Charition.ai received a letter of suspension and denial from Disney, urging the chatbot company to remove Disney characters from among the millions of AI peers on the platform, Variety reports.
The company allows users to generate AI chatbots, ranging from real people like Elon Musk to fictional characters like Hermionene Granger, as well as original works of their own. These chatbots are highly unfiltered – especially when it was scary, the family sued the characters. After a chatbot inspired by a Game of Thrones character whose teenage son is said to have encouraged suicide.
“The characters are free to oust Disney’s famous marks and brand goodwill, blatantly infringing Disney’s copyright,” the Disney lawyer wrote in a letter of suspension. “What’s worse, character infringing chatbots are known to be sexually exploitative in some cases or harmful and dangerous to children.
Currently, Charition.ai searches Disney-owned characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Captain America, and Luke Skywalker. However, other characters in Disney-copyrighted media still appear in search results such as Percy Jackson and Hanna Montana.
