3 Count: AI Turnabout

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1: Midjourney Seeks to Reveal Studios’ Use of AI in High-Stakes Copyright Battle

First off today, Gene Maddaus at Variety reports that Midjourney is trying to force the major movie studios to reveal how they use AI, saying that the plaintiffs are doing the very same thing that they are trying to sue them for.

The studios sued Midjourney for copyright infringement in late 2025. They alleged that Midjourney illegally used their works and characters to train its AI models. Midjourney has argued that the training was protected under fair use.

Previously, Midjourney asked the court for discovery related to the studios’ use of AI. The magistrate judge overseeing the case limited the scope of the request, saying that the studios would only need to reveal public-facing uses of AI. Midjourney is now asking the court to reconsider that decision, saying that the studios are engaging in the same behavior that they are trying to sue them for.

2: Alleged Operators of HiAnime Piracy Ring Arrested in Vietnam with U.S. Support

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at TorrentFreak writes that Vietnamese authorities have arrested the alleged operators of a HiAnime piracy ring, which allegedly involved more than 100 pirated websites and earned $12.8 million in ad revenue.

HiAnime has been in the crosshairs of rightsholders for many years, even appearing in the US Trade Representative’s 2026 Notorious Markets report. The US government also identified Vietnam as a “priority foreign country” in part due to the network. 

Now the two countries have cooperated, and that has resulted in the arrest of seven individuals who are suspected of operating the network. The US government is pushing for “deterrent prison sentences” for the alleged operators, noting that similar cases in the country have only resulted in suspended sentences.

3: PS5 Fans Flock to Piracy as Sony Plans to Ditch Physical Games

Finally today, Patricia Hernandez at Polygon reports that Sony recently announced that it would be phasing out physical game sales by the end of 2028. That has prompted many users to take a renewed interest in jailbreaking their PS5 consoles, for both legitimate and copyright infringement reasons.

According to Google, the number of searches for terms such as “PS5 jailbreak” shot up after the announcement. Similarly, the PS5 jailbreak subreddit has seen more than 10,000 new visitors in the past week.

Sony has a lengthy history of shuttering its various game stores and even removing purchased content from users libraries. As such, the loss of physical media has caused many users to worry about the future of their purchases and seeking ways to preserve them.

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