Warner Bros. Discovery Sues Midjourney For Using Copyrighted Characters

Warner Bros. Discovery sued the company Midjourney on Thursday, claiming that the AI startup has been using copyrighted characters in its image-generation system, including its “most popular and valuable fictional characters” such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and Bugs Bunny.

According to The Verge, Warner Bros. Discovery included several examples of how Midjourney has been reproducing “unauthorized derivatives,” downloadable videos and images, and distributing them to users without permission.

“Only Warner Bros. Discovery has the right under U.S. Copyright law to build a business around reproducing, preparing derivative works, distributing, publicly displaying, and performing images and videos featuring its copyrighted characters,” states the lawsuit. “Midjourney thinks it is above the law.”

Throughout the formal complaint, Warner Bros. Discovery presents evidence showing how Midjourney’s AI system generates its characters—such as Scooby Doo, Batman, Wonder Woman, Tweety,  Superman, Batman, Rick and Morty, and The Powerpuff Girls—through prompts in different scenarios, even when the user has not explicitly requested the copyrighted character.

“Without any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property as if it were its own,” states the complaint. “Midjourney could easily stop its theft and exploitation of Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property.”

Warner Bros. Discovery is suing for damages and requested the court to stop Midjourney from generating, copying, and distributing its copyrighted content.

Midjourney—which recently partnered with Meta on video and image generation technology—has also been sued by Disney and Universal under similar claims earlier this year.

Artists and creative companies have long complained about the use of their work to train AI models. However, this year, multiple judges have sided with tech companies in copyright cases. In June, a San Francisco judge ruled in favor of Anthropic in a case over the use of purchased and pirated copyrighted books, while another judge ruled in favor of Meta in a case brought by 13 authors who claimed the company used their books to train its AI model.