Entertainment giants Disney and Universal have filed a joint lawsuit against artificial intelligence firm Midjourney, accusing it of extensive copyright infringement tied to its AI-powered image generator.
In the complaint submitted Wednesday in a Los Angeles federal court, the studios allege that Midjourney used copyrighted characters from major franchises including Star Wars, Marvel, The Simpsons, The Lion King, Shrek, and Boss Baby to train its model without authorization and that it now enables users to generate derivative images based on those characters.
Hollywood joins AI copyright battle
While several lawsuits have already been filed by authors and visual artists over alleged unauthorized AI training data, this case marks the first major legal offensive from top-tier film studios against an AI company.
The studios argue that Midjourney’s platform allows subscribers to prompt its image generator to create visuals that directly mimic protected intellectual property. The lawsuit claims that these outputs are then distributed online with no investment by Midjourney in their original creation.
Studios say requests to Midjourney were ignored
According to the filing, Disney said it attempted to resolve the matter out of court by urging Midjourney to implement safeguards that would prevent the generation of copyrighted images. However, those calls allegedly went unheeded.
“Instead, Midjourney has chosen to double down on its unlawful actions,” Disney said, pointing to the launch of newer versions of the image generator and a forthcoming commercial AI video tool.
The lawsuit notes that Midjourney already deploys filters to block violent or explicit content, implying it could similarly restrict copyrighted content if it chose to.
Seeking court intervention
The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to halt Midjourney’s image and video generation services until copyright safeguards are put in place. They also request court oversight to ensure the prevention of further infringement.
“Midjourney controls what copyrighted content it selects, copies, and includes in its Image Service,” the suit reads. “It has the means to implement protection measures to prevent the ongoing copying, public display, and distribution of plaintiffs’ works.”
Midjourney has not yet made any public statement on the matter.
Wider legal reckoning for AI firms
This lawsuit adds to a growing list of copyright challenges facing AI developers. In March, 12 U.S. lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft were consolidated in New York. Last August, three authors filed a class-action suit against Anthropic, accusing the company of training its Claude language models on pirated literary content.
The studios’ lawsuit signals that the legal stakes for AI developers are rising as the entertainment industry moves to protect its intellectual property from automated reproduction.
