{"id":200710,"date":"2025-09-04T22:46:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/200710\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:46:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:46:15","slug":"warner-bros-sues-midjourney-joins-studios-ai-copyright-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/200710\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner Bros. Sues Midjourney, Joins Studios’ AI Copyright Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWarner Bros.<\/a> sued Midjourney<\/a> on Thursday, becoming the third studio to accuse the AI image-generating platform of blatant copyright violations.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the complaint<\/a>, Warner Bros. alleges that Midjourney willfully creates both still images and video of its characters, including Superman, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Tom and Jerry. The complaint also alleges that Midjourney recently eliminated guardrails that blocked users from creating videos that infringe on its IP.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMidjourney thinks it is above the law,\u201d the lawsuit states. \u201cWithout any consent or authorization by Warner Bros. Discovery, Midjourney brazenly dispenses Warner Bros. Discovery\u2019s intellectual property as if it were its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. is represented by the same lawyers who sued <\/a>Midjourney on behalf of Disney and Universal in June, and the new complaint follows the same template.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn both cases, the studios argue that Midjourney users are creating infringing outputs \u2014 images and videos that closely resemble copyrighted characters. Both lawsuits also maintain that Midjourney could continue to offer its service with protections in place to prevent such duplication.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement,\u201d the WB lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the Disney-Universal case, Midjourney has argued<\/a> that AI training on copyrighted work is protected by \u201cfair use.\u201d The company also argued that its users are bound by the platform\u2019s terms of service, which forbid violating others\u2019 intellectual property rights.<\/p>\n

\n\tMidjourney\u2019s lawyers also accused the studios of hypocrisy, saying they are seeking to crack down on the use of \u201cindustry standard\u201d AI practices while also seeking to profit from AI.<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. was approached earlier this year about joining the Disney-Universal suit, but opted not to at that point.<\/p>\n

\n\tMidjourney has since unveiled its video service and a 24\/7 streaming channel on its own website and on YouTube \u2014 potentially posing a greater competitive threat to the studios. Midjourney\u2019s discussion of adding \u201cchannels\u201d on its live stream suggests an \u201cintent to expand into the traditional television or streaming markets,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit alleges that users can easily prompt the service to generate infringing images and videos of the Joker, Flash, Scooby-Doo, and many other copyrighted characters.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe suit seeks statutory damages as well as an injunction that would block Midjourney from infringing on WB\u2019s copyrights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warner Bros. sued Midjourney on Thursday, becoming the third studio to accuse the AI image-generating platform of blatant…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":200711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,111021,158,67,132,68,1021],"class_list":{"0":"post-200710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-midjourney","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-warner-bros"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115148461650730841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}