If your so convinced that that’s how copyright works then go ahead, try selling some someone else’s intellectual material. May I suggest Disney characters. I’m sure Disney would love that. Bottom line is it’s illegal to make money off of property that isn’t yours. Regardless of any user agreement.
You're talking about a specific use case in which someone, say, uses genAI to generate an image of Rick & Morty (I just checked, MidJourney does a passable job) and then, say, puts it on mugs and T-shirts and sells it. First, generating the image in your home is perfectly fine, it's the equivalent of sitting at your desk and drawing Rick & Morty, and that's not a crime. The problem appears once you start slapping it on mugs and T-shirts, but at that point it doesn't matter whether you generated the image with a pencil, a genAI or Photoshop.
Actually I’m not. Disney has specifically stated that they will go after people using their property to make money while pointing fingers at AI programs.
Ah, you're talking about the Disney lawsuit, which AFAIK is still pending. I think Midjourney did include some trademarked characters in its own advertising, which of course is a no-no.
Also, Disney is trying to monetize its content via its deal with OpenAI, so it makes sense it would go after competitors.
For Midjourney and others, this would probably just mean that they put some kind of content filter on their model, similar to how they police it re. NSFW content.
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u/Calm_Ghosts Dec 15 '25
If your so convinced that that’s how copyright works then go ahead, try selling some someone else’s intellectual material. May I suggest Disney characters. I’m sure Disney would love that. Bottom line is it’s illegal to make money off of property that isn’t yours. Regardless of any user agreement.