The gloves are off. In what may become a defining moment in the battle over AI-generated content, Disney and NBCUniversal have filed a sweeping lawsuit against Midjourney, the text-to-image AI platform known for producing eerily accurate renditions of beloved pop culture characters.
The suit accuses Midjourney of mass copyright infringement and threatens to upend the generative AI ecosystem. But it also raises big questions: Why now? Why Midjourney? And could this be the beginning of a larger crackdown?
To answer those questions, I spoke to Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 153 of The Artificial Intelligence Show about the lawsuit.
Filed in federal court in California, the 110-page complaint doesn’t hold back. It alleges Midjourney trained its models on copyrighted works owned by Disney and NBCUniversal, including characters like Elsa, Darth Vader, Buzz Lightyear, the Minions, and more.
And the evidence? Striking examples of AI-generated images that are near-identical to famous scenes from Hollywood blockbusters. (The studios even go so far as to include direct visual comparisons between Midjourney outputs and copyright-protected characters in their lawsuit filing.)
The studios also say they sent cease-and-desist notices that were ignored. As Disney's top lawyer Horacio Gutierrez put it to Axios: "Piracy is piracy, and the fact that it's done by an AI company does not make it any less infringing."
This isn’t the first lawsuit over AI and copyright, but it is the first time the two most powerful studios in Hollywood have jumped into the fray. So, why now?
According to Roetzer, the timing might reflect growing frustration after backchannel efforts to enforce intellectual property boundaries failed, especially since it's not a big secret that AI companies have trained on copyrighted material.
"They all know they trained on the data," he says. "We all know they trained on the data. We all know the models are capable of outputting that data, and the images, videos, and audio look and sound exactly like the training data."
Midjourney’s refusal to engage may have made them the easiest target. Unlike OpenAI or Google, they lack the massive legal war chests to defend themselves in court.
As attorney Sharon Toerek noted in a comment on one of Roetzer's LinkedIn posts about the suit:
"Midjourney looks to have taken its cue from Big AI on this - why else would you ignore a cease & desist demand from a huge copyright holder?
They are potentially waiting out the NYT and other similar copyright holder cases pending against OpenAI to see if there's a roadmap for avoiding infringement liability altogether, and, if not, to get Big AI's blueprint for working out licensing deals with creators (for pennies on dollars of worth depending on the copyright owner).
And I agree that Midjourney and companies similarly sized are best first targets for setting precedents. They are a less well-funded defendant than OpenAI for sure.
So far the US Copyright Office is holding tight (somewhat) on creators' rights. We'll see if the court cases proceed similarly."
Make no mistake: this isn’t just about one company. The lawsuit reads like a warning shot to the entire AI industry.
The studios claim Midjourney is a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" and a "quintessential copyright free rider."
And they're not just seeking damages. They want to halt Midjourney's forthcoming video generation tools unless copyright protections are baked in.
The implication is clear: If AI companies want to keep innovating, they’ll need to do so within the guardrails of IP law...or pay up.
This case also underscores a larger moral tension that many AI users, including Roetzer, grapple with:
"The ability to take pictures and turn them into anything you can imagine...it is so fun to do these things," says Roetzer.
"But it is also the work of creators that is being stolen to make all this possible. I sometimes really struggle with my own personal use and enjoyment of it, knowing all that is happening behind the scenes."
With billions in revenue and cultural relevance at stake, the studios aren’t bluffing. They want control. They want compensation. And they want precedent.
This case could lead to settlements, licensing deals, or even a dramatic reshaping of how generative AI companies operate. But for now, Midjourney is in the hot seat. As Roetzer bluntly puts it:
"If Disney wants them gone, they’re gone."
One way or another, you can bet the rest of the industry is watching closely.