Walt Disney and Comcast’s NBCUniversal have sued artificial intelligence company Midjourney, accusing the image generator of copying their copyrighted characters without permission.

The complaint, filed Wednesday (June 11) in the US District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, marks the first major AI copyright challenge from Hollywood studio giants, according to the Associated Press and CNBC.

Midjourney is being sued by Disney and Universal Pictures of creating and distributing “unauthorized copies” of characters like Star Wars’ Darth Vader, Elsa from Frozen, Lightning McQueen from Cars, Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, Sully from Monster’s Inc., Marvel’s Iron Man, and Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, among others.

The studios are seeking a preliminary injunction to block Midjourney from using their intellectual property. They are also seeking monetary damages of up to $150,000 for every infringed work.

“Midjourney’s bootlegging business model and defiance of US copyright law are not only an attack on Disney, Universal, and the hard-working creative community that brings the magic of movies to life, but are also a broader threat to the American motion picture industry which has created millions of jobs and contributed more than $260 billion to the nation’s economy,” according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Midjourney, founded in 2021 by its CEO David Holz, generated $300 million in revenue in 2024 via paid subscriptions ranging from $10 per month to $120 per month for its AI image creation service.

“Midjourney’s bootlegging business model and defiance of US copyright law are not only an attack on Disney, Universal, and the hard-working creative community that brings the magic of movies to life, but are also a broader threat to the American motion picture industry.”

Walt Disney and Universal Pictures’ complaint

Subscribers can generate artwork from text prompts, requesting images of characters like Darth Vader and Minions characters, the lawsuit said.

Disney and Universal claimed that they sent cease-and-desist letters to Midjourney, requesting the company to stop generating their characters or implement measures to protect copyright.

“Midjourney’s infringement is calculated and willful. Plaintiffs have asked Midjourney to stop infringing their copyrighted works and, at a minimum, to adopt technological measures, which other AI services have implemented to prevent the generation of infringing material.”

However, the studios claim Midjourney ignored these demands and “has chosen to double down on its unlawful actions by releasing and promoting even newer versions of its Image Service and teasing its soon-to-be-released commercial AI video service.”

The lawsuit provided a number of examples of AI-generated images featuring characters from franchises including Wall-E, How to Train Your Dragon, Star Wars, and Shrek, among others.

The lawsuit adds to mounting legal pressure on AI companies over their training data practices. Last month, music publishers including Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO filed an amended copyright infringement complaint against the $61 billion-valued AI startup Anthropic.

Elsewhere, AI music generator Suno, valued at $500 million, was sued by the major record companies, along with fellow AI firm Udio, for allegedly training their systems using the majors’ recordings without permission – an accusation they pretty much admitted to in court filings in August.

“Plaintiffs have asked Midjourney to stop infringing their copyrighted works and, at a minimum, to adopt technological measures, which other AI services have implemented to prevent the generation of infringing material.”

Walt Disney and NBCUniversal complaint

In January, Suno was also sued for copyright infringement by collection society and licensing body, GEMA, which represents the copyrights of around 95,000 members in Germany and over two million rightsholders globally.

The Recording Industry Association of America weighed in on the lawsuit lodged by Disney and Universal Pictures, with Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier saying: “There is a clear path forward through partnerships that both further AI innovation and foster human artistry.

“Unfortunately, some bad actors – like Midjourney – see only a zero-sum, winner-take-all game. These short-sighted AI companies are stealing human-created works to generate machine-created, virtually identical products for their own commercial gain.

“That is not only a violation of black letter Copyright law but also manifestly unfair. This action by Disney and Universal represents a critical stand for human creativity and responsible innovation.”

“Unfortunately, some bad actors – like Midjourney – see only a zero-sum, winner-take-all game. These short-sighted AI companies are stealing human-created works to generate machine-created, virtually identical products for their own commercial gain.”

Mitch Glazier, RIAA

This isn’t the first time that Midjourney has been accused of illegally using artists’ work in AI training. Last year, a California federal judge ruled that a lawsuit filed by 10 artists against Midjourney, Stability AI, and other firms can proceed after the artists plausibly argued unauthorized copying and storage of their works.

In an interview with the Associated Press in 2022, Holz described Midjourney as “kind of like a search engine” that pulls in a range of images from across the internet. In a separate interview with Forbes the same year, Holz said his company’s database was built through “a big scrape of the Internet.”

When asked about artist consent for copyrighted material, Holz said “there isn’t really a way to get a hundred million images and know where they’re coming from.”

Music Business Worldwide