without their consent. This legal affair has evolved, with further plaintiffs joining, and the complaint expanding to include Runway AI, which according to the lawsuit, partnered with Stability AI to download vast quantities of copyrighted images to develop various Stable Diffusion models.

At the heart of the lawsuit against Midjourney is a damning revelation: the company's CEO, David Holz, heralded on their Discord server Midjourney's proficiency in mimicking artists' styles. He even shared a public Google Docs spreadsheet named "Midjourney Style List," which includes a tab headlined "Artists" and contains over 4700 artist names.

This listing, which parallels a directory of styles that Midjourney's AI could replicate, suggests the artists' styles were intended for use as prompts by the company's clientele, thereby monetizing the unique creative signatures of individual artists without their agreement.

Prominent figures in the art community, including plaintiffs Grzegorz Rutkowski, Sarah Andersen, Karla Ortiz, Gerald Brom, and Julia Kaye, found their names on Midjourney's controversial list. The inclusion of this list as Exhibit J in the complaint leaves little room for conjecture regarding the defendant's intentions.

In response to the updated lawsuit, DeviantArt has rebuffed the claims, especially dispelling the notion of "unjust enrichment." This label they describe as unfounded due to a lack of supporting evidence from the plaintiffs. Amidst legal proceedings and exchanges, extended deadlines have been proposed by the plaintiffs, accounting for festive season office closures, ensuring the case doesn't lose traction in the lull of holiday breaks.

This landmark case, stringing together a coalition of artists against tech giants, sets the scene for an unprecedented discussion on copyright, intellectual property rights, and the ethics of AI in creative industries. As the courts deliberate, the broader implications for AI technology's role in the arts hang undeniably in the balance.