In June, Disney and Universal launched a lawsuit against the AI platform, Midjourney. In their filing, they called it a “bottomless pit of plagiarism” that generates “endless unauthorized copies.” In September, Warner Bros. Discovery, along with its various divisions, also sued Midjourney accusing it of producing, displaying, and distributing “unauthorized derivatives” of its intellectual property including Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, and more. Now, Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery have formed a supergroup consolidating their cases.
None of this is surprising, the two court cases are very similar not just in their claims but their arguments as well.
In the filing it says:
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits a court to consolidate actions pending before it if those actions involve a “common question of law or fact” and a court may consider several factors that would affect the litigation including the burden on parties, witnesses, judicial resources, the risk of inconsistent adjudications, the potential for prejudice, and the risk of delaying trial”
the Disney/Universal Action and the Warner Bros. Discovery Action involve similar facts and circumstances, share similar causes of action, would require the Court to make similar determinations of law and fact, and as such, satisfy the requirement for consolidation under Rule 42(a)
In short, there’s a lot of overlap and things might get delayed and be hard to juggle since it’s the same defendant and the similar cases. So, to increase efficiency and decrease duplicating work, procedures, and avoiding “inconsistent adjudications,” they’re asking to combine the cases.
There’s some details that need to work out, like discovery.
Check out the joint stipulation below.
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Source: Graphic Policy
