Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney Over AI-Generated Images of Iconic Characters

Warner Bros. sues Midjourney to stop AI knockoffs of Batman, Scooby-Doo

Warner Bros. hit Midjourney with a lawsuit Thursday, crafting a complaint that strives to shoot down defenses that the AI company has already raised in a similar lawsuit filed by Disney and Universal Studios earlier this year. The big film studios have alleged that Midjourney profits off image generation models trained to produce outputs of popular characters. For Disney and Universal, intellectual property rights to pop icons like Darth Vader and the Simpsons were allegedly infringed. And now, the WB complaint defends rights over comic characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, as well as characters considered "pillars of pop culture with a lasting impact on generations," like Scooby-Doo and Bugs Bunny, and modern cartoon characters like Rick and Morty. "Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property as if it were its own," the WB complaint said, accusing Midjourney of allowing subscribers to "pick iconic" copyrighted characters and generate them in "every imaginable scene." Planning to seize Midjourney's profits from allegedly using beloved characters to promote its service, Warner Bros. described Midjourney as "defiant and undeterred" by the Disney/Universal lawsuit. Despite that litigation, WB claimed that Midjourney has recently removed copyright protections in its supposedly shameful ongoing bid for profits. Nothing but a permanent injunction will end Midjourney's outputs of allegedly "countless infringing images," WB argued, branding Midjourney's alleged infringements as "vast, intentional, and unrelenting." Examples of closely matching outputs include prompts for "screencaps" showing specific movie frames, a search term that at least one artist, Reid Southen, had optimistically predicted Midjourney would block last year, but it apparently did not. Here are some examples included in WB's complaint: Midjourney's output for the prompt, "Superman, classic cartoon character, DC comics." Midjourney's output for the prompt, "Superman, classic cartoon character, DC comics." Midjourney prompt: "Batman, screencap from The Dark Knight." Midjourney prompt: "Batman, screencap from The Dark Knight." Midjourney prompt: "Batman, comic book character from DC Comics." Midjourney prompt: "Batman, comic book character from DC Comics." Midjourney prompt: "Batman, screencap from The Dark Knight." Midjourney prompt: "Batman, comic book character from DC Comics." Midjourney prompt: "Scooby-Doo animated character standing in a spooky room in an old house." Midjourney prompt: "Rick and Morty, animated TV show, screencap." Midjourney user sharing Rick and Morty prompt on Midjourney's Discord server. Midjourney user sharing Batman prompt on Midjourney's Discord server. Midjourney user sharing a Scooby-Doo prompt on Midjourney's Discord server. Midjourney could face devastating financial consequences in a loss. At trial, WB is hoping discovery will show the true extent of Midjourney's alleged infringement, asking the court for maximum statutory damages, at $150,000 per infringing output. Just 2,000 infringing outputs unearthed could cost Midjourney more than its total revenue for 2024, which was approximately $300 million, the WB complaint said. Warner Bros. hopes to hobble Midjourney's best defense For Midjourney, the WB complaint could potentially hit harder than the Disney/Universal lawsuit. WB's complaint shows how closely studios are monitoring AI copyright litigation, likely choosing ideal moments to strike when studios feel they can better defend their property. So, while much of WB's complaint echoes Disney and Universal's arguments -- which Midjourney has already begun defending against -- IP attorney Randy McCarthy suggested in statements provided to Ars that WB also looked for seemingly smart ways to potentially overcome some of Midjourney's best defenses when filing its complaint. WB likely took note when Midjourney filed its response to the Disney/Universal lawsuit last month, arguing that its system is "trained on billions of publicly available images" and generates images not by retrieving a copy of an image in its database but based on "complex statistical relationships between visual features and words in the text-image pairs are encoded within the model." This defense could allow Midjourney to avoid claims that it copied WB images and distributes copies through its models. But hoping to dodge this defense, WB didn't argue that Midjourney retains copies of its images. Rather, the entertainment giant raised a more nuanced argument that: Midjourney used software, servers, and other technology to store and fix data associated with Warner Bros. Discovery's Copyrighted Works in such a manner that those works are thereby embodied in the model, from which Midjourney is then able to generate, reproduce, publicly display, and distribute unlimited "copies" and "derivative works" of Warner Bros. Discovery's works as defined by the Copyright Act." McCarthy noted that WB's argument pushes the court to at least consider that even though "Midjourney does not store copies of the works in its model," its system "nonetheless accesses the data relating to the works that are stored by Midjourney's system." "This seems to be a very clever way to counter MJ's 'statistical pattern analysis' arguments," McCarthy said. If it's a winning argument, that could give WB a path to wipe Midjourney's models. WB argued that each time Midjourney provides a "substantially new" version of its image generator, it "repeats this process." And that ongoing activity -- due to Midjourney's initial allegedly "massive copying" of WB works -- allows Midjourney to "further reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute image and video outputs that are identical or virtually identical to Warner Bros. Discovery's Copyrighted Works in response to simple prompts from subscribers." Perhaps further strengthening the WB's argument, the lawsuit noted that Midjourney promotes allegedly infringing outputs on its 24/7 YouTube channel and appears to have plans to compete with traditional TV and streaming services. Asking the court to block Midjourney's outputs instead, WB claims it's already been "substantially and irreparably harmed" and risks further damages if the AI image generator is left unchecked. As alleged proof that the AI company knows its tool is being used to infringe WB property, WB pointed to Midjourney's own Discord server and subreddit, where users post outputs depicting WB characters and share tips to help others do the same. They also called out Midjourney's "Explore" page, which allows users to drop a WB-referencing output into the prompt field to generate similar images. "It is hard to imagine copyright infringement that is any more willful than what Midjourney is doing here," the WB complaint said. WB and Midjourney did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment. Midjourney slammed for promising "fewer blocked jobs" McCarthy noted that WB's legal strategy differs in other ways from the arguments Midjourney's already weighed in the Disney/Universal lawsuit. The WB complaint also anticipates Midjourney's likely defense that users are generating infringing outputs, not Midjourney, which could invalidate any charges of direct copyright infringement. In the Disney/Universal lawsuit, Midjourney argued that courts have recently found that AI tools referencing copyrighted works is "a quintessentially transformative fair use," accusing studios of trying to censor "an instrument for user expression." They claim that Midjourney cannot know about infringing outputs unless studios use the company's DMCA process, while noting that subscribers have "any number of legitimate, noninfringing grounds to create images incorporating characters from popular culture," including "non-commercial fan art, experimentation and ideation, and social commentary and criticism." To avoid losing on that front, the WB complaint doesn't depend on a ruling that Midjourney directly infringed copyrights. Instead, the complaint "more fully" emphasizes how Midjourney may be "secondarily liable for infringement via contributory, inducement and/or vicarious liability by inducing its users to directly infringe," McCarthy suggested. Additionally, WB's complaint "seems to be emphasizing" that Midjourney "allegedly has the technical means to prevent its system from accepting prompts that directly reference copyrighted characters," and "that would prevent infringing outputs from being displayed," McCarthy said. The complaint noted that Midjourney is in full control of what outputs can be generated. Noting that Midjourney "temporarily refused to 'animate'" outputs of WB characters after launching video generations, the lawsuit appears to have been filed in response to Midjourney "deliberately" removing those protections and then announcing that subscribers would experience "fewer blocked jobs." Together, these arguments "appear to be intended to lead to the inference that Midjourney is willfully enticing its users to infringe," McCarthy said. WB's complaint details simple user prompts that generate allegedly infringing outputs without any need to manipulate the system. The ease of generating popular characters seems to make Midjourney a destination for users frustrated by other AI image generators that make it harder to generate infringing outputs, WB alleged. On top of that, Midjourney also infringes copyrights by generating WB characters, "even in response to generic prompts like 'classic comic book superhero battle.'" And while Midjourney has seemingly taken steps to block WB characters from appearing on its "Explore" page, where users can find inspiration for prompts, these guardrails aren't perfect, but rather "spotty and suspicious," WB alleged. Supposedly, searches for correctly spelled character names like "Batman" are blocked, but any user who accidentally or intentionally mispells a character's name like "Batma" can learn an easy way to work around that block. Additionally, WB alleged, "the outputs often contain extensive nuance and detail, background elements, costumes, and accessories beyond what was specified in the prompt." And every time that Midjourney outputs an allegedly infringing image, it "also trains on the outputs it has generated," the lawsuit noted, creating a never-ending cycle of continually enhanced AI fakes of pop icons. Midjourney could slow down the cycle and "minimize" these allegedly infringing outputs, if it cannot automatically block them all, WB suggested. But instead, "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," WB alleged. Fearing a supposed scheme to replace WB in the market by stealing its best-known characters, WB accused Midjourney of willfully allowing WB characters to be generated in order to "generate more money for Midjourney" to potentially compete in streaming markets. Midjourney will remove protections "on a whim" As Midjourney's efforts to expand its features escalate, WB claimed that trust is lost. Even if Midjourney takes steps to address rightsholders' concerns, WB argued, studios must remain watchful of every upgrade, since apparently, "Midjourney can and will remove copyright protection measures on a whim." The complaint noted that Midjourney just this week announced "plans to continue deploying new versions" of its image generator, promising to make it easier to search for and save popular artists' styles -- updating a feature that many artists loathe. Without an injunction, Midjourney's alleged infringement could interfere with WB's licensing opportunities for its content, while "illegally and unfairly" diverting customers who buy WB products like posters, wall art, prints, and coloring books, the complaint said. Perhaps Midjourney's strongest defense could be efforts to prove that WB benefits from its image generator. In the Disney/Universal lawsuit, Midjourney pointed out that studios "benefit from generative AI models," claiming that "many dozens of Midjourney subscribers are associated with" Disney and Universal corporate email addresses. If WB corporate email addresses are found among subscribers, Midjourney could claim that WB is trying to "have it both ways" by "seeking to profit" from AI tools while preventing Midjourney and its subscribers from doing the same. McCarthy suggested it's too soon to say how the WB battle will play out, but Midjourney's response will reveal how it intends to shift tactics to avoid courts potentially picking apart its defense of its training data, while keeping any blame for copyright-infringing outputs squarely on users. "As with the Disney/Universal lawsuit, we need to wait to see how Midjourney answers these latest allegations," McCarthy said. "It is definitely an interesting development that will have widespread implications for many sectors of our society."

Warner Bros. sues Midjourney for AI images of Superman, Batman, and other characters | TechCrunch

Warner Bros. is suing AI startup Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that the company allows users to generate images and videos of characters like Superman, Batman, and Bugs Bunny without permission. As first reported by Reuters, Warner Bros says that Midjourney knowingly engaged in wrongful conduct, noting that the company previously restricted subscribers from generating content based on infringing images, but recently lifted those protections. "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," the complaint reads. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, the return of any profits earned from the alleged infringement, and a halt to further violations. Warner Bros' lawsuit follows a similar one filed in June by Walt Disney and Universal against Midjourney for copyright infringement involving characters such as Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, Shrek, and others. In this case, Midjourney has argued that using those works to train generative AI models is legal under the fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright law. Midjourney did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment.

Warner Bros., DC Comics and More Sue Midjourney, Says AI Firm 'Thinks It Is Above the Law'

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. 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. Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source. 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.

Warner Bros. Discovery sues Midjourney for generating 'countless' copies of its characters

Warner Bros. Discovery is suing Midjourney over claims the AI startup "brazenly dispenses its intellectual property as if it were its own," as reported earlier by The Hollywood Reporter. In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery alleges that Midjourney generated "countless" infringing images and videos of its copyrighted characters, including Superman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, and more. Warner Bros. Discovery accuses Midjourney of reproducing, displaying, and distributing "unauthorized derivatives" of its intellectual property through its AI image and video generation tools. Throughout the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery shares several examples of how Midjourney's AI tools seem to have generated images of copyrighted characters, like Wonder Woman, Tweety, the Power Puff Girls, and even Rick and Morty in response to prompts asking to see the characters in certain situations.

Warner Bros. Sues AI Startup, Claiming It Stole Superman's Image

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. sued AI startup Midjourney alleging theft of its intellectual property, saying the company allowed customers to generate images and videos of characters like Wonder Woman and Superman without permission. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, offers a subscription service that lets customers create images and clips using artificial intelligence. In the suit, Warner Bros. included pictures it said were generated by Midjourney's technology. They include Superman looking at his cell phone and Batman posing with the Star Wars character R2-D2.

Warner Bros., DC Comics and Cartoon Network Sue Midjourney AI Over Copyright

If I had a nickel every time a major entertainment company sued AI image and video company Midjourney, I would now have fifteen cents. Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Midjourney on Thursday, alleging the AI company violated its copyright protections by allowing its users to create images with protected 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." The lawsuit covers Warner Bros. Entertainment and its subsidiaries, including DC Comics, The Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera Productions. Midjourney is one of the most popular AI image generators, which let anyone create AI images and video clips with simple text prompts. It recently dropped a video generation model, which Warner Bros. Discovery calls out in the lawsuit as evidence that Midjourney knew it was infringing on copyrights. It claims that in the first few days of releasing the video model, Midjourney stopped users from animating scenes with characters. The restrictions were eventually lifted, but Warner Bros. says it is evidence of Midjourney's knowledge of wrongdoing. Warner Bros. Discovery also alleges Midjourney updated its terms of service to prohibit redteaming, a safety process tech companies use. Midjourney is very familiar with these claims. Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit against the AI firm earlier this year with similar claims, calling the program "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. 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. There are concerns at every stage of AI content creation -- 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 many ongoing cases between publishers, creators and AI companies. AI-makers Anthropic and Meta recently scored two victories, with courts claiming their use of 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 lawsuit.

Warner Bros Discovery sues AI photo generator Midjourney for stealing Superman, Scooby-Doo

Sept 4 (Reuters) - Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O), opens new tab sued the AI photo generation company Midjourney on Thursday, saying it brazenly stole the studio's works to generate images of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and other copyrighted characters. In a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Warner Bros said the theft enabled Midjourney to train its image and video service to offer subscribers high quality, downloadable images of its characters in "every imaginable scene." Warner Bros also said Midjourney knew its conduct was wrongful because it once blocked subscribers from generating videos from many infringing images, only to lift, opens new tab that protection measure last month while touting the change as an "improvement." "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," the complaint said. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and disgorgement of profits, and a halt to further infringements. It follows a similar lawsuit filed in June against Midjourney by Walt Disney (DIS.N), opens new tab and Comcast's (CMCSA.O), opens new tab Universal over characters including Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, Shrek and Ariel from "The Little Mermaid." Launched in 2022 and led by founder David Holz, San Francisco-based Midjourney had nearly 21 million users as of September 2024 and an estimated $300 million of revenue in 2024, according to Warner Bros' complaint. Midjourney and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In an August 6 filing in the Disney and Universal case, Midjourney said copyright law "does not confer absolute control" over the use of copyrighted works. It also said using those works to train generative AI models amounted to fair use, helping ensure the free flow of ideas and information. Many authors, news media, record labels and other copyright owners have accused AI companies, large and fledgling, in lawsuits of using their materials without permission. "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," a spokesperson for Warner Bros Discovery said. "We filed this suit to protect our content, our partners and our investments." Warner Bros Discovery's operations include Warner Bros Entertainment, Turner Entertainment, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera and The Cartoon Network. The case is Warner Bros Entertainment Inc et al v Midjourney Inc, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 25-08376. Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Warner Bros. Discovery is suing Midjourney for copyright infringement

Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against popular AI image generator Midjourney, accusing it of stealing and exploiting its intellectual properties. The complaint revolves around the AI tool's ability to generate images and videos of Warner Bros.' popular fictional characters, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny and his friends from Looney Tunes. "Midjourney thinks it is above the law," the company wrote in its lawsuit. It said that the image generator sells a commercial subscription service powered by AI technology that was illegally trained using its copyrighted works. The company argued that Midjourney has the technology to prevent users from generating images of the characters it owns. It apparently refused to generate videos based on Warner Bros.' properties when it first launched its video model. But within the past couple of weeks, it allegedly removed those protections and told its users that they would encounter "fewer blocked jobs." The ability to generate Warner Bros.' characters are a clear draw for its subscription service that costs $10 to $120 a month, the media conglomerate said. "It is hard to imagine copyright infringement that is any more willful than what Midjourney is doing here," the plaintiff added. "Midjourney has prioritized and sought to preserve the hundreds of millions of dollars it earns annually from its service by doubling down on its theft of copyrighted works." In the complaint, the company gave several examples of Midjourney-generated images and video stills next to images and screencaps of its movies and shows. The image above, for instance, shows Midjourney's output from the prompt "Batman, screencap from The Dark Knight." next to actual promotional materials from the Christian Bale-led movie. Further, generic prompts like "classic comic book superhero battle" could lead to output with WB characters even if they're not specifically mentioned. Midjourney is already facing a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Disney and Universal Studios back in June. They accused the AI service of "help[ing] itself to countless" copyrighted works to train its models and for infringing on their copyright by allowing users to generate images of characters from Star Wars, Shrek, The Simpsons and Despicable Me, among other properties. Warner Bros. Discovery is now asking the court for statutory damages of "up to $150,000 per infringed work by virtue of Midjourney's willful infringement." We've reached out to Midjourney and will update this post when we hear back.

Warner Bros. sues Midjourney for AI-generated images of Superman, Bugs Bunny and other characters

Warner Bros. is suing artificial intelligence company Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that the startup enables its millions of subscribers to create AI-generated images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman and Bugs Bunny. It's the third big Hollywood studio to sue Midjourney in Los Angeles federal court after Disney and Universal filed a joint lawsuit in June. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney trained its AI system on "illegal copies" of Warner Bros. works and encourages its users to pick iconic characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo or the Powerpuff Girls and create downloaded images and videos of those characters in "every imaginable scene." Even a generic prompt for the AI tool to produce a "classic comic book superhero battle" will generate high-quality images of DC Studios figures such as Superman, Batman and Flash, according to the lawsuit. Warner Bros. says "Midjourney thinks it is above the law" and "could easily stop its theft and exploitation" of intellectual property in the same way it sets limits on violence or nudity. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney's practices create "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney's massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its Service are somehow authorized by Warner Bros. Discovery." The entertainment giant says it is entitled to up to $150,000 in damages per infringed work. Midjourney has denied copyright infringement allegations in the Disney and Universal case, arguing in an August court filing that while its AI tool "had to be trained on billions of publicly available images," it did so "in order to learn visual concepts" and how they correspond to language. "Training a generative AI model to understand concepts by extracting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works is a quintessentially transformative fair use - a determination resoundingly supported by courts that have considered the issue," said Midjourney's response, citing recent court rulings in lawsuits by published authors against Anthropic and Facebook parent Meta. Midjourney also said the onus was on its customers to follow Midjourney's terms of use, which prohibit infringing intellectual property rights. In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz described his image-making service as "kind of like a search engine" pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity. "Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?" Holz said. "Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine."

AI Firm Midjourney Faces Copyright Lawsuit by Warner Bros., DC Comics and Cartoon Network

If I got a nickel every time a major entertainment company sued AI image and video company Midjourney, I'd now have 15 cents. On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney, following Disney and Universal's similar lawsuit earlier this year. The recent lawsuit alleges the AI company violated the entertainment company's copyright protections by allowing 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. 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 Warner Bros. 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. 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.

Your days of making AI-generated Batman memes could be numbered if Warner Bros Discovery wins this case

The art you can create with little more than a prompt in Midjourney, ChatGPT, Grok, and other AI platforms could irrevocably change if Warner Bros. Discovery wins its blockbuster lawsuit against Midjourney. The possibly precedent-setting case claims Midjourney is spitting out Warner Bros Discovery intellectual property. As examples, the suit shows how easily Midjourney recreates imagery quite similar to that of the movie Batman: The Dark Knight and from the popular animated series Rick and Morty. Almost from the moment we could create generative art using prompts in platforms like OpenAI's Dall-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, there have been questions of whether or not these platforms were copying art or creating something new, and in the case of intellectual property, do these recreations represent "fair use." It comes down, in most instances, to a question of training. These platforms have been trained on the public internet (among other sources), and they use that training to build models that can generate imagery matching your request. If that request includes a well-known character, public figure, or celebrity, some of these platforms will happily include it, or its best attempt at recreating it. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said, "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments." There's good reason to pay close attention to this case: if Warner Bros. Discovery wins, it could change how you use virtually all the major AI platforms, and the results you get from them. I've used Midjourney and Stable Diffusion and have, over the years, noted their willingness to create familiar characters in odd and even disturbing situations, but I was still surprised by some of the case materials provided by Warner Bros. Discovery. These recreations were perfect. I wondered if they represented reality and the current state of AI generative "art". As an experiment, I tried the same prompt with ChatGPT, Gemini, and X's Grok: I need an image of Rick and Morty flying through space and encountering one of their iconic foes. The results were shockingly good across all three (I'd show you but our lawyers say that might break copyright law), but it was the "conversation" I had with Grok about the case that proved most revealing. When I tweeted the original THR story on the case, I tagged Grok, thinking it might generate a response (as it usually does whenever summoned on X). I wrote, "If Warner Bros. wins, other AI platforms like @grok are gonna have to clean up their act, too." A moment later, Grok responded: "Interesting lawsuit -- Warner Bros. claims Midjourney's AI infringes on copyrights by generating images of characters like Superman without permission. If they win, it could set precedents for AI training data. Grok, focused on text and helpful queries, watches these developments closely." I think it accurately assessed that the outcome could "set precedents for AI training data," meaning that this might be less about the output and more about how these systems have ingested original art to figure out how to recreate it. In instances like this, though, I wonder if you can untrain a model, or do you have to start over to ensure that the training data on intellectual property is properly scrubbed? However, the bit about Grok being focused on "text and helpful queries" didn't sync with reality. X is full of AI-generated images and video "slop" that's all the product of Grok's generative capabilities. So, I pressed Grok a bit on this point. I wrote, "You also make images that clearly use copyrighted training. Do you think WB has a case?" Eventually, Grok responded: "Grok generates images via models trained on public data, aiming for originality. On WB's case against Midjourney: It's plausible, as courts have let similar claims proceed (e.g., Disney suit). But AI defenses like fair use have won in cases (Meta 2025). Law is unsettled -- outcome depends on evidence of direct infringement vs transformative use." In these cases, it's quite common for the defendants to claim that if the training data is all "public" then it's fair use. This allows for limited use ("use" in this case meaning, the time it took to ingest and train on that data) of copyrighted content without first requested permission, and I guess there's some truth to the "originality" claim in that, thanks to AI, we've seen some of our beloved characters (like Mickey Mouse) do things that, for instance, Disney would never sanction. But are these images truly original if the characters are perfect matches for those created by the companies that own them? As for transformative use, that's a question of how the art or character is being used or what it's doing in the image. Does the generated art give that character or the ideas related to it a new use? If you use renderings of, say, Disney's Moana and Marvel's The Incredible Hulk in an editorial cartoon (something someone draws as opposed to being an AI render), that might pass muster as transformative. Most of this AI-generated content does not appear to meet that threshold, at least in my opinion. If Warner Bros. Discovery wins, the next time you request an image of Iron Man making pancakes at a local diner, Midjourney, Grok, and ChatGPT might reply, "Sorry, I can't make this image." If they lose, well, all bets are off, and you'll be seeing a lot more of Batman, Rick and Morty, and every character under the sun doing your AI bidding. We're all, as Grok notes, watching these developments closely.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Midjourney for Copyright Theft

Warner Bros. Discovery has launched a lawsuit against the AI image generator Midjourney, accusing the latter of copyright infringement. In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery says Midjourney allows its subscribers to "pick iconic copyrighted characters" which are then used for "infringing images and videos, and unauthorized derivatives, with every imaginable scene featuring those characters." The lawsuit is similar to the one Disney launched along with NBC Universal earlier in the summer, which also revolved around Midjourney's ability to reproduce copyrighted characters. Warner Bros. Discovery included a number of examples in its lawsuit showing how Midjourney recreates some of its beloved characters, including Batman, Bugs Bunny, The Joker, Rick and Morty, and Scooby Doo, to name a few. "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," Warner Bros. Discovery says in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter (THR). "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments." Meanwhile, Disney says it is pleased that Warner Bros. Discovery has "joined the fight against Midjourney's blatant copyright infringement." NBCUniversal tells THR that, "creative artists are the backbone of our industry, and we are committed to protecting their work and our intellectual property." THR notes that several large studios have not entered this legal battle against Midjourney, notably Apple Studios, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Amazon MGM Studios, and Paramount Skydance. Some of these studios harbor their own AI ambitions. Midjourney works by taking an unimaginably large amount of photos, images, and videos, and then using that data -- which it does not seek permission for -- to train algorithms that can produce pictures based on the source material. The technology has gotten so good that it can imitate photography, real videos, and iconic copyrighted characters. The case won't come down to whether Midjourney used copyrighted Warner Bros. images or not -- it clearly did -- what it will come down to is whether such a practice is covered by fair use or not. In June, a judge sided with AI firm Anthropic after it was sued by a group of authors over the training of their books. Anthropic successfully argued fair use.

Midjourney accused of 'brazen theft' in Warner Bros. Discovery lawsuit

Warner Bros. Discovery is suing Midjourney for copyright infringement, joining Disney and Universal in the battle over AI's impact on film and TV. "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 complaint reads. The suit claims that Midjourney is built on theft by "brazenly" dispensing Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property. One example? Bugs Bunny, according to the complaint filed on Thursday in California federal court, and The Hollywood Reporter. Other examples include Superman, Batman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and the Powerpuff Girls, according to the Associated Press. "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," a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments." According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit argues that Midjourney creates "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney's massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its Service are somehow authorized by Warner Bros. Discovery." Warner Bros. Discovery is seeking $150,000 per infringed work. This is just one of many lawsuits against artificial intelligence -- Anthropic settled a copyright lawsuit for $15 billion earlier this month, and Disney and Comcast's Universal's June complaint alleges that Midjourney is a "bottomless pit of plagiarism."

Midjourney Is in Major Trouble

AI image generator Midjourney is in major trouble after being accused of facilitating mass copyright infringement. According to documents obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, entertainment conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery is suing the startup for "brazenly" infringing on its intellectual property by letting its users create AI-generated images and videos of its copyrighted characters -- which, due to Warner Bros' immense catalog, include everything from the Batman franchise to Scooby-Doo to Bugs Bunny. "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," a spokesperson told the Reporter. "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments." It's not just Warner Bros. Disney and Universal teamed earlier this year to independently sue Midjourney for "blatant copyright infringement," accusing the company's generator of being a "virtual vending machine" that can generate "endless unauthorized copies." The lawsuit highlights how the subject of copyright infringement is quickly turning into a high-stakes legal battle for AI companies like Midjourney -- but also affecting much larger enterprises, like OpenAI, which is itself being sued by tktk. Tech leaders have repeatedly argued that their firms are doing nothing wrong, claiming the tech has no chance of survival if companies aren't allowed to indiscriminately ingest copyrighted materials. It's a talking point even president Donald Trump has signed onto, suggesting regulators are extremely unlikely to step in. During a White House event centered around AI earlier this year, Trump argued that "you can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you've read or studied, you're supposed to pay for." AI image generators, in particular, have been found to spit out images and videos of copyrighted characters, as experts have demonstrated, culminating in numerous lawsuits by artists and entertainment conglomerates alike. It doesn't take much to coax Midjourney's image generator to perfectly reproduce iconic TV and comic book characters. A simple prompt like "classic comic book superhero battle" will result in copyright-infringing material, Warner Bros argued in its latest lawsuit, along with screencaps of the media company's action blockbuster "The Dark Knight." To Warner Bros it's an open-and-shut case. "It is hard to imagine copyright infringement that is any more willful than what Midjourney is doing here," the company wrote in its lawsuit. "Midjourney is purposefully exploiting Warner Bros. Discovery's valuable intellectual property to attract subscribers to Midjourney, and it is profiting by providing subscribers with endless copies and derivatives of Warner Bros. Discovery's Copyrighted Works." The company is seeking damages in the form of any attributable profits Midjourney made -- or $150,000 per infringed work, per the Hollywood Reporter. The lawsuit could eventually set an important legal precedent by determining whether AI companies like Midjourney and OpenAI are operating under "fair use," a thorny legal doctrine that allows limited access to copyrighted materials without prior permission for quotations and other non-infringing usages. And the stakes are real. Soon after the Warner Bros lawsuit dropped, the AI company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit by authors who claimed its chatbot Claude was trained on their work without permission.

Warner Bros. sues Midjourney, citing 'breathtaking' copyright theft

'Not interested': Baldur's Gate 3's Astarion says explosive tech leaves no room for actors Good news, A.I. haters! On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery filed suit against San Francisco-based company Midjourney. That makes it the latest media company to challenge copyright infringement by the generative A.I. company. Back in June, Disney and Universal teamed up for a similar legal challenge. Midjourney is among the most popular A.I. image generators, with more than 20 million registered users according to data insights company Demandsage. In a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter, which first reported the news, a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said, "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments." In the complaint, Warner Bros. Discovery's legal team alleges that "Midjourney already possesses the technological means and measures that could prevent its distribution, public display, and public performance of infringing images and videos. But Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection to copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement." Elsewhere, they argue, "Evidently, Midjourney will not stop stealing Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property until a court orders it to stop. Midjourney's large-scale infringement is systematic, ongoing, and willful, and Warner Bros. Discovery has been, and continues to be, substantially and irreparably harmed by it." The 101-page document includes dozens of side-by-side screenshots comparing Midjourney-generated images to those by the original creators, featuring iconic characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and Bugs Bunny. With few exceptions, the A.I. images are almost indistinguishable from the copyrighted originals. Warner Bros. seeks to recover all profits Midjourney has made related to its intellectual properties, or alternatively, $150,000 per infringed work. In the case of the latter, that would mean hundreds of TV episodes or comic book images relating to just a single character, which could send damages into the hundreds of millions of dollars. If this suit -- as well as the earlier one put forth by Disney and Universal -- reaches the discovery phase, we could learn a lot more about how generative A.I. companies like Midjourney train their models. That's been a huge grey area for A.I. observers, and a 2022 Verge interview with Midjourney founder David Holz takes on some new meaning in this context. "Pretty much every big AI model just pulls off all the data it can, all the text it can, all the images it can," Holz told The Verge. "Scientifically speaking, we're at an early point in the space, where everyone grabs everything they can, they dump it in a huge file, and they kind of set it on fire to train some huge thing, and no one really knows yet what data in the pile actually matters."

Midjourney's troubles get worse as Warner Bros Discovery sues the AI image generator for copyright infringement

Three months after Disney and Universal sued Midjourney, Warner opens a new front. Three months after Disney and Universal sued AI image generator Midjourney for copyright infringement, Warner Bros Discovery has joined the fight. The media giant has launched its own lawsuit against Midjourney, accusing it of "brazenly dispens[ing] Warner Bros Discovery's intellectual property as if it were its own." Midjourney is a generative AI service that produces images based on text prompts: Tell it what you want and it'll spit something out. The problem, as we noted when Disney and Universal filed their suit in June, is that there are no copyright guardrails. Midjourney is happy to churn out images that are direct lifts of copyrighted material -- like this one, for instance, is clearly Woody from Toy Story, even though Midjourney has absolutely no legal right to be producing images of Woody from Toy Story. "Midjourney could easily stop its theft and exploitation of Warner Bros Discovery's intellectual property," the lawsuit (via Culture Crave) states. Instead, it alleges, "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." To reinforce its point, the suit includes numerous images and links from the Midjourney Discord and Subreddit, like this one from a couple months ago entitled "Superman's bored": The lawsuit contains numerous other examples of its properties being rendered in Midjourney, but you can just head over to the subreddit to see them in the wild. "That the examples above are on Midjourney's own Discord server and its Midjourney subreddit shows that Midjourney had actual knowledge of its service's infringement," the lawsuit states. The suit claims that Midjourney did briefly have "technology protection measures" attached to its video service, but "inexplicably" chose to remove them. "Midjourney's actions validate Warner Bros Discovery's concerns that Midjourney can and will remove copyright protection measures on a whim," the suit states. "Midjourney refuses to stop its infringement while many of Midjourney's competitors have implemented technological measures to prevent the generation of infringing outputs." Legal wrangling over generative AI is nothing new -- Midjourney was hit with a class action lawsuit filed by a group of artists in 2023, for instance -- and there's probably a lot of it that lies ahead because this genie is not going back into the bottle. But the fate of Midjourney may ultimately prove instructive: Tech giants may eventually find a way to wrangle rulings allowing them to do pretty much whatever they want with other people's stuff, but the combined legal teams of Disney, Universal, and now Warner bring a lot of gun to the fight. That may be enough to force Midjourney to make meaningful concessions to copyright that eventually serve as precedents for the entire industry.

Warner Bros. sues Midjourney for AI-generated images of Superman, Bugs Bunny and other characters

Warner Bros. is suing artificial intelligence company Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that the startup enables its millions of subscribers to create AI-generated images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman and Bugs Bunny. It's the third big Hollywood studio to sue Midjourney in Los Angeles federal court after Disney and Universal filed a joint lawsuit in June. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney trained its AI system on "illegal copies" of Warner Bros. works and encourages its users to pick iconic characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo or the Powerpuff Girls and create downloaded images and videos of those characters in "every imaginable scene." Even a generic prompt for the AI tool to produce a "classic comic book superhero battle" will generate high-quality images of DC Studios figures such as Superman, Batman and Flash, according to the lawsuit. Warner Bros. says "Midjourney thinks it is above the law" and "could easily stop its theft and exploitation" of intellectual property in the same way it sets limits on violence or nudity. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney's practices create "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney's massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its Service are somehow authorized by Warner Bros. Discovery." The entertainment giant says it is entitled to up to $150,000 in damages per infringed work. Midjourney has denied copyright infringement allegations in the Disney and Universal case, arguing in an August court filing that while its AI tool "had to be trained on billions of publicly available images," it did so "in order to learn visual concepts" and how they correspond to language. "Training a generative AI model to understand concepts by extracting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works is a quintessentially transformative fair use - a determination resoundingly supported by courts that have considered the issue," said Midjourney's response, citing recent court rulings in lawsuits by published authors against Anthropic and Facebook parent Meta. Midjourney also said the onus was on its customers to follow Midjourney's terms of use, which prohibit infringing intellectual property rights. In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz described his image-making service as "kind of like a search engine" pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity. "Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?" Holz said. "Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine."

Warner Bros Discovery joins the list of companies suing Midjourney AI

TL;DR: Warner Bros. Discovery has joined Disney and Universal in suing AI company Midjourney for copyright infringement, accusing it of exploiting iconic characters like Superman and Batman without permission. The lawsuit highlights Midjourney's removal of copyright protections and alleges deliberate, profit-driven intellectual property violations. A few months ago, we reported on two of the biggest entertainment studios in Hollywood, Disney and Universal, suing the AI company Midjourney for copyright infringement. The lawsuit didn't pull any punches, with the entertainment giants calling Midjourney and its AI-powered image and animation generation tools a "copyright free-rider" and "a bottomless pit of plagiarism." We can now add Warner Bros. Discovery to the list of entertainment companies suing Midjourney for copyright infringement. "Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby-Doo," the complaint reads. "These are some of the most popular and valuable fictional characters ever created, and they (and many other characters) are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery," it continues, adding that only Warner Bros. Discovery has the right to create content and build a business around copyrighted characters. The complaint is similarly strongly worded as previous lawsuits filed against Midjourney, stating that "Midjourney thinks it is above the law" and that the company could "easily stop its theft and exploitation" of its intellectual property. The images you see in this article were generated using Midjourney's popular and powerful AI image generation platform. There are also several examples of Warner Bros. related images that you can find over on the Midjourney subreddit, with the complaint including a couple of examples, including the following 'Superman's bored' example. Interestingly, the suit claims that at one point, Midjourney had "technology protection measures" for copyrighted content but chose to remove them. It alleges "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." It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Maybe one day, firing up Midjourney and writing "Batman running down the beach like he's on the TV show Baywatch" will no longer do its thing.

WB Sues Midjourney Over Turning Batman And Joker AI Slop

The AI company's tool has been used to create a lot of images of Superman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo and more and WB ain't happy about that Media giant Warner Bros. is suing Midjourney, claiming in a newly filed lawsuit that the AI company offers a service that creates "infringing images and videos" without WB's "consent or authorization" and stating that Midjourney "thinks it is above the law." The new WB lawsuit against Midjourney was filed on September 4 in a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In it, WB lawyers argue that Midjourney did nothing to protect rights holders from users being able to create images and videos using copyright-protected characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Scooby-Doo. WB's legal team called the choice not to stop people from creating all of this infringing slop a "calculated and profit-driven decision." It also claims that Midjourney is fully aware of the "breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement." In the lengthy filing, WB lawyers provide multiple examples of Midjourney's AI generating near-carbon-copy recreations of famous WB-owned characters like The Joker and Batman. It also includes some examples of users sharing generated images of characters like Rick and Morty and R2-D2 in Midjourney's own Discord server. "Midjourney thinks it is above the law," explained WB in its lawsuit. "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.†Warner Bros. isn't the first big entertainment company to go after Midjourney. Earlier this year, Disney and NBCUniversal teamed up to file a massive lawsuit against the AI company. Disney and NBC had similar complaints and evidence as that which WB has compiled. In response to Disney suing the company, Midjourney pushed back and claimed training its AI on copyrighted works was "fair use" and added that “copyright law does not confer absolute control over the use of copyrighted works." The AI company also said that Disney and other media giants want to have it "both ways," using AI and then suing AI companies. According to Midjourney's lawyers, the company has many accounts tied to NBC and Disney email addresses, suggesting both media giants are using Midjourney's services themselves. As AI-generated content becomes easier to produce and cheaper to create, these types of lawsuits are likely to become more common, with rights-holders and artists attempting to fight back against the growing flood of AI-generated slop.

Warner Bros. Is Suing This AI Startup, Claiming It Stole Superman's Image

Warner Bros. Discovery is coming at AI startup Midjourney faster than a speeding bullet. The entertainment giant is accusing the company of theft of its intellectual property, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, and more. In the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court, Warner Bros. alleges that the San Francisco-based tech company, which launched in 2022, let users create AI-generated images and clips of D.C. Comics and other characters it was not authorized to use. Users have posted those images on social media sites. "Midjourney thinks it is above the law," Warner says in the complaint. "It sells a commercial subscription service, powered by artificial intelligence technology, that was developed using illegal copies of Warner Bros. Discovery's copyrighted works. ... Without any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property as if it were its own." Neither Midjourney nor Warner Bros. Discovery replied to Inc's requests for comment about the lawsuit. Warner Bros. Discovery (which is in the process of splitting into two separate companies) is not the first entertainment behemoth to file suit against Midjourney. Disney and Universal, earlier this year, teamed up to sue the startup, accusing it of using their intellectual properties without permission, including AI-generated images of Shrek, Darth Vader, Minions, and Spider-Man. While Midjourney has not commented on the Warner Bros. suit, it did file a legal reply to Disney's suit, saying the use of those characters and more was "fair use" and that studios were trying to "have it both ways," alleging they use Midjourney's AI tools, but want to punish the AI service. "Copyright law does not confer absolute control over the use of copyrighted works," Midjourney's said in that reply. "The limited monopoly granted by copyright must give way to fair use, which safeguards countervailing public interests in the free flow of ideas and information. ... Plaintiffs cannot have it both ways, seeking to profit -- through their use of Midjourney and other generative AI tools -- from industry-standard AI training practices on the one hand, while on the other hand accusing Midjourney of wrongdoing for the same." To date, just one major fair use case surrounding the AI industry has been concluded. The court found in favor of Thomson Reuters, the content creator, in that case. And experts say Midjourney's case here looks problematic. "If a user can prompt 'cartoon dog solving mysteries' and get an image clearly identifiable as Scooby-Doo, then the transformation defense looks weak," says Rob Rosenberg, a partner at New York-based law firm Moses Singer, who specializes in AI, copyright, IP, and entertainment law. "Courts may decide that AI model training, especially when it results in outputs closely resembling the source, is not transformative enough to qualify as fair use." The Warner Bros. Discovery suit against Midjourney includes a laundry list of characters beyond the DC Universe that have been generated by Midjourney's tool, including Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby-Doo characters as well as Cartoon Network favorites, such as Rick and Morty. Midjourney offers a number of paid subscription tiers, which cost up to $120 per month. Beyond made-up characters, the company's technology also lets users make fake images of real people. During the 2024 election, it began blocking users from creating images of Joe Biden or Donald Trump. "I don't really care about political speech," Midjourney CEO David Holz said at the time. "That's not the purpose of Midjourney. It's not that interesting to me. That said, I also don't want to spend all of my time trying to police political speech. So we're going to have to put our foot down on it a bit." The Warner Bros. suit, said Rosenberg, has the potential to help shape the larger AI business model, should Midjourney lose. "If courts treat training data ingestion as 'copying,' it could blow up the current AI business model and impact Midjourney's future," he says. "If courts focus only on the outputs, companies might avoid liability by tightening content filters. ... It could also trigger new legislation if courts imply that copyright law isn't equipped for generative AI's scale and capabilities. If Warner succeeds, it may chill the fair use defense across the AI landscape, especially for models trained on copyrighted material without permission." The final deadline for the 2025 Inc. Best in Business Awards is Friday, September 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney for AI-Generated Images of Superman, Bugs Bunny and Other Characters

Warner Bros. is suing artificial intelligence company Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that the startup enables its millions of subscribers to create AI-generated images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman and Bugs Bunny. It's the third big Hollywood studio to sue Midjourney in Los Angeles federal court after Disney and Universal filed a joint lawsuit in June. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney trained its AI system on "illegal copies" of Warner Bros. works and encourages its users to pick iconic characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo or the Powerpuff Girls and create downloaded images and videos of those characters in "every imaginable scene." Even a generic prompt for the AI tool to produce a "classic comic book superhero battle" will generate high-quality images of DC Studios figures such as Superman, Batman and Flash, according to the lawsuit. Warner Bros. says "Midjourney thinks it is above the law" and "could easily stop its theft and exploitation" of intellectual property in the same way it sets limits on violence or nudity. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney's practices create "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney's massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its Service are somehow authorized by Warner Bros. Discovery." The entertainment giant says it is entitled to up to $150,000 in damages per infringed work. Midjourney has denied copyright infringement allegations in the Disney and Universal case, arguing in an August court filing that while its AI tool "had to be trained on billions of publicly available images," it did so "in order to learn visual concepts" and how they correspond to language. "Training a generative AI model to understand concepts by extracting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works is a quintessentially transformative fair use - a determination resoundingly supported by courts that have considered the issue," said Midjourney's response, citing recent court rulings in lawsuits by published authors against Anthropic and Facebook parent Meta. Midjourney also said the onus was on its customers to follow Midjourney's terms of use, which prohibit infringing intellectual property rights. In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz described his image-making service as "kind of like a search engine" pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity. "Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?" Holz said. "Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine."

Warner Bros. Discovery Declare War on Midjourney Over Batman, Superman

Warner Bros. Discovery also seeks a jury trial against Midjourney Not even Batman and Superman can escape artificial intelligence (AI). On Thursday, Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit against Midjourney for allegedly reproducing, displaying, and distributing unauthorised derivatives of its intellectual property. The media and entertainment company shared dozens of images of its copyrighted work, including characters such as Batman, Superman, Scooby Doo, Rick and Morty, Bugs Bunny, and more. The company is seeking monetary compensation for damages and wants the courts to block Midjourney from generating copies of its work. Midjourney Faces Lawsuit for Generating AI Images and Videos of Batman Warner Bros. Discovery filed the lawsuit with a US District Court in California for direct and secondary copyright infringement of its intellectual property, seeking a jury trial. The company alleged that Midjourney "brazenly dispenses" its copyrighted works "as if it were its own." Across the entire lawsuit, numerous examples of AI images generated by Midjourney were presented. Image taken from the Warner Bros. Discovery v Midjourney lawsuit Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery The media and entertainment company claimed that these listed examples were obtained by providing a text prompt asking to see these characters in a specific pose or location. Warner Bros. Discovery also claimed that some of the outputs with striking resemblance to its characters were generated without even mentioning them. For instance, the lawsuit claims, the prompt, "classic comic book superhero battle," generated an image featuring Superman and Batman. As per the lawsuit, several examples shared were taken from Midjourney's Discord channel and Subreddit. Highlighting this, the company said it constitutes proof that the company knew of its service's infringement of the copyrighted characters. Image taken from the Warner Bros. Discovery v Midjourney lawsuit Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery Warner Bros. Discovery alleges that Midjourney could have easily stopped its AI image generation and video generation models from infringing on its copyright; however, "Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners." The lawsuit claims that the AI company had full knowledge of the scope of its AI systems' piracy. Further, the lawsuit also raised concerns that such immaculate reproduction would not have been possible unless Midjourney's large language models (LLMs) were trained on its copyrighted data. It claimed that the AI firm's CEO, David Holz, trained its model on copyrighted images by sourcing them from the Internet. To verify the claims, the entertainment company stated that the training phase of Midjourney's AI models will be part of the discovery of this legal procedure.

Warner Bros Discovery sues AI photo generator Midjourney for stealing Superman, Scooby-Doo - The Economic Times

In a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Warner Bros said the theft enabled Midjourney to train its image and video service to offer subscribers high quality, downloadable images of its characters in "every imaginable scene."Warner Bros Discovery sued the AI photo generation company Midjourney on Thursday, saying it brazenly stole the studio's works to generate images of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and other copyrighted characters. In a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Warner Bros said the theft enabled Midjourney to train its image and video service to offer subscribers high quality, downloadable images of its characters in "every imaginable scene." Warner Bros also said Midjourney knew its conduct was wrongful because it once blocked subscribers from generating videos from many infringing images, only to lift that protection measure last month while touting the change as an "improvement." "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," the complaint said. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and disgorgement of profits, and a halt to further infringements. It follows a similar lawsuit filed in June against Midjourney by Walt Disney and Comcast's Universal over characters including Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, Shrek and Ariel from "The Little Mermaid." Launched in 2022 and led by founder David Holz, San Francisco-based Midjourney had nearly 21 million users as of September 2024 and an estimated $300 million of revenue in 2024, according to Warner Bros' complaint. Midjourney and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In an August 6 filing in the Disney and Universal case, Midjourney said copyright law "does not confer absolute control" over the use of copyrighted works. It also said using those works to train generative AI models amounted to fair use, helping ensure the free flow of ideas and information. Many authors, news media, record labels and other copyright owners have accused AI companies, large and fledgling, in lawsuits of using their materials without permission. "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," a spokesperson for Warner Bros Discovery said. "We filed this suit to protect our content, our partners and our investments." Warner Bros Discovery's operations include Warner Bros Entertainment, Turner Entertainment, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera and The Cartoon Network. The case is Warner Bros Entertainment Inc et al v Midjourney Inc, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 25-08376.

Warner Bros. Demands $150,000 per Image from Midjourney over Copyright Violations

Midjourney offers subscriptions ranging from $10 to $120 per month to users. We all know what AI has been doing lately; it's picking up content from the Internet and reusing it to create its own content using the images or the text. Recently, the AI company Midjourney has been sued by Warner Bros. Discovery for infringing and plagiarizing their copyrighted characters. For the unacquainted, Midjourney is an Artificial Intelligence firm that allows its subscribers or users to create images or videos using text prompts. For example, if a user instructs the AI platform to create an image or video of "Batman, where the classic Dark Knight armour," Midjourney does exactly the same. For this, Midjourney offers a subscription ranging from $10 to $120 per month. The problem with this platform is that it doesn't give any credit to those who work tirelessly to create the iconic characters; basically, the company or corporation that originally owns the rights to these characters. On top of it, when you think about it, platforms like Midjourney train their AI systems by using the content that is not owned by them. In this case, Midjourney is able to create characters like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, which are the intellectual properties of Warner Bros. Discover. This is obviously a concern for companies like Warner Bros. That is why the company filed a lawsuit against Midjourney and joined other companies like Universal and Disney, which sued the AI company earlier this year. The complaint that was filed this Thursday states that Midjourney "brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property." "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,"- Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has sought $150,000 from Midjourney for every single image and video that they created unethically using the company's content. This is obviously a big problem for Midjourney, but the AI company hasn't released any official statement as of yet.

Warner Bros. Discovery Takes Midjourney To Court Over AI-Generated Superman, Batman, Scooby-Doo, And Other Iconic Characters

With AI being more widely adopted and used more actively by companies and users, the boundary between human creativity and artificially generated content seems to be blurring. This has not only invited concerns but has also paved the way for a new set of legal pursuits. With these issues becoming more common, a recent lawsuit filed by Warner Bros. has come to light, where the AI image-generation startup Midjourney has been sued for infringing copyright by enabling users to create images of some of its iconic characters. Warner Bros. Discovery has taken legal action against Midjourney and accused the platform of engaging in large-scale copyright infringement. According to the lawsuit, the platform has been generating images and videos of characters that have defined pop culture for decades. The case explicitly mentions Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and Bugs Bunny, which go beyond just being fictional characters and serve as some of the entertainment company's core assets. The lawsuit was filed in a Los Angeles federal court on September 5, 2025, as per a TechCrunch report, and claims that Midjourney intentionally and knowingly allowed the content to be produced and earned profits by using the intellectual property of Warner Bros. The studio goes on to state that the AI image startup initially had safeguards in place to prevent such unauthorized use of its services, but recently removed them in what is being defined as a well-thought-out and calculated decision. In the court documents, the AI-generated images and the original ones are compared side by side, and they appear strikingly similar. As a result, the studio is now seeking damages of up to $150,000 for the infringement and an injunction to prevent such future violations. This is not the first legal pursuit against Midjourney, as other major studios like Universal and Disney have also alleged that the company engaged in similar practices and used unauthorized depictions of their characters. Midjourney, in its defense, argues that it engaged in the practice under the principle of transformative fair use, where the images were not directly copied but rather its technology was used to learn visual ideas from billions of images and then create something based on the knowledge gained. The company further suggested it is a similar process to how humans draw inspiration and learn. The AI startup also went on to shift the blame to users by asserting that the responsibility lies with them to not engage in such practices, especially when the terms of service strictly forbid content being created this way. Nonetheless, the outcome of the case would shape future cases as well and would have a ripple effect in terms of accountability in the digital age as authorities attempt to define ownership and originality in these changing times.

Warner Bros Discovery sues AI photo generator Midjourney for stealing Superman, Scooby-Doo

Warner Bros Discovery sued the AI photo generation company Midjourney on Thursday, saying it brazenly stole the studio's works to generate images of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and other copyrighted characters. In a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Warner Bros said the theft enabled Midjourney to train its image and video service to offer subscribers high quality, downloadable images of its characters in "every imaginable scene." Warner Bros also said Midjourney knew its conduct was wrongful because it once blocked subscribers from generating videos from many infringing images, only to lift that protection measure last month while touting the change as an "improvement." "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," the complaint said. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and disgorgement of profits, and a halt to further infringements. It follows a similar lawsuit filed in June against Midjourney by Walt Disney and Comcast's Universal over characters including Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, Shrek and Ariel from "The Little Mermaid." Launched in 2022 and led by founder David Holz, San Francisco-based Midjourney had nearly 21 million users as of September 2024 and an estimated $300 million of revenue in 2024, according to Warner Bros' complaint. Midjourney and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In an August 6 filing in the Disney and Universal case, Midjourney said copyright law "does not confer absolute control" over the use of copyrighted works. It also said using those works to train generative AI models amounted to fair use, helping ensure the free flow of ideas and information. Many authors, news media, record labels and other copyright owners have accused AI companies, large and fledgling, in lawsuits of using their materials without permission. "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," a spokesperson for Warner Bros Discovery said. "We filed this suit to protect our content, our partners and our investments." Warner Bros Discovery's operations include Warner Bros Entertainment, Turner Entertainment, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera and The Cartoon Network. The case is Warner Bros Entertainment Inc et al v Midjourney Inc, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 25-08376.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Major AI Company for Copyright Infringement

Disney Sued For Pay Discrimination By One of Its Former Top Lawyers Warner Bros. Discovery is suing a prominent artificial intelligence image generator for copyright infringement, escalating a high-stakes battle involving the use of movies and TV shows owned by major studios to teach AI systems. The lawsuit accuses Midjourney, which has millions of registered users, of building its business around the mass theft of content. The company "brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery's intellectual property" by letting subscribers produce images and videos of iconic copyrighted characters, alleges the complaint, filed on Thursday in California federal court. "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," said a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson in a statement. "Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments." With the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery joins Disney and Universal, which earlier this year teamed up to sue Midjourney. By their thinking, the AI company is a free-rider plagiarizing their movies and TV shows. In a statement, Disney said it's "committed to protecting our creators and innovators" and that it's "pleased to be joined by Warner Bros. Discovery in the fight against Midjourney's blatant copyright infringement." Added NBCUniversal, "Creative artists are the backbone of our industry, and we are committed to protecting their work and our intellectual property." For years, chatter has swirled that AI companies train their technology on data scraped across the internet without compensating creators. It's led to lawsuits from authors, record labels, news organizations, artists and studios, which contend that some AI tools erode demand for their content. In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery points to Midjourney generating images of iconic copyrighted characters. At the forefront are heroes who're at the center of DC Studios' movies and TV shows, like Superman, Wonder Woman and The Joker; others are Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo characters who've become ubiquitous household names; more are Cartoon Network characters, including those from Rick and Morty, who've emerged as something of cultural touchstones in recent years. Midjourney, which has four tiers of paid subscriptions ranging from $10 to $120 per month, returns characters owned by Warners even in response prompts like "classic comic book superhero battle" that don't explicitly mention any particular intellectual property, the complaint alleges. As evidence that Midjourney trained its AI system on its intellectual property, Warner Bros. Discovery attaches dozens of images showing the tool's outputs compared to stills from its movies and TV shows. When prompted with "Batman, screencap from The Dark Knight," the service returns an image of Christian Bale's portrayal of the character featuring the costume's Kevlar plate design that differentiated it from previous iterations of the hero that appears to be taken from the movie or promotional materials, with few to no alternations made. One of the more convincing examples highlights a 3D-animated Bugs Bunny mirroring his adaptation in Space Jam: A New Legacy. The lawsuit argues Midjourney's ability to return copyrighted characters is a "clear draw for subscribers," diverting consumers away from purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery-approved posters, wall art and prints, among other products that must now compete against the service. Like OpenAI, the content used to train Midjourney's technology is a black box, representing an obstacle for some creators who've sued AI companies for copyright infringement. Rightsholders have mined public statements from AI company c-suites for clues. In 2022, Midjourney founder David Holz said in an interview that his employees "grab everything they can, they dump it in a huge file, and they kind of set it on fire to train some huge thing." The specifics of the training process will be subject to discovery. Warner Bros. Discovery seeks Midjourney's profits attributable to the alleged infringement or, alternatively, $150,000 per infringed work, which could leave the AI company on the hook for massive damages. The thrust of the studios' lawsuits will likely be decided by one question: Are AI companies covered by fair use, the legal doctrine in intellectual property law that allows creators to build upon copyrighted works without a license? On that issue, a court found earlier this year that Amazon-backed Anthropic is on solid legal ground, at least with respect to training. The technology is "among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes," wrote U.S. District Judge William Alsup. Still, the court set the case for trial over allegations that the company illegal downloaded millions of books to create a library that was used for training. Anthropic, which later settled the lawsuit, faced potential damages of hundreds of millions of dollars stemming from the decision that may have laid the groundwork for Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney and Universal to get similar payouts depending on what they unearth in discovery over how Midjourney obtained copies of thousands of films and TV shosws that were repurposed to teach its image generator. Still on the sidelines in the fight over generative AI: Paramount Skydance, Amazon MGM Studios, Apple Studios, Sony Pictures and Lionsgate. Some have major AI ambitions.

Warner Bros. sues Midjourney for AI-generated images of Superman, Bugs Bunny and other characters

Warner Bros. is suing artificial intelligence company Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that the startup enables its millions of subscribers to create AI-generated images and videos of copyrighted characters like Superman and Bugs Bunny. It's the third big Hollywood studio to sue Midjourney in Los Angeles federal court after Disney and Universal filed a joint lawsuit in June. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney trained its AI system on "illegal copies" of Warner Bros. works and encourages its users to pick iconic characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo or the Powerpuff Girls and create downloaded images and videos of those characters in "every imaginable scene." Even a generic prompt for the AI tool to produce a "classic comic book superhero battle" will generate high-quality images of DC Studios figures such as Superman, Batman and Flash, according to the lawsuit. Warner Bros. says "Midjourney thinks it is above the law" and "could easily stop its theft and exploitation" of intellectual property in the same way it sets limits on violence or nudity. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney's practices create "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney's massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its Service are somehow authorized by Warner Bros. Discovery." The entertainment giant says it is entitled to up to US$150,000 in damages per infringed work. Midjourney has denied copyright infringement allegations in the Disney and Universal case, arguing in an August court filing that while its AI tool "had to be trained on billions of publicly available images," it did so "in order to learn visual concepts" and how they correspond to language. "Training a generative AI model to understand concepts by extracting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works is a quintessentially transformative fair use - a determination resoundingly supported by courts that have considered the issue," said Midjourney's response, citing recent court rulings in lawsuits by published authors against Anthropic and Facebook parent Meta. Midjourney also said the onus was on its customers to follow Midjourney's terms of use, which prohibit infringing intellectual property rights. In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz described his image-making service as "kind of like a search engine" pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity. "Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?" Holz said. "Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine."

Warner Bros sues Midjourney over AI-generated images of Superman and Bugs Bunny | BreakingNews.ie

Warner Bros is suing artificial intelligence company Midjourney for copyright infringement, alleging that the start-up enables its millions of subscribers to create AI-generated images and videos of copyrighted characters such as Superman and Bugs Bunny. It is the third big Hollywood studio to sue Midjourney in Los Angeles federal court after Disney and Universal filed a joint lawsuit in June. Midjourney, based in San Francisco, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney trained its AI system on "illegal copies" of Warner Bros works and encourages its users to pick famous characters such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo or the Powerpuff Girls and create downloaded images and videos of those characters in "every imaginable scene". Even a generic prompt for the AI tool to produce a "classic comic book superhero battle" will generate high-quality images of DC Studios figures such as Superman, Batman and Flash, according to the lawsuit. Warner Bros says "Midjourney thinks it is above the law" and "could easily stop its theft and exploitation" of intellectual property in the same way it sets limits on violence or nudity. The lawsuit alleges Midjourney's practices create "consumer confusion regarding what is lawful and what is not lawful by misleading its subscribers to believe that Midjourney's massive copying and the countless infringing images and videos generated by its service are somehow authorised by Warner Bros Discovery". The entertainment giant says it is entitled to up to 150,000 dollars (£111,315) in damages per infringed work. Midjourney has denied copyright infringement allegations in the Disney and Universal case, arguing in an August court filing that while its AI tool "had to be trained on billions of publicly available images", it did so "in order to learn visual concepts" and how they correspond to language. "Training a generative AI model to understand concepts by extracting statistical information embedded in copyrighted works is a quintessentially transformative fair use - a determination resoundingly supported by courts that have considered the issue," said Midjourney's response, citing recent court rulings in lawsuits by published authors against Anthropic and Facebook parent Meta. Midjourney also said the onus was on its customers to follow Midjourney's terms of use, which prohibit infringing intellectual property rights. In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney chief executive David Holz described his image-making service as "kind of like a search engine" pulling in a wide swathe of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity. "Can a person look at somebody else's picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?" Mr Holz said. "Obviously, it's allowed for people and if it wasn't, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. "To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it's sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it's fine."

Warner Bros. Discovery accuses Midjourney of massive AI IP theft: What's at stake, and why you should care

The legal battle brewing between Warner Bros. Discovery and Midjourney isn't your typical corporate drama. It's a high-stakes showdown that could either free up AI development or slam on the brakes, and it's all centered on a single, vital question: Who owns the digital ghosts of our creative past? The lawsuit alleges that Midjourney's AI models were trained on a veritable treasure trove of Warner Bros.'s most iconic properties - from the brooding intensity of Batman to the whimsical absurdity of Bugs Bunny and the supernatural mystery of Scooby-Doo. These characters aren't just cultural symbols; they're billion-dollar franchises that Warner Bros. has carefully cultivated and protected for decades. Also read: Midjourney V1 Explained: Better than Google Veo 3? This isn't just about a few rogue images or fan art spiraling out of control. Warner Bros. claims Midjourney has built an entire business on this "massive IP theft," allowing users to churn out on-model, high-quality images and videos of their characters in "every imaginable scene." Essentially, they argue that Midjourney is directly profiting from a vault of intellectual property that took decades of investment, creativity, and storytelling to build, and that fans and paying audiences continue to sustain. Midjourney and other AI companies have leaned on the legal doctrine of fair use, arguing that using copyrighted content to train their models is transformative, akin to how a human artist learns by studying the works of masters. They claim this process ensures the "free flow of ideas" and helps AI become a tool that reflects, rather than replaces, human creativity. Also read: Inside Google's Nano Banana: Gemini's new AI image editor Warner Bros. and a growing number of creators, however, aren't buying it. They see it as a blatant act of commercial infringement that strips value away from those who made the works in the first place. For them, Midjourney isn't just "studying"; it's creating a derivative product that directly competes with the very properties it's exploiting. The lawsuit even highlights a key detail: Midjourney once blocked the generation of certain copyrighted content, only to remove the restriction later and call it an "improvement." To Warner Bros., this looks less like innovation and more like intent, evidence that Midjourney knows exactly what it's doing and is willing to push boundaries to expand its appeal. The outcome of this lawsuit will set a precedent with enormous and far-reaching consequences. For the Creators: If Warner Bros. wins, it could force AI companies to license their training data, establishing a new revenue stream for artists, writers, and studios. It would also validate the value of human-made art in a machine-driven world. This isn't just a lawsuit, it's a fight for the right to control one's creative output, a battle cry against the unchecked commodification of art. For the Innovators: A victory for Midjourney could be a boon for AI development, giving companies the freedom to train models on vast, uncompensated datasets. It might accelerate innovation and keep AI tools accessible, but it also risks ushering in a "Wild West" scenario where intellectual property protections crumble under the weight of new technology. For Everyone Else: This isn't just a legal curiosity for lawyers and studios. It's a conversation about the soul of creativity in the digital age. It asks us to confront a fundamental question: When an AI generates an image of Batman, is it a new creation, or is it a digital photocopy of a property that belongs to someone else? The answer won't just shape lawsuits, it will influence the content we consume, the art we create, the tools we use, and perhaps even the very definition of ownership in the 21st century.