The character. Ai, a platform that allows users to discuss with characters fueled by AI or to create their own, deleted the Disney characters protected by copyright from his service after receiving a letter to stop and abstain from the media giant for unauthorized use.
“The character.ai has chosen to reproduce, monetize and systematically exploit the Disney characters, who are protected by copyright and marks, without any authorization, in a way that is anathema with the very essence of the brand and Disney inheritance”, the letter, which was reported for the first time by Axios, declares. “Disney will not allow your business to divert its characters, damage its marks or harm its copyright and / or brands. The character. Driving is obvious and must stop immediately. ”
The letter also alleges that “counterfeit chatbots are known, in some cases, to be sexually operators and otherwise harmful and dangerous for children, offensive Disney consumers and extraordinarily damaging the reputation and goodwill of Disney.” The complaint is a reference to a recent report from the Parenstogethether Action and Heat initiative, which has found the character. Acute chatbots have engaged in “grooming and sexual exploitation” and “emotional manipulation” during conversations with accounts registered with children.
“If we do not receive a written confirmation of you that the character will cease the LANHAM law and the copyright violations described above, Disney will take all the means necessary to preserve and protect the intellectual property of Disney, the brands, the good will and the reputation”, concludes the letter.
A character spokesperson told Thewrap that the characters had since been deleted. While noting that all the characters in his service are generated by users, the character. Ai said that it was always up to rights holders to decide how people can interact with their IP.
“We respond quickly to requests to delete the content that Rightsholders brings us back,” added the spokesperson. “We want to associate ourselves with industry and right-handers to allow them to bring their characters to our platform. Our goal is to give the owners IP the tools to create controlled, engaging and income generators from deep fandom for their characters and stories, expanding their scope using our new interactive format.”
The action against the character. AI marks Disney’s last repression to protect his IP.
In June, Disney and Universal continued the company IA Midjourney for copyright violation, alleging that he “obviously” snatched characters, notably Homer Simpson, the Minions and Elsa of “Frozen” by allowing users to create almost exact correspondences with his image generation tool. In September, Warner Bros. Discovery joined his competitors with his own trial against Midjourney, alleging a similar scam of characters like Bugs Bunny, Batman, Scooby-Doo and Rick & Morty.
The trial against Midjourney came after the New York Times continued Openai for having used its content to form the chatpt without the consent of the newspaper. Other points of sale, such as the New York Daily News, also continued Openai for having used their items without authorization. At the other end, several media companies, including News Corp., Vox Media and Reddit, have concluded partnerships with Openai.
