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Will Movie Studios Sue Midjourney?
Hollywood must decide to sue or score big, Microsoft's new AI ad tool, and more...
Snack Prompt
January 12, 2024
Today’s Menu 🥠
Movie Studios: Sue Or Score Big With AI
Microsoft Launches New Gen AI Ad Tool
5 Trending AI-Powered Tools
Sad Characters Eating BBQ Chips
Read Time: 3.5 minutes
Fast Snacks 🥡
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Hollywood Dilemma
Movie Studios Must Decide: Sue Or Score Big 🍿
Last year, Hollywood took stock of the potential, and dangers, of generative artificial intelligence. As use of the human-mimicking chatbots evolved into a sticking point in the strikes, creators took to the courts, accusing AI firms of mass-scale copyright infringement after their works were allegedly used as training materials.
In the backdrop of these legal volleys, a question stands out: Why haven’t any major studios sued to protect their intellectual property like other rights holders?
One answer involves the possibility that they’re still negotiating with AI companies, with the aim of striking a licensing deal.
A more interesting scenario involves the potential that they want to harness the tools for themselves to cut labor costs.
Studios could now have some of the proof they need to get off the sidelines, with AI image generators increasingly returning nearly exact replicas of frames from films.
When prompted with “Thanos Infinity War,” Midjourney returns an image of the purple-skinned villain in a frame that appears to be straight from the Marvel movie itself.
A shot of Tom Cruise outside of a fighter jet, from Top Gun: Maverick, is similarly produced if the tool is asked for a frame from the film.
[Left] Real stills from Infinity War & Top Gun. [Right] Midjourney "creations".
And it seems like Midjourney can replicate almost any style, generating startlingly accurate characters from a wide range of titles.
It’s not difficult to imagine a future in which some moviegoers forgo watching traditional films in favor of creating their own titles using AI tools, which borrow heavily from studios’ intellectual property.
Sarah Odenkirk, an IP lawyer and partner at Cowan DeBaets, stresses, “It’s clear this implicates that entire works are being used wholesale without permission.”
Scott Sholder, an intellectual property lawyer repping The Authors Guild in a suit against OpenAI, adds, “This tells me that copyrighted materials were used to train the models, and there are not any sufficient guardrails in place to prevent output of infringing content.”
Yet existing suits have somewhat faltered in the early stages of litigation.
AI models are black boxes.
This is a feature, not a bug.
Movie stills compared with Midjourney “creations”.
Given that the contents of the training materials remain largely unknown to the public, there’s no smoking gun to prove that a specific work was used in a imagebot’s creation.
A suit from Sarah Silverman against Meta was similarly dismissed on the basis that she didn’t offer evidence that any of the outputs “could be understood as recasting, transforming, or adapting the plaintiffs’ books,” per a ruling from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria.
“It’s a catch-22,” says Recording Industry Association of America chief executive Mitch Glazier. “You can’t bring a claim unless you have records, but you can’t get discovery until you bring a claim. We need some sort of process before a lawsuit to see if material was copied.”
If they sue, major studios could force AI companies to the bargaining table to get leverage. Most creators who’ve already filed suits have signaled they’re willing to take licensing deals.
If they go to the negotiation table, we could be seeing million [or billion] dollar deals pumped out left and right.
What do you think will happen?
Together With LinearB:
How Is GenAI Impacting Software Development?
Explore the metrics showing AI’s impact, unpack best practices for leveraging AI in software development, and measure the ROI of your own GenAI initiative.
This workshop with ThoughtWorks' Global Lead for AI Software Delivery and LinearB includes:
📊 Data Insights from LinearB’s new GenAI Impact Report
🗣️ Case Studies into how others are already doing it
🔎 Impact Measures: adoption, benefits & risk metrics
✅ Live Demo: How you can measure the impact of your GenAI initiative today
Join the conversation on January 25th or 30th.
Test Your Skill
Snack Quiz: Choose The Real Image 🔍
Can you tell which image is real? |
Microsoft Innovation
New Generative AI Ad Creation Tool
Microsoft has announced that it’s updating its Retail Media tool with a new “Creative Studio” element, which will enable users to create totally new ads, in new formats, all via conversational AI prompts.
As explained by Microsoft:
“With this creative management solution, retailers and advertisers can boost creativity and productivity by generating banner creative with ease, thereby improving banner ads’ participation, performance, and ultimately revenue. With the easy-to-use AI-powered tools, retailers can also support the full breadth of their advertisers, especially the smaller ones who may not be equipped to run effective banner campaigns, thereby unleashing the full potential of banner ads’ growth in retail media programs.”
The tool is able to create ads based on just a product URL, with users then able to further customize the creative for different channels.
Microsoft says that the AI-generated ads will automatically align with each retailer’s style guide, while you’ll also be able to customize your ads through further prompts.
You can also update and emphasize selected words and phrases, crop and clean up backgrounds, basically you’ll be able to modify all your ad elements, all based on text prompts.
It could be a handy tool for building your campaigns, and optimizing your ads for delivery on different platforms, adding another element to Microsoft’s expanding ad creation suite.
More Tools For The Toolbox
5 Trending AI-Powered Tools
Uizard: Generates prototypes, mockups, and designs wireframes with the use of AI.
Looka: helps you design a logo and build a brand you love using AI.
Magic Studios: an AI-powered platform that enables users to design professional-grade graphics in a matter of minutes.
Background Blur: Upload, download with the background automatically blurred.
Magic: An optimization tool that upgrades your AI workflow with integrations with Bard, Claude, Midjourney, & more.
They Don’t Know It’s Friday
Sad Characters Eating The Best Flavor Of Chips
Snack Quiz Results
Correct Answer ✔️
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