In June of 2025, a lawsuit with the potential to generate a lot of waves in the world of artificial intelligence was filed against Midjourney. One of the largest platforms for AI generated content, Disney and Universal Pictures filed against the company for copyright infringement. As if those two names weren’t a big enough legal threat, they’ve been joined by Warner Bros. Pictures in the suit.
Disney and Universal allege Midjourney is illegally utilizing their intellectual property to help users generate images. Warner Bros. has echoed that sentiment in their own statement. “Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.” Artificial intelligence has to learn and train from some kind of basis. If part of that learning has come from copyrighted material, or is seeking to be indistinguishable from that material, then they have a legitimate case. Not to mention, it’s also a slap in the face to the artists, photographers, and other creatives who did legitimate work to craft the material that the AI is effectively copying.
Warner Bros. is seeking damages in one of two ways. They either want the profits from the company that would be equitable to the infringements, or $150,000 per image. Either way, if the lawsuit is successful, that’s a lot of money.
What’s also interesting is because of the nature of the lawsuit, the discovery process may very well unearth things these AI companies don’t want exposed. Namely, the method by which their AI are trained. That alone is a potential bombshell that could cause Midjourney to seek a settlement as soon as possible. This is definitely a case that we are keeping our eyes on due to the ramifications it will have across the entertainment and artificial intelligence industries. We plan to provide more updates as the case moves forward.
