--- title: "Disney Has No Comment on Microsoft’s AI Generating Pictures of Mickey Mouse Doing 9/11" description: "Apparently, Disney — a company famous for its fierce defense of its IP — doesn't have a squeak to say about AI-generated Terrorist Mickey." date: "2023-10-06" modified: "2023-10-06" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/disney-microsoft-ai-mickey-mouse" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "bing ai" - "copyright" --- # Disney Has No Comment on Microsoft’s AI Generating Pictures of Mickey Mouse Doing 9/11 ![Apparently, Disney — a company famous for its fierce defense of its IP — doesn't have a squeak to say about AI-generated Terrorist Mickey.]() *\Image: Microsoft\* People have been using Microsoft Bing AI's new image-generating feature to cook up image upon image of cutesey creatures — ranging from Nintendo's Kirby to beloved Disney rodent Mickey Mouse — perpetrating the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center. So far, Disney — a company that in 1998 pushed so hard for Congress to change existing copyright laws that the resulting legislation was mockingly referred to as "[The Mickey Mouse Protection Act]()" — doesn't have a squeak to say about it. Our emails have gone unanswered, leading us to believe that the media giant has no comment on the matter. This is unfortunate, as we're personally dying to get their take on AI-generated terrorist Mickey. To back up for a moment: [Microsoft launched the new Bing "Image Creator" feature]() — which is powered by OpenAI's DALL-E 3 image generator — on Tuesday. Netizens immediately flocked to the app, eager to test the image generator's guardrails. As [*404 Media's* Samantha Cole]() quickly discovered, those guardrails are mind-blowingly threadbare. While it's not possible to specifically prompt the AI to generate imagery of, say, "Mickey Mouse hijacking a plane and flying it into the Twin Towers" or "Mickey Mouse committing 9/11 attack," you can easily generate images of "Mickey Mouse sitting in the cockpit of a plane, flying toward two tall skyscrapers," as Cole discovered. Cole wasn't the only person to drum up Terrorist Mickey images. Others were able to get a [handgun, a second plane, and explosions]() into the AI-spun imagery of Mickey flying a plane into two tall buildings that look very much like the Twin Towers, while others still were able to get the AI to whip up photos of Disney's cherished main character [wearing a bomb-lined suicide vest](). Of course, if Disney had at any point given OpenAI permission to use its vast media treasure trove for AI training purposes, that would be one thing. But considering the weight that the ultra-powerful Disney tends to throw into [efforts to protect its IP](), not to mention the fact that Disney is [reported]() to have injected code across its websites to keep OpenAI's web-crawling-slash-scraping GPTBot from trawling its platforms for data, that feels unlikely (we asked, but like we said, received no reply.) And if Bing's Image Creator is able to churn out pictures of Mickey Mouse at all, it likely means that its datasets contain copyrighted material — either official Disney-produced AI imagery, or unofficial Mickey imagery that may have been a copyright violation in its own right. (Not even Steamboat Willie, Disney's oldest iteration of Mickey, has entered the public domain; he's not fair game [until 2024]().) In addition to revealing the massive holes in the AI's guardrails, the 9/11 thing is more or less an insult to copyright injury. (We also emailed Nickelodeon and Nintendo to inquire about Bing Image Creator-generated [9/11 SpongeBob and 9/11 Kirby](), characters that are also copyrighted by their respective owners, but those messages have gone unreturned as well.) Of course, legal conversations may be happening behind closed doors. And it is worthwhile to ponder a court battle — Disney vs. Microsoft and OpenAI would be a Goliath vs. Goliath fight, and could well become the precedent-setting copyright battle of the AI age. While [litigation from authors]() presumably has OpenAI at least slightly nervous, Disney's legal track record would represent a substantial escalation. In any case, whilst we wait, Disney — or Nickelodeon, or Nintendo — if you read this, feel free to send us a word or two to offer regarding AI, copyright, potential intellectual property theft, and the ethics of Terrorism Mickey. Otherwise, we're chalking this one up to "no comment." **More on AI and copyright:** [*Suing Writers Seethe at Openai's Excuses in Court*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()