LOS ANGELES — Hollywood’s twin titans have had enough of algorithmic déjà vu. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Central District of California, The Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal accuse Midjourney Inc. of turning their treasured characters into an “AI vending machine” that monetizes creativity it never paid for.
The complaint contends that Midjourney scraped studio archives to teach its generator how to spit out near-studio-grade images of everything from Jedi knights to mischievous Minions. By doing so, the plaintiffs say, the San Francisco start-up vaulted itself into a US $300-million subscription business “by recycling the very assets that built modern pop culture.”
Legal filings outline two core grievances:
- Unauthorized Training Data — The studios allege Midjourney ingested thousands of protected frames, posters and model sheets, effectively building its model on “copyright steroids.”
- Commercial Exploitation — Paid users can prompt the system for fresh artwork starring Elsa, Shrek or Baby Groot, blurring the line between inspiration and outright replication.
Negotiations to install guardrails reportedly fizzled. According to Disney and Universal, proposed compromises—such as opt-out databases and character-filtering—were met with radio silence while Midjourney continued rolling out new, more powerful versions.
The suit demands both injunctive relief and monetary damages pegged to what it calls “industrial-scale infringement.” Industry attorneys are watching closely; the outcome could define the legal perimeter around generative AI just as earlier landmark cases shaped music sampling and streaming.
Midjourney, currently valued like a unicorn on a caffeine binge, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Investors, meanwhile, are bracing for ripple effects across the broader AI sector, where training data often lives in a grey area between “public” and “proprietary.”
For Disney and Universal, the message is blunt: innovation is welcome, but the cost of admission still includes a licensing fee. Whether the courts agree—or carve out a new fair-use frontier—will likely determine how freely tomorrow’s algorithms can remix yesterday’s blockbusters.
