Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AI image and video company Midjourney, making it the third major entertainment company to do so following Disney and Universal’s similar lawsuit filed earlier this year.
The lawsuit alleges the AI company violated the entertainment company’s copyright protections by allowing AI users to create images with characters like Batman, Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny.
“Midjourney thinks it is above the law,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in the complaint. “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.”
Midjourney is one of the most popular AI image generators, allowing anyone to create AI images and video clips with simple text prompts. The lawsuit covers Warner Bros. Entertainment and its subsidiaries, including DC Comics, The Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera Productions.
An image included in the lawsuit filing highlighting Midjourney’s image generation abilities.
In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery notes that Midjourney recently dropped a video generation model as evidence that the AI firm knew it was infringing on copyrights. In the first few days of releasing the video model, the lawsuit alleges, Midjourney stopped users from animating scenes with characters. The restrictions were eventually lifted, but the entertainment giant calls this out as Midjourney’s knowledge of wrongdoing. Warner Bros. Discovery also alleges the AI company updated its terms of service to prohibit redteaming, a safety process tech companies use.
Copyright infringement claims aren’t new for Midjourney. In June, Disney and Universal sued the AI program, calling it “a bottomless pit of plagiarism” and “textbook copyright infringement” in its filing. Warner Bros. Discovery is represented by the same law firm that filed the suit on behalf of Disney and Universal.
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A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson told CNET, “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.” Statements from Disney and NBCUniversal spokespeople expressed similar sentiments. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This lawsuit is further evidence that copyright is one of the most contentious legal issues in the age of AI. Concerns exist at every stage of AI content creation, including whether copyrighted materials are used to train AI models and whether those models can create content that meets the legal definition of infringement.
There are also ongoing cases between publishers, creators and AI companies. AI-makers Anthropic and Meta recently scored two victories, with courts claiming that training their models on authors’ books constituted fair use. But there are still a lot of questions and legal uncertainties.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
This is just step one for the lawsuit. Midjourney users shouldn’t expect any interruptions to service as a result of the legal battle.
