Disney (DIS) has sent a cease-and-desist notice to Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) and has alleged the tech giant’s AI systems have been involved in copyright infringement of its characters on a “massive scale,” according to multiple media reports on Thursday.
The report immediately follows the media conglomerate’s monumental announcement of a $1B equity investment and a three-year licensing pact with ChatGPT owner OpenAI (OPENAI).
In a letter from law firm Jenner & Block, Disney has accused Google of “copying a large corpus of Disney’s copyrighted works without authorization to train and develop generative artificial intelligence (‘AI’) models and services.”
These AI models and services commercially exploit and distribute copies of Disney’s protected works to consumers in violation of copyrights, the letter reads.
Disney has asked Google to stop displaying infringed content on its platforms, including through “YouTube’s mobile app, YouTube Shorts, and YouTube,” and has asked it to put technological guardrails in its AI services to prevent such copyright violation.
“Here, Google’s conduct is particularly harmful because Google is leveraging its market dominance across multiple channels to distribute its AI Services and using the draw and popularity of infringed copyrighted works to help maintain that dominance,” Disney reportedly said in the letter.
Including Google, Disney has sent a similar notice to Meta Platforms (META), but the company has notably filed lawsuits against three AI startups and teamed up with rivals Warner Bros. (WBD) and Universal (CMCSA) in its legal battle to stop IP infringement.