Midjourney opens the web experience to all amid controversy over unauthorized use of artists’ works – Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

AI companies In the middle of the journey has announced that its web experience is now available to everyone, despite ongoing controversy over the unauthorized use of artists’ works.

What happened: Midjourney publicly announced that the web experience is now open to everyone and is temporarily offering free trials.

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

David Holz, founder of Midjourney, wrote on Discord that the site will allow free trials of up to 25 images. New users can log in with either their Google or Discord credentials and merge both accounts.

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Why it is important: 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 the AI ​​program. This sparked widespread backlash as it included a range of artists from contemporary and modern blue-chip names to successful illustrators for companies such as Hasbro And Nintendoincluding a six-year-old child.

The controversy escalated when a lawsuit was filed accusing Midjourney and other AI companies of unauthorized use of copyrighted works. The companies were accused of using a list of over 4,700 artists, including well-known personalities such as Norman Rockwell And Wes Anderson, to train their generative AI systems to produce works of art.

The AI ​​art generator industry is under scrutiny, with other companies like Microsoft Corporation MSFT And Elon Musk –xAI’s chatbot Grok also came under fire. Microsoft launched its AI image generation tool Microsoft Designer as a free iOS app, while Grok caused controversy by generating offensive and bizarre images of politicians and celebrities.

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Image by Wesley Fryer via Shutterstock

This story was created with Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari