The discovery battle covered by TechCrunch AI is less about the legal merits and more about strategic theater. Midjourney's push to see internal studio AI tools appears designed to establish a 'they do it too' defense, attempting to normalize the contested practice of training on unlicensed content. If successful, this could shift the courtroom debate from abstract legal principles to messy, real-world industry customs, potentially weakening the studios' moral high ground.
However, even if internal use is revealed, it may not constitute a legal defense so much as a public relations one, framing the dispute as hypocrisy rather than settling the underlying copyright question.