From Hollywood to the AI Lab
[August 2025 Vol 60]
Is this the Lawsuit That Changes AI Forever?
On June 11, 2025, the world woke up to blockbuster news: Disney and Universal were suing Midjourney for copyright infringement. The Hollywood giants claimed that Midjourney’s AI image generator is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
For context, Midjourney—founded in 2021—has skyrocketed to $500 million ARR with just, believe-it-or-not, around 100 employees, all thanks to its subscription-driven model. While the debate about copyright infringement has been fast and furious in the world of AI, this is the first big lawsuit from major studios.
Midjourney's image generator makes images from typed requests or prompts. Midjourney’s naysayers have pointed out something crucial: its Terms of Service shift legal liability to the users. The Terms of Service transfers the responsibility for any copyright-infringing images produced using its platform onto the user.
Midjourney responded to the lawsuit last week and said that training AI models is quintessentially transformative “fair use,” and that copyright law does not confer absolute control over the use of copyrighted works.
How will this lawsuit unfold? The ruling might not just decide a lawsuit—it could redefine what “original” means in the age of AI.
Winning with Keyword Research in the AI Era
AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity are transforming how marketers do keyword research, bringing brainstorming speed and creativity in seconds. However, they don’t replace traditional SEO tools for real data. AI excels at generating keyword ideas and grouping them into themes, but without verifying search volume, competition, and user relevance, you risk chasing low-value or irrelevant terms.
Curious how to strike the right balance? Read more in the full article.
The Dystopian Warnings of the Godfather of AI
In the 1993 movie Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum's character Ian Malcolm, delivered a line that has an eerie relevance even now!
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should".
Back then, it was about dinosaurs. Now, it is about Artificial Intelligence.
Last week, I watched an interview with Geoffrey Hinton, considered one of the most influential figures in AI. In 2023, he made headlines for leaving his role at Google to speak candidly about the risks of the very technology he helped create. Over the last two years Hinton has been expressing concerns that advanced AI models could outpace human control, spread misinformation at scale, and even pose existential risks.
It is interesting that those who light the way are sometimes the first to warn of the fire ahead!
-Tara Chacko
Key Account Manager