Then there’s the other way: With a studio legal victory. The AI models are deemed prohibited from training on this content — this “fair use,” a judge says, ain’t that. In such a scenario we are ensured that for the indefinite future what gets generated in the way of Hollywood images comes from Hollywood and Hollywood alone.

Disney and Universal are the first major Hollywood studios to file copyright infringement lawsuits against AI companies, marking a pivotal moment in the ongoing fight by artists, newspapers and content makers to stop AI firms from using their work as training data.

Disney and Universal have together filed a lawsuit against Midjourney, the company behind one of the most popular AI image generators, over rip offs of characters and art styles from the likes of The Simpsons and Star Wars.