{"id":6460,"date":"2025-06-13T01:04:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T01:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/disney-and-universal-file-copyright-lawsuit-against-midjourney-over-ai-generated-content-justia-news-june-12-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T01:04:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T01:04:54","slug":"disney-and-universal-file-copyright-lawsuit-against-midjourney-over-ai-generated-content-justia-news-june-12-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/disney-and-universal-file-copyright-lawsuit-against-midjourney-over-ai-generated-content-justia-news-june-12-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney and Universal File Copyright Lawsuit Against Midjourney Over AI-Generated Content \u2014 Justia News \u2014 June 12, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On June 11, 2025, entertainment giants Disney and Universal filed a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The suit accuses Midjourney of willfully copying and distributing unauthorized images of iconic characters owned by the studios, including Darth Vader, Elsa, Bart Simpson, Shrek, and the Minions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plaintiffs, Disney and Universal, claim that Midjourney\u2019s AI image generation service, which earned $300 million in revenue last year, operates as a \u201cvirtual vending machine\u201d for infringing content. According to the complaint, Midjourney trained its AI models on copyrighted material without permission and continues to generate, publicly display, and distribute derivative images of copyrighted characters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite formal cease-and-desist letters from both Disney and Universal, the complaint states that Midjourney \u201cdoubled down\u201d by releasing more advanced versions of its tool, promoting even higher-quality infringing images and developing a forthcoming commercial video generation service. The studios argue that Midjourney\u2019s actions constitute both direct and secondary copyright infringement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disney and Universal are seeking a jury trial, an injunction to halt the copying and distribution of infringing content or halt the act without appropriate copyright protections, and unspecified monetary damages. They assert that Midjourney\u2019s conduct \u201cthreatens to upend the bedrock incentives of U.S. copyright law\u201d and harms the creative community that underpins the film and television industries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Statements from studio executives underscored the stakes. Kim Harris, NBCUniversal\u2019s Executive VP and General Counsel, said the lawsuit aims \u201cto protect the hard work of all the artists whose work entertains and inspires us.\u201d Horacio Gutierrez, Disney\u2019s Chief Legal Officer, emphasized that while the company supports responsible use of AI, \u201cpiracy is piracy, and the fact that it\u2019s done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Additional Reading<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/media-telecom\/disney-universal-sue-image-creator-midjourney-copyright-infringement-2025-06-11\/?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=Daily-Docket&amp;utm_term=061225&amp;lctg=63c024c74610634ca70580b5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disney, Universal sue image creator Midjourney for copyright infringement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reuters<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (June 11, 2025)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/06\/11\/disney-universal-midjourney-ai-copyright.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disney and Universal sue AI image company Midjourney for unlicensed use of Star Wars, The Simpsons and more<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CNBC<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (June 11, 2025)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Disney, Universal v. Midjourney Complaint<\/p>\n<p><b>Image Credit: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hamara \/ Shutterstock.com<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>(function(d, s, id) {\n            var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n            if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n            js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n            js.src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11&appId=1639788792774312&autoLogAppEvents=1\";\n            fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n        }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 11, 2025, entertainment giants Disney and Universal filed a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney in the U.S. District Court for the Central [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[442,2989,429,2184,1004,1649,309,303,6288,310,2501],"class_list":["post-6460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-aigenerated","tag-content","tag-copyright","tag-disney","tag-file","tag-june","tag-justia","tag-lawsuit","tag-midjourney","tag-news","tag-universal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}