AI-controlled villain clash as Warner Bros. files lawsuit against Midjourney

In a significant development for the AI industry, Warner Bros. Discovery, based in New York, has filed a lawsuit against AI image generator service Midjourney in a federal court in California. This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal disputes that AI developers are facing, following similar lawsuits by Disney and Universal Studios against Midjourney in June 2025.

At the heart of the lawsuit is the allegation that Midjourney illegally trained its artificial intelligence with countless copyright-protected images from the Warner universe, including Batman, Superman, Looney Tunes, and Harry Potter. The court documents state that it's hard to imagine a more intentional copyright infringement than what Midjourney is doing.

The allegation goes beyond just training the AI, with Warner Bros. Discovery arguing that Midjourney is exploiting the popularity of these characters as a selling point for its paid subscriptions. Major rights holders, including Warner Bros. Discovery, are no longer accepting the training methods of AI providers that rely on copyrighted materials.

If courts rule in favor of Hollywood studios, it could challenge the business model of many AI companies. AI companies may be forced to pay licensing fees for training data or redevelop their models using license-free or explicitly released data. This could set a precedent for future legal disputes involving AI companies and copyright infringement.

The question of whether the extraction and processing of copyrighted works for AI training falls under exceptions like "Fair Use" is being debated in legal cases. A ruling in favor of Midjourney could strengthen the position of AI companies and legalize the current practice of "scraping" data from the internet. On the other hand, a ruling against Midjourney could weaken the position of artists and other creatives, whose works are used without their consent or compensation to create new commercial products.

The courts' decisions in these cases will determine the future of AI training practices and the balance between AI companies' needs and the rights of creators. If courts rule in favor of the Hollywood studios, it could set a precedent for future legal disputes involving AI companies and copyright infringement. The path to clear legal regulation of AI training and data use remains uncertain, with the outcome of ongoing legal proceedings shaping the future.

Midjourney had previously implemented technical safeguards that prevented the creation of images featuring Warner characters, which were later removed. The lawsuit accuses Midjourney of intentionally disabling these safeguards to continue using the copyrighted images.

The current legal disputes between Hollywood studios and AI developers, such as Midjourney, are significant and could have far-reaching implications for the AI industry. The outcome of these lawsuits could shape the way AI companies approach data collection and training, potentially leading to significant changes in the way AI is developed and used.