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The Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal sued AI company Midjourney on Wednesday, alleging that its image-generating service “functions as a virtual vending machine” that generates “endless unauthorized copies” of copyrighted works.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is the first major legal action that studios have taken against an AI company. Axios first reported on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states, “By helping itself to Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and then distributing images (and soon videos) that blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters—without investing a penny in their creation—Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing.”
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Disney and NBCU are seeking unspecified maximum statutory damages, an accounting of Midjourney’s proceeds from the alleged infringement, and injunctive relief.
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As an example, the lawsuit states that if a Midjourney subscriber “submits a simple text prompt requesting an image of the character Darth Vader in a particular setting or doing a particular action, Midjourney obliges by generating and displaying a high quality, downloadable image featuring Disney’s copyrighted Darth Vader character.” The same is true of NBCU’s Minions character. The lawsuit features the images, as well as a number of other examples.
Representatives for Midjourney did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Read Disney and NBCUniversal’s AI lawsuit.
The lawsuit also delves into the use of copyrighted material to train AI models, a practice that is the source of fierce debate between major AI firms and content companies. The lawsuit noted that Midjourney has been teasing a new video service, “meaning that Midjourney is very likely already infringing Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.”
As Congress has weighed new laws to regulate AI, the official position of the Motion Picture Association has been that existing copyright law is sufficient to address a new front in the piracy wars. The MPA has emphasized the need for flexibility, including leaving up to the court’s to decide whether the use of copyrighted content in training models is a “fair use.”
The New York Times and book authors, among others, have sued AI companies over the use of copyrighted material. But the studios suggest that Midjourney’s use of copyrighted works was more obvious.
“This case is not a ‘close call’ under well-settled copyright law,” the lawsuit states, adding that Midjourney “sells subscriptions to consumers so that they can view and download copies of Plaintiffs’ valuable copyrighted characters. That is textbook copyright infringement.”
The studios claim that Midjourney could implement protection measures to prevent its image service from generating infringing images, but it has not done so. The studios said that before the legal action they asked Midjourney to take such action, but it instead has “continued to release new versions of its Image Service, which, according to Midjourney’s founder and CEO, have even higher quality infringing images.”
Horacio Gutierrez, senior executive vice president and chief legal and compliance officer for Disney, said in a statement, “Our world-class IP is built on decades of financial investment, creativity and innovation—investments only made possible by the incentives embodied in copyright law that give creators the exclusive right to profit from their works. We are bullish on the promise of AI technology and optimistic about how it can be used responsibly as a tool to further human creativity. But piracy is piracy, and the fact that it’s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing.”
Kim Harris, executive vice president and general counsel of NBCU, said, “Creativity is the cornerstone of our business. We are bringing this action today to protect the hard work of all the artists whose work entertains and inspires us and the significant investment we make in our content. Theft is theft regardless of the technology used, and this action involves blatant infringement of our copyrights.”
The studios are represented by David Singer, Julie Shepard and Lauren Greene of Jenner & Block.
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Ronnie Reagan
on June 11, 2025 1:51 pm
Keep going down the AI road and everyone but a room full of thieves will have jobs. This includes all the execs, talent, agents, staff who think they might be ok.
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Anonymous
on June 11, 2025 11:24 am
The development of AI will involve more copyright battles because Disney and Universal want to be the ones offering AI tools for making your own Shrek or Star Wars adventure. Why should Midjourney be the one to profit? The AI tools can be licensed to Disney+ and Peacock.
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No One But Everyone
on June 11, 2025 11:13 am
Disney and NBCU should REALLY check out Deep Voodoo. That’s Matt Stone and Trey Parkers AI company. They’ve been doing that since 2020.
They fired all the people that know how it was set up but it’s 100% they have been exploiting copyright laws for years for their AI Training.
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Anonymous
on June 11, 2025 10:23 am
Irony, the companies selling AI stuff dont like their stuff being used for AI.
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Anonymous
on June 11, 2025 11:30 am
They don’t like their IP being used for AI productions if they don’t get their cut. And they also want control over how its used because there are going to be so many un-brand-safe productions using that IP, particularly Disney. Not sure they can wield total control but at least they can route the AI fun to their own platforms, where they can charge a subscription.
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Tazzman
on June 11, 2025 9:38 am
AI art if theft. Compensate artists or gain permission to use their works or see you in court.
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Anonymous
on June 11, 2025 11:28 am
The studios own the rights to Star Wars, Shrek etc look & feel. They want a monopoly on anyone’s ability to make AI spinoffs of their IP because that’s worth serious money.
Anything they don’t happen to own, they won’t offer. Don’t have Harrison Ford’s voice? Then don’t offer Han Solo as an AI character. They have James Earl Jones’ voice rights. So promote Darth Vader as an AI character instead.
Disney wants to boost the price for Disney+ by offering an “AI tools” tier where subscribers generate personalized content using Disney IP. This will be the main way AI generates profit, rather by being used to streamline non-IP productions.
But first, the studios need to stop the AI companies from doing this themselves. Instead, Disney wants AI tools to be integrated into Disney+, which will have the monopoly on Star Wars and Marvel AI productions. If they can’t enforce that monopoly, then they will miss out on the next big thing.
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