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11th June 2025 - Link Blog

Disney and Universal Sue AI Company Midjourney for Copyright Infringement. This is a big one. It's very easy to demonstrate that Midjourney will output images of copyright protected characters (like Darth Vader or Yoda) based on a short text prompt.

There are already dozens of copyright lawsuits against AI companies winding through the US court system—including a class action lawsuit visual artists brought against Midjourney in 2023—but this is the first time major Hollywood studios have jumped into the fray.

Here's the lawsuit on Document Cloud - 110 pages, most of which are examples of supposedly infringing images.

101. In response to the prompt, "Sulley, animated," Midjourney accessed the data about Disney's Copyrighted Works that is stored by the Image Service and then reproduced, publicly displayed, and made available for download an image output that copies Disney's Sulley character, as shown in this screenshot: Midjourney Output (clearly Sulley from Monsters, Inc.). Disney's Copyrighted Character(s): Sulley from Monsters, Inc.

Posted 11th June 2025 at 9:20 pm

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This is a link post by Simon Willison, posted on 11th June 2025.

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