Has OpenAI banned Ghibli-style AI images? ChatGPT image generation tool raises copyright concerns

Though OpenAI's newest native image generator hasn't yet been sued, copyright infringement fears are building. Other text-to-image models such as Midjourney and Stability AI have faced lawsuits in the past for creating unauthorized derivative works.

Google's Gemini model shares same fears

A comparable native image creation feature launched by Google with Gemini's new model was employed to strip copyright warnings from images, raising concerns regarding copyright infringement.

Seems like Ghibli has been banned?

I've only made a few...honest pic.twitter.com/l9uOnsZFEW

— James Blackwell (@jwblackwell) March 27, 2025

OpenAI's attempts to restrict image creation

OpenAI recently restricted the number of images that paid users could create using ChatGPT following the Ghibli image trend. The action was meant to avert server congestion and provide effective service.

Just found out that Ghibli-style AI art is banned on ChatGPT 4o… because I am lagging behind the trend all because I don’t have ChatGPT Premium

Lol 🤣 pic.twitter.com/me9sbBSwAQ

— Adwait Keshari (@AdwaitKeshari) March 28, 2025

Rate limits implemented to restrict image creation

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, revealed that rate limits on image generation would be introduced due to server overload issues. The free version of ChatGPT will shortly be capped at three images per day.