'Piracy is piracy': Disney and Universal sue AI image generator Midjourney in a Hollywood first

Yesterday, Disney and Universal Studios (which is owned by NBCUniversal) sued the generative AI company Midjourney in U.S. district court in Los Angeles. The 143-page filing alleges that the AI image generator was trained on countless works created by these Hollywood studios, and now “functions as a virtual vending machine, generating endless unauthorized copies of Disney’s and Universal’s copyrighted works.”

The suit also names names. That is, Buzz Lightyear, Boss Baby, Shrek, Homer Simpson, Iron Man, Elsa, and Darth Vader — all characters that are incredibly valuable to these studios, and all characters that Midjourney generates easily and frequently when prompted. The characters are pulled from the plaintiffs’ properties like Marvel, Dreamworks, Pixar, and Walt Disney Animation Studios.

The filing includes several examples of Midjourney-created images; above are Midjourney-created Minions, Darth Vader, Boss Baby, and Shrek.

The suit also alleges that Midjourney plans to further encroach on the studios’ businesses by entering the AI video generation space this month. The company has been teasing these video features, but the studios’ lawyers appear to have reviewed the product before launch and say they believe it will similarly allow users to distribute videos of these characters.

In the lawsuit, Disney reveals that it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Midjourney, which the company confirmed it was reviewing in December 2024. Since then, the studios allege Midjourney has not responded further or made any clear changes to its products to curb the production of these characters. While the image generator has moderation filters for sexual, violent, and hateful content, the studios argue no significant effort has been made to block or minimize the creation of copyrighted infringing content using similar techniques.

The companies point to Midjourney’s forecasted $300 million in revenue last year to bolster their case , arguing that the AI image generator is in competition with these studios and siphoning off potential earnings. The studios are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work as well as a court order restraining Midjourney from continuing to copy, display, or distribute its copyrighted works.

AI image generators have courted controversy and claims of copyright infringement since they first made a splash in 2022. After the launch of Stable Diffusion in 2022, I reported on how Japanese anime studios and animators, and regulators, responded to the tool’s ability to imitate specific hand-drawn styles. More recently, copyright infringement allegations surfaced after ChatGPT’s latest image generation feature was used across social media to copy the style of Studio Ghibli animated films. In a nod to the viral trend, Sam Altman changed his profile picture on X to a Ghiblified avatar.

In the U.S., the filing marks the first major lawsuit by Hollywood against an AI company. While the news publishing industry’s ongoing copyright litigation against companies like OpenAI is not referenced in the filing, these parallel industry battles will undoubtedly inform one another in court.