UPDATED, with MPA statement: Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest legacy media company to challenge the use of its content in generative AI, filing suit against Midjourney, claiming that the company is engaged in the “theft” of its intellectual property.
With the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday, WBD is joining The Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal in challenging Midjourney’s use of their content.
WBD’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, “Midjourney thinks it is above the law. It sells a commercial subscription service, powered by artificial intelligence technology, that was developed using illegal copies of Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrighted works. The Service lets subscribers pick iconic Warner Bros. Discovery copyrighted characters and then reproduces, publicly displays and performs, and makes available for download (i.e., distributes) infringing images and videos, and unauthorized derivatives, with every imaginable scene featuring those characters. Without any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property as if it were its own.”
The lawsuit claimed that Midjourney “has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement.”
Read Warner Bros. Discovery’s AI lawsuit.
As an example, the lawsuit stated that, with Midjourney’s image generation service, a user can request a picture of Superman “in a particular setting or doing a particular action,” and what’s produced is an image of the Man of Steel character. The same is true for Batman, Wonder Woman, Tweety and Scooby-Doo. The characters also show up even in generic prompts like “classic comic book superhero battle.”
A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said, “The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners. Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.”
A Midjourney spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. Last month, the company responded to the Disney-NBCU lawsuit, claiming that the use of copyrighted material in training models was a fair use, given the way that AI training models work.
“The Midjourney platform is an instrument for user expression. It assists with the creation of images only at the direction of its users, guided by their instructions, in what is often an elaborate and time-consuming process of experimentation, iteration and discovery,” the company’s lawyers wrote.
The company also claimed that the media companies should have pursued the notice-and-takedown procedure of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which shields platforms from liability for user generated infringing content if it is promptly removed upon notice.
But like the Disney and NBCU lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery’s legal team alleged that Midjourney’s infringement was much more blatant that its use for AI training models, given the outputs. WBD attorneys wrote that its copyrighted characters were being used to market and promote Midjourney’s service, while a recently launched Midjourney TV streaming channel is a way to “substitute and compete” with their copyrighted works.
The Hollywood Reporter first reported on the latest lawsuit.
As a group, the studios, through the Motion Picture Association, have taken the position that existing copyright law is sufficient to address the issues raised by AI. But amid fears that AI will upend the industry, there have been plenty of voices calling for more aggressive action, which is why it is notable that Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and NBCU filed the lawsuit on their own.
Following Warner Bros. Discovery’s filing of the lawsuit, the MPA did release a general statement that did not touch on the details of the litigation, or even mention AI.
“The Motion Picture Association strongly supports copyright protection and our member company efforts to enforce intellectual property rights,” the MPA statement said. “We remain concerned that copyright infringement, left unchecked, threatens the entire American motion picture industry, which supports over 2 million jobs in all 50 states and drives countless economic, social, and cultural benefits.”
Members of the MPA, which include tech companies Netflix and Amazon, are said to have disagreements on how the industry should collectively approach AI and its potential threat to copyright owners.
In July, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced legislation to require that AI companies get permission to use copyrighted works in their training models, taking sides in one of the hotly contested policy debates among tech and the content industry.
It’s a long shot that their bill will get anywhere, given the paltry amount of legislation that Congress has passed and the Trump administration’s hands off approach to AI. Trump himself has come out against the idea that AI companies should have to pay copyright owners for their works when they are used in training models.
A Disney spokesperson said, “Disney is committed to protecting our creators and innovators, and we’re pleased to be joined by Warner Bros. Discovery in the fight against Midjourney’s blatant copyright infringement. We welcome the growing momentum behind safeguarding America’s creative industry against bad actors.”
An NBCU spokesperson said, “NBCUniversal is pleased that Warner Bros. Discovery is joining in the fight against copyright infringement and piracy, regardless of the technology used. Creative artists are the backbone of our industry, and we are committed to protecting their work and our intellectual property.”
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