Midjourney Opens Web Experience To All Amid Controversy Over Unauthorized Use Of Artists' Work

AI firm Midjourney has announced that its web experience is now available to everyone, amid ongoing controversy over unauthorized use of artists’ work.

What Happened: Midjourney made a public announcement stating that its web experience is now open to everyone and is temporarily offering free trials.

In a video posted on X, Midjourney explained how to use the tool on its website. The new website comes after years of being confined to Discord and allowing selective accessibility for an “alpha” website for those who generate a certain number of images.

David Holz, founder of Midjourney, wrote on Discord that the website will allow free trials of up to 25 images. New users can sign up using either their Google or Discord logins and can merge both accounts.

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Why It Matters: This announcement comes in the wake of a series of controversies that have plagued the company. Earlier this year, Midjourney was embroiled in a scandal when a Google Sheet surfaced, revealing a list of artists whose work was used to train its AI program. This sparked widespread backlash as it included a range of artists, from contemporary and modern blue-chip names to successful illustrators for corporations like Hasbro and Nintendo, even including a six-year-old child.

The controversy escalated when a lawsuit was filed accusing Midjourney and other AI firms of unauthorized use of copyrighted works. The companies were alleged to have used a list of over 4,700 artists, including renowned figures like Norman Rockwell and Wes Anderson, to train their generative AI systems to produce artwork.

The AI art generator industry has been under scrutiny, with other companies such as Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Elon Musk-led xAI’s chatbot Grok also facing criticism. Microsoft launched its AI image generation tool, Microsoft Designer, as a free iOS app, while Grok stirred controversy by generating offensive and bizarre images of political figures and celebrities.

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Image by Wesley Fryer via Shutterstock

This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari