You’ve probably seen dozens of montages on social media emulating hypothetical Pixar movies. With the use of artificial intelligence, specifically Bing, creating a “fake poster” is as easy as inputting whatever you want to appear in that image into the search engine. Literally. However, this stylistic “usurpation” has ended up being quite a problem for Microsoft.
The virality of these posters has once again highlighted a major issue surrounding the use of artificial intelligence: copyright. Because we all know that plundering the work of small artists is fine, but hey, don’t you dare touch the work of the big ones.
In many of these montages created with Bing Image Creator, the Disney logo appeared prominently. As expected, the situation has led Microsoft to ban the term “Disney” in its search engine. If you try to enter it, Bing will warn you that your description or prompt goes against its policies. But this doesn’t mean you can’t continue creating Disney posters.
Even though the tool has been adjusted to prevent the use of the brand in prompts, Bing Image Creator can still generate images with the same artistic style. The most visible change you’ll find is that the Disney logo will no longer appear in the resulting posters. Occasionally, there might be a mishmash that attempts to resemble the logo but doesn’t quite achieve it. It’s a simple yet effective solution, for sure.
The apparent ease with which Bing Image Creator can recreate images so similar to Pixar’s style has raised some questions: Has the generative model of Bing Image Creator been trained with Disney material? And if so, was the company’s permission obtained? As far as Microsoft is concerned, they themselves have assumed legal responsibility for user generations, with all that entails.
