Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AI image and video company Midjourney, alleging the service enables users to generate images featuring characters such as Batman, Scooby-Doo and Bugs Bunny. According to CNET, the complaint follows earlier litigation this year by Disney and Universal targeting the same company.
Allegations target character use and product changes
The lawsuit covers Warner Bros. Entertainment and subsidiaries including DC Comics, The Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera Productions. The filing asserts that Midjourney „thinks it is above the law“ and has made a „calculated and profit-driven decision“ to offer „zero“ protection for copyright owners. It cites user ability to prompt images of well-known characters as evidence of infringement.
Warner Bros. Discovery points to Midjourney’s recent drop of a video generation model as part of its case. In the first days of that model’s release, the lawsuit alleges, Midjourney restricted users from animating scenes with characters, then later lifted the restrictions. The complaint characterizes this sequence as showing knowledge of wrongdoing. It also alleges the company updated its terms of service to prohibit redteaming.
Statements and prior suits
A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson told CNET that the company filed the suit to protect its content, partners and investments, calling Midjourney’s conduct blatant and purposeful infringement. CNET reports that Disney and NBCUniversal representatives issued similar statements. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Broader legal context around AI and copyright
CNET notes that copyright remains one of the most contentious legal issues in the AI era, encompassing both the use of copyrighted materials to train models and the outputs those models can produce. Disney and Universal previously sued Midjourney in June, describing the service as „a bottomless pit of plagiarism“ and „textbook copyright infringement“ in their filing. Warner Bros. Discovery is represented by the same law firm involved in that earlier case.
Courts have recently issued rulings in other AI-related cases. As reported by CNET, Anthropic and Meta each recorded wins in disputes over training models on authors’ books, with courts finding such training to be fair use, while acknowledging ongoing uncertainties. CNET adds that this filing marks an early stage of proceedings and that Midjourney users should not expect service interruptions as a result of the lawsuit at this time. (Disclosure noted by CNET: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April.)
