Warner Bros. Discovery Sues AI Firm Midjourney Over Copyright Theft
Warner Bros. Discovery has initiated a major legal battle against the AI image generation company Midjourney. The lawsuit accuses Midjourney of systematically stealing and commercially exploiting the media giant’s valuable intellectual property. The core of the complaint focuses on the AI’s ability to produce images and videos depicting Warner Bros. iconic characters, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and the Looney Tunes ensemble.
In its legal filing, Warner Bros. stated that Midjourney operates a commercial subscription service powered by AI technology that was illegally trained on its copyrighted works. The company contends that Midjourney is fully aware of its actions, claiming the AI developer believes it is above the law.
A significant point in the lawsuit is the allegation that Midjourney already possesses the technical capability to block users from generating images of its characters. The company noted that when Midjourney first launched its video model, it apparently refused to generate content based on Warner Bros. properties. However, within recent weeks, those protections were allegedly removed, with Midjourney informing users they would encounter fewer blocked requests.
Warner Bros. argues that the ability to generate its famous characters is a clear and powerful draw for Midjourney’s subscription service, which costs users between ten and one hundred twenty dollars per month. The plaintiff described the infringement as willful, adding that Midjourney has prioritized preserving the hundreds of millions of dollars it earns annually by doubling down on its theft of copyrighted works.
To support its claims, the lawsuit includes visual examples. It places Midjourney-generated images and video stills next to actual promotional materials and screencaps from Warner Bros. films and shows. For instance, an output from the prompt Batman, screencap from The Dark Knight is shown alongside imagery from the Christian Bale-led movie. The complaint further illustrates that even generic prompts like classic comic book superhero battle can result in outputs featuring Warner Bros. characters without them being explicitly named.
This is not Midjourney’s first major legal challenge. The company is already defending itself against a separate copyright infringement lawsuit filed in June by Disney and Universal Studios. That suit similarly accuses Midjourney of training its models on countless copyrighted works without permission and then infringing on copyrights by letting users generate images of characters from properties like Star Wars, Shrek, The Simpsons, and Despicable Me.
Warner Bros. Discovery is seeking statutory damages from the court, which could amount to as much as one hundred fifty thousand dollars per infringed work due to the willful nature of the alleged infringement.
