As Disney takes sides in the AI copyright wars, is it worth gambling the House of Mouse on OpenAI?

If you were one of those cynical souls who feared that OpenAI was a bit of a Mickey Mouse company, well, Disney just confirmed your suspicions to the tune of $1 billion - and a major gamble with its brand values. Meanwhile Google has been cast in the role of the AI Wicked Queen with threats of legal action over allege copyright infringement on a massive scale.

Let’s start with Google. According to Disney, whose patience appears to have run out, Google’s AI tech has been tapping into characters from the likes of Frozen, The Lion King, Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Lilo & Stitch among other Disney brands, as well as franchises such as Star Wars, The Simpsons, and Marvel’s Avengers and Spider-Man.

In a cease-and-desist letter to Google’s General Counsel, Disney alleged:

Google is infringing Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale, by copying a ...