LOS ANGELES, California — In a bold escalation of tensions between the film industry and Silicon Valley, entertainment powerhouses Disney and Universal have launched a high-stakes copyright lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Midjourney, accusing the San Francisco startup of systematic IP theft on a massive scale.
Filed Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles, the suit paints Midjourney as a rogue actor exploiting decades of creative investment by harvesting proprietary visual assets — from lightsaber-wielding Jedi to beloved animated sidekicks — to fuel its generative image platform.
While AI developers have faced a wave of challenges from individual creators, this marks the first heavyweight legal confrontation between a major AI firm and the titans of Hollywood.
The studios accuse Midjourney of using their copyrighted works without consent to train its AI, resulting in strikingly accurate, unauthorized recreations of iconic characters such as Elsa from Frozen, Yoda from Star Wars, and the Minions from Despicable Me. According to the lawsuit, Midjourney’s model didn’t merely echo creative themes — it replicated them outright.
“This isn’t homage or inspiration. It’s industrial-scale duplication,” the complaint reads. “Midjourney has turned decades of storytelling into algorithmic scrap for profit — without licensing, credit, or compensation.”
The lawsuit also highlights Midjourney’s surging commercial success. The company reportedly earned over $300 million in revenue last year from its subscription-based platform, a figure the plaintiffs argue was built directly on the unauthorized use of their intellectual property.
Despite prior attempts by Disney and Universal to engage with Midjourney and urge the adoption of safeguards — similar to those implemented by more compliant AI developers — the company allegedly brushed aside these overtures in favor of accelerating its technical development.
“Their response was not reform,” the filing states. “It was a new version rollout.”
The lawsuit demands both monetary damages and a court-ordered injunction to halt Midjourney’s current operations unless it can ensure content creation that respects intellectual property rights.
This case builds on mounting legal precedent. A 2023 ruling in a separate artist-led suit against Midjourney and Stability AI concluded that AI companies can be held accountable if they use copyrighted content in training datasets without authorization, paving the way for broader litigation.
With the entertainment industry’s most iconic brands now stepping directly into the legal ring, the outcome of Disney et al. vs. Midjourney may redefine the boundaries of creative ownership in the age of artificial intelligence — and determine whether generative platforms can operate freely, or must submit to the same rules as the studios they emulate.
