Disney cracked down on Microsoft's AI image creator system after users created posters featuring their dogs as the stars of Pixar Studio films, violating the media company's intellectual property.

It appears the Walt Disney Co pressed Microsoft to limit the creation of images relating to its name and image once it discovered that the technology company's DALL-E-powered image generator, launched in October 2023, had been used to produce images incorporating the Disney logo.

Earlier reports had shown that Bing Image Creator appeared to have few guardrails and could be used more or less at will, freely generating images such as Disney's Mickey Mouse wearing bomb-covered vests and perpetrating the 9/11 terror attacks. 

Commentators speculated there may also be an 'unresolved issue' concerning whether Disney’s content was used to train the AI models, and over reproducing copyrighted material.