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Midjourney

David Corenswet as the titular Kryptonian hero in James Gunn's Superman.
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Warner Bros., DC Comics and More Sue Midjourney, Says AI Firm ‘Thinks It Is Above the Law’

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Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AI image and video company Midjourney, making it the third major entertainment company to do so following Disney and Universal’s similar lawsuit filed earlier this year. 

The lawsuit alleges the AI company violated the entertainment company’s copyright protections by allowing AI users to create images with characters like Batman, Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny.

“Midjourney thinks it is above the law,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in the complaint. “Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement.”

Midjourney is one of the most popular AI image generators, allowing anyone to create AI images and video clips with simple text prompts. The lawsuit covers Warner Bros. Entertainment and its subsidiaries, including DC Comics, The Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera Productions. 

An image included in the lawsuit filing highlighting Midjourney’s image generation abilities.

Warner Bros. Discovery

In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery notes that Midjourney recently dropped a video generation model as evidence that the AI firm knew it was infringing on copyrights. In the first few days of releasing the video model, the lawsuit alleges, Midjourney stopped users from animating scenes with characters. The restrictions were eventually lifted, but the entertainment giant calls this out as Midjourney’s knowledge of wrongdoing. Warner Bros. Discovery also alleges the AI company updated its terms of service to prohibit redteaming, a safety process tech companies use.

Copyright infringement claims aren’t new for Midjourney. In June, Disney and Universal sued the AI program, calling it “a bottomless pit of plagiarism” and “textbook copyright infringement” in its filing. Warner Bros. Discovery is represented by the same law firm that filed the suit on behalf of Disney and Universal. 

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A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson told CNET, “The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners. Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.” Statements from Disney and NBCUniversal spokespeople expressed similar sentiments. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This lawsuit is further evidence that copyright is one of the most contentious legal issues in the age of AI. Concerns exist at every stage of AI content creation, including whether copyrighted materials are used to train AI models and whether those models can create content that meets the legal definition of infringement. 

There are also ongoing cases between publishers, creators and AI companies. AI-makers Anthropic and Meta recently scored two victories, with courts claiming that training their models on authors’ books constituted fair use. But there are still a lot of questions and legal uncertainties.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

This is just step one for the lawsuit. Midjourney users shouldn’t expect any interruptions to service as a result of the legal battle.



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WB Sues Midjourney Over Turning Batman And Joker AI Slop
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WB Sues Midjourney Over Turning Batman And Joker AI Slop

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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.



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