Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Gen AI company Midjourney this week, claiming that the company violated the studio’s copyright.

The studio accused Midjourney of operating a subscription-based generative AI service that allows subscribers to create generative AI video using illegal copies of Warner Bros. Discovery copyrighted works without its permission. Warner Bros. Discovery is seeking damages of up to $150,000 “per infringed work.”

“Midjourney thinks it is above the law.” the studio said in its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Count Central District of California. “The Service lets subscribers pick iconic Warner Bros. Discovery copyrighted characters and then reproduces, publicly displays and performs, and makes available for download (i.e., distributes) infringing images and videos, and unauthorized derivatives, with every imaginable scene featuring those characters. Without any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property as if it were its own.”

The studio added that Midjourney “could easily stop its theft and exploitation of Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property” and that it “controls the outputs of its image and video Service, and it has the means to implement protection measures to prevent the ongoing reproduction, public display, public performance, and distribution of Warner Bros. Discovery’s works. Midjourney already possesses the technological means and measures that could prevent its distribution, public display, and public performance of infringing images and videos.”

Warner Bros. Discovery said that Midjourney has made “a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement.”

Recent actions by Midjourney have led the studio to believe that Midjourney knows what it’s doing is illegal, the studio added.

“Midjourney’s recent conduct shows it has actual knowledge that the Service infringes Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrighted characters and the ability to stop the infringement,” the studio said in its lawsuit. “Upon launching video generation, the Service temporarily refused to ‘animate’ (i.e., generate videos from) many of the infringing images of Warner Bros. Discovery’s characters that Midjourney generated. Midjourney could only do this because it recognizes that its Service’s outputs infringe Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrights.

“Despite this capability and awareness, within the last couple of weeks, Midjourney deliberately removed these protection measures on video in its Service… It is hard to imagine copyright infringement that is any more willful than what Midjourney is doing here.”

Founded in 2021 by David Holz, Midjourney’s gen AI service earned more than $200 million in revenue in 2023, and reportedly made $300 million in revenue in 2024. As of September 2024, it had nearly 21 million users.

Midjourney first launched its Service in February 2022 as a “bot” accessible within the Discord communication platform. By October 2023, Midjourney was offering its service to consumers via its own website, Midjourney.com. Originally, the website was open only to Midjourney customers who had used Midjourney’s Service via the Discord platform but by August 2024, Midjourney was offering its Service to all subscribers and by April of this year, Midjourney launched version 7 of its image Service.

Midjourney recently launched “Midjourney TV,” a 24/7 video streaming channel that is publicly accessible via midjourney.tv or Midjourney’s official YouTube page.

The lawsuit against Midjourney is similar to one filed by Disney and Universal, in June, seeking similar damages.

A federal jury in California has ordered The Walt Disney Co. to pay nearly $600,000 to a special effects company that sued the studio for using its motion capture technology in its 2017 live-action remake of “Beauty and the Beast.”

The jury determined that Disney used software from Reardon LLC’s MOVA Contour software to render the face of the beast without permission. More than $250,000 was awarded in actual damages but the jury also recommended that Disney award Reardon more than $345,000 in profits, according to Reuters. 

The verdict comes more than six years after Reardon, which was founded by former Apple scientist Steve Perlman, initiated legal action against Disney. The company accused a former employee of stealing Contour’s IP and using it at Digital Domain. 3.0, which contracted with Disney to use the facial-capture software. 

Disney countered Contour’s accusations, saying that Rearden did not own the software's copyright during the production of "Beauty and the Beast."

A Disney spokesperson told Reuters the company was "gratified that the jury properly rejected Rearden’s request for $38 million in profits" from the movie.

Rearden has similar lawsuits against Paramount and Disney's 20th Century Fox—litigation on those cases has been on hiatus while the "Beauty and the Beast" case worked its way through the courts.

DENVER—The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) has announced that a complaint has been filed in the Eastern District of New York against ten defendants operating the Glo TV service, as well as Massive Wireless, Inc., a New York retailer, its CEO and director, and Rays IPTV LLC, a California distributor and retailer, and its CEO.

IBCAP is a coalition of leading international and U.S. content owners, broadcasters and distributors representing more than 190 television channels from the U.S. and around the world.

The lawsuit was coordinated by IBCAP and filed by IBCAP member Dish Network. Evidence for the case was obtained and provided by the IBCAP laboratory. 

The complaint asserts that Glo TV directly infringes IBCAP member copyrights by transmitting 20 television channels and the programs that air on those channels over the internet to users in the U.S. 

The complaint also asserts claims against the remaining defendants for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. The defendants received multiple notices of infringement from IBCAP, yet ignored those notices and continued to infringe, the group said. 

“This IBCAP-coordinated lawsuit sends a direct message to the entire business chain involved in piracy. From those who operate pirate services, to the distributors who wholesale pirate subscriptions, to the retailers who purchase and resell pirate subscriptions to consumers, the sale of pirate services will not be tolerated,” said Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP. “As with other cases coordinated by IBCAP, we fully expect these defendants will be held accountable, and the Court will enjoin retailers, wholesalers, and others from supporting the Glo TV service.”

IBCAP said the complaint seeks:

• Statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for the willful infringement of 170 registered works - up to $25,500,000 total
• An award of the defendants’ profits attributable to the infringement of the unregistered works
• An injunction prohibiting the defendants from distributing, providing, promoting, or selling set-top boxes and services that contain the subject channels
• An injunction prohibiting the defendants from distributing, providing, promoting, or selling set-top boxes and services that contain the relevant channels listed in the lawsuit
• An injunction prohibiting any hosting company from supporting Glo TV or any other service used to access channels exclusively licensed to the rightsholder
• An order permanently transferring each domain name that the defendants used in connection with the infringement to the plaintiff
• Prejudgment interest and post judgment interest
• Reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs

WASHINGTON—The fight between broadcasters (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) and Locast is nearing its day in court, but the lawyers representing the broadcasters (plaintiffs) have filed a request for summary judgement with the U.S. District Court in New York as they do not believe, and provide reasoning, as to why Locast is not a non-profit entity and therefore cannot rebroadcast their signals.

Locast is a streaming service that offers local channels to consumers in a market over the internet. It was founded by David R. Goodfriend, who has claimed that the service operates as a non-profit and as such under the Copyright Act of 1976 has the right to rebroadcast these networks without paying fees to the networks. Locast does not charge a monthly fee, however it does say users can donate (generally $5) to help keep Locast running.

Currently, Locast serves 31 markets across the U.S.

The plaintiffs initially filed suit against Locast in July 2019. They believe that Locast, despite its claims as a non-profit, is little different than Aereo, another business that rebroadcast their signals and was ultimately defeated by a Supreme Court decision.

In the letter sent to U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton, the lawyers for the plaintiffs lay out three points as to why Locast does not fall under the protection of the Copyright Act of 1976.

First, they say that the exemption that Locast is using is limited to localized media, like broadcast translators and boosters, that serve viewers in the immediate vicinity, not to services that have a global reach, like they argue Locast’s internet-based service has.

They continue to make their case by arguing Locast cannot prove it does not make secondary transmissions “without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.” The plaintiffs say that Locast uses copyrighted material to attract new members to its organization, as well as to boost its name recognition, collect data and conferring benefits on pay-TV companies that support it.

Lastly, the plaintiffs say that Locast violates the tenet that non-profits may not impose any “charge” on recipients. As mentioned, Locast does not have a monthly subscription fee, but the plaintiffs claim that after an introductory period, Locast interrupt’s a user’s TV stream every 15 minutes on a given channel with an advertisement asking for $5 per month, described as a donation; this is a tactic the plaintiffs compare to "freemium" services. If the user does not pay the $5, they are sent back to Locast’s program guide and must navigate back to the channel they were watching, per the letter. If a user pays, they then receive uninterrupted service for a month.

“[T]he court should grant summary judgement for Plaintiffs on these grounds based on the plain text, basic principles of statutory interpretation and copyright law, and the undisputed facts,” the letter reads.

In its own letter, Sports Fans Coalition NY, which is the parent company of Locast, lays out its defense of why it falls under the protection of the Copyright Act of 1976.

It claims that, as per the law, it is not a cable system, which the plaintiffs do not contest; that no individual is taking commercial advantage of the service because no one owns SFCNY; that most nonprofits partake in commercial activities in order to further their charitable mission; and that more than half of its active users do not make donations.

Both letters are available online. The plaintiffs letter here, and the defendants letter here. 

WASHINGTON—A new bill that would reform digital copyright laws to better reflect the advancements in technology and changing business practices has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) as a first draft discussion legislation.

Dubbed the Digital Copyright Act of 2021 (DCA), the new bill would amend key provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to combat online copyright privacy, improve exemptions available to users for circumventing technological protection measures (TPMs), increase attribution protections to properly credit authors, make the Register of Copyrights a presidential appointee and place the Copyright Office under the Department of Commerce.

DMCA was enacted in 1998. Tillis argues that in its current form, copyright legislation is not able to meet the needs of most copyright owners and individual users. He believes that the DCA will reform the framework of the DMCA and encourage the creation of copyrightable works to protect users and consumers making lawful uses of copyrighted goods and software-enabled products.

“The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in 1998, and while it was revolutionary at the time, the law simply hasn’t kept pace with changes in technology,” said Tillis. “The DMCA is antiquated and is past-due for modernization.”

Tillis invites interested stakeholders to submit redline edits and comments to the DCA discussion draft by March 5. A second discussion draft is expected to be ready in April, which will be used as a basis for further discussion to finalize a piece of legislation that Tillis hopes Congress will vote on.

The full first discussion draft DCA is available to read online. For information on how to comment on it, visit Sen. Tillis’ website.

Tillis was behind another piece of legislation earlier this week, as the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act, which would make the pirating of streamed content a felony, was included in the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress. 

NEW YORK—The free streaming platform Locast, which has argued that its operation as a non-profit allows it to provide its customers with local station broadcasts without paying a copyright fee or getting permission from broadcasters, is being challenged on that claim. Major broadcasters ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are serving as plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed Wednesday, July 31, against Locast, specifically the streaming services founder David R. Goodfriend and the Sports Fan Coalition.

Since its founding in 2018, Locast has reportedly acquired tens of thousands of subscribers and is being offered in 13 cities and to 35 million households, representing 31% of the U.S. market. The basis of Locast’s premise of offering retransmissions of broadcast stations at no cost is from the 1976 Copyright Act, which in part was adopted to support non-profit services.

However, through its lawsuit, the broadcasters are arguing that providers must have a license to retransmit copyrighted television programming. Locast does not and therefore its retransmission of content violates their public performance rights, the lawsuit claims.

“Locast is nothing like the local booster services contemplated by Congress in creating this narrow exemption,” the lawsuit reads. “Locast is not a public service devoted to viewers whose reception is affected by tall buildings. Nor is Locast acting for the benefit of consumers who, according to Locast when promoting its purportedly free service, ‘pay too much.’ Locast is not the Robin Hood of television; instead, Locast’s founding, funding and operations reveal its decidedly commercial purposes.”

“Nor is Locast in any respect limited to enhancing the local reception of over-the-air broadcast signals,” the complaint continues. “Defendants’ Locast service allows registered users to access plaintiffs’ copyrighted programming via internet-connected devices, including television sets, laptops, smartphones and tablets. Defendants streams plaintiffs’ programming over the internet 24 hours a day, every day, without authorization, potentially to anyone in the world with an internet connection. And unlike legitimate booster and translator stations, Locast does not have the permission to broadcast stations it retransmits, in New York or anywhere else.”

In comments reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Gerson Zweifach, a partner of Williams & Connelly, which is representing the plaintiffs, compared Locast to Aereo, the service that allowed for live viewing of OTA television on internet-connected devices that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2014. “Locast is simply Aereo 2.0, a business built illegally on using broadcaster content,” Zweifach said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

In recent months, Locast received a $500,000 investment from AT&T while it has also been expanding into additional markets, including Los Angeles and San Francisco in June.

The NAB came out in support of the lawsuit, releasing a statement credited to NAB Executive Vice President of Communications Dennis Wharton that reads: “NAB wholeheartedly backs today’s lawsuit against Locast. This firm is thinly disguised as a not-for-profit entity that mirrors failed predecessors Aereo and FilmOn in its bid to legitimize the theft of local TV broadcast signals.”

David Hosp, Locast's outside counsel, released the following statement:

"Locast is an independent, non-profit organization that provides a public service retransmitting free over-the-air broadcasts. Its activities are expressly permitted under the Copyright Act. The fact that no broadcasters have previously filed suit for more than a year and a half suggests that they recognize this. We look forward to defending our claims—and the public's right to receive transmissions broadcast over the airwaves—in the litigation."

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.

Just in time for the Super Bowl, online TV station streaming service Locast is announcing its expansion to two new markets--Washington and nearby Baltimore--as it expands its effort to provide free over-the-internet versions of over-the-air TV stations, a model that continues to expand in major markets unchecked by any pushback from broadcasters or TV studios or sports leagues that like to control distribution of their content.

That new Capital connection will put the service in front of lawmakers who hear it from constituents during retrans impasses, particularly ones that happen during must-have sports--football, baseball--playoffs.

In fact, recently, Charter was talking up Locast to its subscribers impacted by retransmission consent impasses. The cable operator told its Spectrum subscribers about the service in markets where Tribune Broadcasting stations had been blacked out and Locast is available, including New York, Houston, Dallas and Denver, before the parties reached a new retrans pact on Friday (Jan. 11).

“Locast is bringing the public mission of free, local broadcast to a new generation of cord-cutters and Internet-only video consumers," said David Goodfriend, chairman of the Sports Fans Coalition, which is behind the no-cost Locast effort. "With the addition of Washington, D.C, and Baltimore, Locast has now provided almost a third of U.S. television households with a way to watch local broadcast TV, even if you do not subscribe to pay-TV or cannot receive an over-the-air signal.”

Locast launched last January in New York, then added Houston and Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Boston and Philly.

To stream the TV signals without payment or permission--though Goodfriend says some independents have sought him out for carriage and provided help--Locast.org (a contraction of “local” and “broadcast”) is relying on Title 17, Chapter 1, section 111 a)5 of the Copyright Act — which, for those without a copy handy, covers exemptions from exclusive rights to broadcast transmissions. It grants that exemption if “the secondary transmission is not made by a cable system, but is made by a governmental body, or other nonprofit organization, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage, and without charge to the recipients of the secondary transmission other than assessments necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service.”

That is the same provision under which TV translators already boost broadcast signals, Goodfriend pointed out when the service launched, saying it should not matter what the technology is. They are a nonprofit taking a broadcast signal and retransmitting it, period, he says.

Locast asks for a donation to help defray expenses, which it says squares with the law, but it can't turn a profit or charge a sub fee.

LUXEMBOURG—In a move that was similar to what happened between U.S. broadcasters and Aereo, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Wednesday, Nov. 29, that copies of off-air broadcasts stored in the cloud for later online access by subscribers are public performances and require the permission of the copyright holders.

To find out more, read the full story on TVT’s sister publication B&C.