On June 11, 2025, Disney (including Lucasfilm, Marvel, and 20^th Century Studios) and Universal Pictures (including DreamWorks) filed a Complaint for direct and secondary copyright infringement in the Central District of California against artificial intelligence (“AI”) firm Midjourney for its alleged “calculated and willful copyright infringement”. This suit marks the first time major Hollywood studios have taken the enforcement of their copyrights into their own hands and directly gone after a generative AI company.

In the suit, the studios attack Midjourney for blatantly incorporating and copying Disney and Universal Pictures’ famous characters without a license, describing Midjourney as “as a “quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.”

The studios’ claim for direct infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 106 focuses on Midjourney’s alleged extraction of “millions of copyrighted images” without permission to train its AI models. The Complaint hones in on Midjourney’s replication and mimicking of the studios’ iconic characters, alleging that Midjourney’s model was trained on copyrighted content and enables outputs that mimic the studios’ characters down to signature poses and visual aesthetics. Prompts like “Yoda with lightsaber, IMAX” result in direct visual clones of the studios’ characters, undercutting a legitimate fair use defense.

In the alternative, the studios claim that even if it is Midjourney’s users, and not Midjourney itself, that create infringing images, Midjourney is still vicariously liable as a result of its control over the platform, training data, and monetization model.  

While the studios sent formal demand letters to Midjourney to cease the use of their copyrighted works, those demands were met with minimal response. In the face of these demands, the studios allege that Midjourney released a new version of its image and video tools which further exacerbated its infringement. In addition to monetary relief, statutory damages, and the disgorgement of Midjourney’s profits, the studios seek a preliminary and permanent injunction to halt Midjourney’s image and video generation services until proper copyright protections are in place.

Key Takeaways:

• This suit causes the Court to directly compare derivative outputs of AI models with original copyrighted works instead of simply focusing on the data used to train AI models.
• A ruling in the studios’ favor has the potential of significantly changing the parameters of AI models by compelling AI companies to implement filters for their models or completely retool their training processes.
• With the mounting risk to both copyright owners and AI firms, owners should consider having enforcement protocols in place to aggressively and efficiently protect their rights and implementing a pre-emptive licensing strategy to monetize their works. AI firms will need to factor in the costs of licensing as compared to the costs of litigation and the potential risk of being subjected to substantial statutory damages.

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