Disney and Universal Studios have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney, accusing the AI company of massive theft of their intellectual property to train its popular image generation service.
The lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, alleges that Midjourney has built a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" by training its AI on copyrighted Disney and Universal characters without permission, then selling subscriptions that let users generate infringing images of characters like Darth Vader, Iron Man, the Minions, and Shrek.
"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," the complaint states.
The lawsuit provides numerous examples showing how Midjourney generates recognizable versions of beloved characters in response to simple prompts. For instance, when a user types "Darth Vader walking around the Death Star with a red lightsaber," Midjourney produces a detailed image that strongly resembles the iconic Star Wars villain.
The stakes in this case are substantial. According to the complaint, Midjourney has attracted millions of subscribers and reportedly generated $300 million in revenue last year alone. The plaintiffs claim Midjourney is deliberately profiting from their intellectual property while ignoring requests to implement technological safeguards.
Disney and Universal allege not just that Midjourney's output infringes their copyrights, but that the very training process — where Midjourney ingested countless copyrighted works to build its model — constitutes copyright infringement. This positions the case as a potential landmark in determining how copyright law applies to generative AI technology.
"Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing," the complaint argues.
The plaintiffs contend that Midjourney's infringement is intentional. They claim that before filing the lawsuit, they asked Midjourney to stop infringing their works and implement technological measures to prevent copying their characters — measures that other AI services have allegedly adopted.
Instead of complying, the suit claims Midjourney doubled down by releasing newer versions of its service that generate even higher-quality infringing images. The lawsuit mentions that Midjourney is also planning to launch a video generation service soon that would likely infringe the studios' works further.
The complaint includes screenshots showing how Midjourney not only generates infringing images when directly prompted for specific characters, but sometimes produces copyrighted characters even in response to generic prompts. For example, when researchers asked for a "yellow 3D cartoon character with goggles and overalls," Midjourney allegedly produced images clearly resembling Universal's Minions.
"This case is not a 'close call' under well-settled copyright law," the complaint asserts. "Midjourney set up a lucrative commercial service by making countless, unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs' copyrighted works, and now sells subscriptions to consumers so that they can view and download copies and derivatives of Plaintiffs' valuable copyrighted characters. That is textbook copyright infringement."
The outcome could have far-reaching consequences for how AI companies develop and deploy generative models that interact with copyrighted content. If successful, the lawsuit might force AI companies to significantly change how they train their models and what outputs they allow.
"I suspect Disney isn't out to just shut Midjourney down. Disney's goal is to gouge Midjourney for a settlement and a license," writes David Gerard in Pivot to AI. He also posted a video about the lawsuit.
Previously:
• Artists sue developers of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, claiming copyright infringement
