Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney for Copyright
Analysis based on 7 articles · First reported Sep 05, 2025 · Last updated Sep 05, 2025
The lawsuit by Warner Bros. Discovery against Midjourney, following similar actions by The Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal — Universal Pictures, highlights growing legal challenges for AI companies regarding intellectual property. This could lead to increased regulatory scrutiny and potential changes in how AI models are trained and how content is generated, impacting the valuation of AI startups and the entertainment industry's ability to protect its assets.
Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against AI company Midjourney, alleging copyright infringement. The lawsuit claims Midjourney's AI system was trained on 'illegal copies' of Warner Bros. Discovery's works, allowing its subscribers to generate images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman, Batman, and Bugs Bunny. Warner Bros. Discovery is seeking up to $150,000 in damages per infringed work and an injunction to stop further infringements. This action follows a similar joint lawsuit filed in June by The Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal — Universal Pictures against Midjourney. Midjourney has denied the allegations, arguing that training its AI model on publicly available images constitutes 'transformative fair use' and that the onus is on its customers to adhere to its terms of use, which prohibit infringing intellectual property rights. Midjourney CEO David Holz has compared the service to a search engine, suggesting AI learning from images is akin to human creativity.
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