Disney and Universal Sue AI Startup Midjourney for Alleged Plagiarism

Disney and Universal have filed the first significant AI copyright lawsuit in Hollywood against Midjourney, an AI image-generating startup. In a 110-page complaint submitted to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the studios allege that Midjourney has been creating images that infringe upon their copyrighted characters, such as Darth Vader and Elsa. Despite receiving “cease and desist” letters, Midjourney allegedly continued its practices. The lawsuit claims that Midjourney is focused solely on profit, having generated $300 million last year. Disney and Universal assert that only they possess the rights to commercialize these characters, accusing Midjourney of “textbook copyright infringement” and threatening the foundations of U.S. copyright law. As AI copyright disputes rise, Midjourney is highlighted as a significant catalyst for the issue, paralleling a lawsuit from Reddit against Anthropic for unauthorized use of data to train AI models.

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