Disney and Universal Studios Sue Midjourney Over AI-Generated Images: 'It's a Bottomless Pit of Plagiarism'
Walt Disney and Universal Studios have filed a federal copyright lawsuit against artificial intelligence image generator Midjourney, marking the first major legal action by Hollywood studios against an AI company.
The entertainment giants filed their complaint Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, describing Midjourney as a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" for creating unauthorized reproductions of their copyrighted characters.
In the 110-page lawsuit, the studios allege that the San Francisco-based AI company has generated "countless" unauthorized copies of iconic characters including Darth Vader from Star Wars, Elsa from Frozen, and Minions from Despicable Me without permission. Additionally, Disney and Universal claim that Midjourney's AI models were trained using their copyrighted materials and that the service allows users to create images featuring their beloved characters, which is in violation of copyright law.
"Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism," the lawsuit read.
According to the complaint, Disney and Universal had previously contacted Midjourney requesting the company stop infringing on their copyrighted materials or implement technical safeguards to prevent such violations. However, the studios allege that Midjourney dismissed these appeals and instead continued launching new versions of its AI service with increasingly sophisticated infringing capabilities.
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The studios are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent Midjourney from reproducing their works and are pursuing unspecified damages.
It is not the first time an AI company has been sued over copyright infringement. The music industry has been particularly aggressive, with Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Records filing lawsuits against AI music generators Suno and Udio, seeking up to $150,000 per infringed work for allegedly training their systems on copyrighted sound recordings "on an almost unimaginable scale." Getty Images has pursued parallel lawsuits against Stability AI in both the UK and the US, alleging the company unlawfully scraped 12 million images to train its Stable Diffusion system.
News publishers have also joined the legal battle, with The New York Times successfully advancing its copyright case against OpenAI and Microsoft, while fourteen major publishers including Condé Nast, The Atlantic, and Forbes have sued Canadian AI firm Cohere for systematic copyright infringement.
Midjourney, founded in 2021 by David Holz, generates images from text prompts and operates through paid subscriptions. The company reportedly earned $300 million in revenue last year and has attracted 21 million subscribers. The AI platform gained popularity through its Discord server, which has over 16 million registered users.
