A screenshot from the complaint (Source: PACER)

Disney, NBCUniversal sue AI image generation startup Midjourney for copyright infringement

A new lawsuit accuses Midjourney of being a “bottomless pit of plagiarism,” infringing the copyright of dozens of the most valuable characters from Marvel, Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks.

Jon Keegan

6/11/25 12:15PM

Midjourney, the early AI image generation startup, is being sued by Disney and NBCUniversal on allegations of copyright infringement.

This is a significant case with huge consequences for the AI industry, as it’s the first to challenge this type of alleged AI-generated image copyright violation. Big Tech companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft all offer some form of generative-AI image creation via chatbots.

The 110-page complaint is littered with what Disney and NBCUniversal say are clear examples of their characters being generated via Midjourney:

Darth Vader, Stormtroopers (“Star Wars”)
DreamWorks’ Minions, Shrek, and Po (“Kung Fu Panda”)
Marvel’s Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Hulk
Pixar’s Buzz Lightyear (“Toy Story”), Wall-E, and Lightning McQueen (“Cars”)
Disney’s Simpsons, Ariel (“The Little Mermaid”), Elsa (“Frozen”), Aladdin, and Mufasa (“The Lion King”)

The complaint includes specific prompts that were used to generate the examples like:

“Darth Vader walking around the Death Star with a red lightsaber”

The list of examples included in the document covers some of the most recognizable, highest-grossing intellectual property from the past 50 years of American pop culture.

The plaintiffs call Midjourney “a bottomless pit of plagiarism,” writing in the complaint:

“By helping itself to Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, and then distributing images (and soon videos) that blatantly incorporate and copy Disney’s and Universal’s famous characters — without investing a penny in their creation — Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing.”

The complaint also says that Midjourney charges between $10 and $120 per month for subscriptions to the service, that the company did not respond to letters from Disney alerting it of the alleged copyright violations, and that after acknowledging the letter, Midjourney did not respond.

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OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

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As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.

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Google will supply AI models to Pentagon in classified deal, per The Information

Google has become the latest tech company to ink an agreement to supply the Department of Defense (War) with AI, having reportedly closed a classified deal that allows the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to The Information.

The Information initially reported talks between the Alphabet-owned company and the US government around two weeks ago, following the messy breakdown of the relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration — and the rushed OpenAI deal that took its place.

The move has reportedly sparked opposition among Google employees, with The Washington Post reporting that over 600 workers signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to ask him to bar the Defense Department from using the company’s AI models for any classified work.