Disney & Universal Sue Midjourney Over AI Image Generator
Disney and Universal have launched legal proceedings against Silicon Valley-based AI company Midjourney over allegations that its image generation technology constitutes a "bottomless pit of plagiarism".
The Hollywood studios claim that Midjourney's AI model produces countless unauthorised reproductions of beloved characters spanning from Darth Vader and Frozen's Elsa to the Minions from the Despicable Me series.
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, represents the latest battleground in the entertainment industry's complex relationship with AI technology.
For years, the conversation around AI in entertainment has focused on actors and writers fighting to protect their likeness and work,” says Elliot Foster, Founder of Growthlistic.
“Now, the studios themselves are drawing a line in the sand, teaming up to defend their iconic characters and IP from being used to train AI models and generate lookalike images without permission.”
The details of the lawsuit
The legal complaint details numerous examples of Midjourney-generated images featuring Disney's most valuable intellectual property.
Characters cited include Star Wars' Yoda, Marvel superheroes such as Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, demonstrating the breadth of alleged copyright violations.
Midjourney's platform allows users to create images through text prompts, raising questions about responsibility when AI systems reproduce protected content.
“The lawsuit claims that privately held Midjourney used and distributed AI-generated characters from Disney and Universal properties such as Star Wars and The Simpsons without permission and disregarded requests to stop,” explains Joel Baglole, reporting for TipRanks.
The entertainment industry bites back
Disney's Chief Legal Officer, Horacio Gutierrez, has released a statement regarding the use of AI in Hollywood and beyond, expressing his “optimistic” outlook for how the technology can enhance creativity going forward.
“But piracy is piracy,” he says, “and the fact that it's done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing.”
The complaint reveals Midjourney generated US$300m in revenue last year alone, with plans for an upcoming video service launch.
This lawsuit comes at a deeply significant moment at the nexus of entertainment and AI.
“If I was an artist, a) I would like to be able to opt out of people generating art in my style and b) if they do generate art in my style I’d like to have some kind of economic model associated with that,” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in a recent interview with Lex Fridman.
The view of the law
The rapid advancements of AI technologies — particularly Gen AI — have brought conversations about copyright law to the fore in recent months.
In May 2025, US President Donald Trump fired the US Congress’ Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, after she published a report denouncing the unfair use of copyrighted property in the training of AI products, recommending that AI models be trained in more equitable ways.
But some legal professionals have acknowledged that copyright law recognises that creativity can build upon existing works, provided the newer version adds novel elements.
This, though, is generally not the case with Midjourney’s output.
"A lot of the images that Midjourney produces just seem to be copies of copyright characters that might be in new locations or with a new background," says Shubha Gosh, Professor of Law at Syracuse University.
"It doesn't seem like they're being transformed in a creative or imaginative way," he continued.
Elsewhere, Randy McCarthy, Patent Attorney at US law firm Hall Estill, has cautioned against predicting the lawsuit's outcome.
"No litigation is ever a slam dunk, and that is true for Disney and Universal in this case," he explains.
"There are several issues such as terms of service provisions by Midjourney, and basic fair use analysis, that will need to be sorted out by the court before we can determine the likely outcome.”
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