Midjourney bans all Stability AI employees over alleged data scraping

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A cartoon illustration shows a shadowy figure carrying off a red directory folder, which has a surprised-looking face on its side.
Stability.AI CEO Emad Mostaque is currently investigating the situation. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala
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Midjourney says it has banned Stability AI staffers from using its service, accusing employees at the rival generative AI company of causing a systems outage earlier this month during an attempt to scrape Midjourney’s data.

Midjourney posted an update to its Discord server on March 2nd that acknowledged an extended server outage was preventing generated images from appearing in user galleries. In a summary of a business update call on March 6th, Midjourney claimed that “botnet-like activity from paid accounts” — which the company specifically links to Stability AI employees — was behind the outage.

Image: Midjourney / Discord
These meeting notes were posted to Midjourney’s official Discord channel following an…

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