On June 11, 2025, entertainment giants Disney and Universal joined forces to sue Midjourney, a San Francisco–based AI image-generation platform, accusing it of copyright infringement. The studios claim Midjourney’s tool has repeatedly reproduced their iconic characters—ranging from Star Wars legends like Yoda and Darth Vader to beloved figures like Elsa, Homer Simpson, Shrek, Buzz Lightyear, Po, and the Minions—without any permission.
The lawsuit paints Midjourney as a “virtual vending machine” that churns out unauthorized copies of their creative content. The studios argue that this isn’t simply inspiration or homage, but blatant piracy: users can type generic prompts—like “Chewbacca screenshot” or “superhero fight scene”—and receive AI-generated images that closely resemble characters such as Spider-Man, proving the system’s output mirrors Disney and Universal properties too closely, too often.
According to the complaint, Midjourney declined repeated cease-and-desist requests and continued to promote even higher-quality infringements, while generating an estimated $300 million in revenue last year. In response, Disney and Universal are pursuing a jury trial and have requested a preliminary injunction to immediately halt the AI tool’s ability to generate copyrighted imagery and potentially videos, as well as unspecified damages.
This lawsuit marks a decisive moment in the legal battles surrounding generative AI. It challenges the industry’s common reliance on “fair use” defenses for training AI on vast amounts of copyrighted material scraped from the internet. By spotlighting numerous side-by-side comparisons of AI images and their original counterparts, Disney and Universal aim to demonstrate how Midjourney’s creations are anything but transformative.
The implications of this case could be far-reaching. If successful, Hollywood studios could reshape how AI companies train their models, potentially requiring licensed image sets and stricter content moderation. In turn, AI platforms may need to employ new technical safeguards to ensure their outputs don’t infringe on established intellectual property.
As many artists and creators have already raised concerns about AI models leveraging their work without compensation, this lawsuit by two of the world’s most powerful studios may set a pivotal precedent. Its outcome could define the boundaries of AI-generated imagery and influence how the tech evolves—either steering it toward licensing-based ecosystems or inviting stricter regulatory oversight.
