Warner Bros sues Midjourney, joining Disney and Universal in AI copyright battle

Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AI company Midjourney, alleging that the platform allows users to create unauthorized images and videos featuring its iconic characters, including Superman, Batman, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby-Doo.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court on Thursday, makes Warner Bros. the third major studio—following Disney and Universal—to take legal action against the AI image generation platform. According to the complaint, Midjourney trained its AI model using “illegal copies” of Warner Bros. content and enables users to generate outputs that closely resemble copyrighted characters. Warner Bros. claims that even vague prompts, such as a request for a “classic comic book superhero battle,” result in images depicting characters from its DC Comics franchise, including Superman, Batman, and the Flash.

“Midjourney thinks it is above the law,” the complaint states, accusing the company of “brazenly” misusing its intellectual property without permission. The studio alleges that Midjourney could easily impose restrictions to protect copyrighted content—just as it already does to filter out nudity or violence—but has chosen not to implement such guardrails.

The lawsuit also argues that Midjourney’s practices have caused confusion among consumers, misleading users into believing the generated content is authorized. Warner Bros. is seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, as well as an injunction to prevent future infringement.

Midjourney, which is based in San Francisco, has not yet commented on the latest lawsuit. However, in a separate case involving Disney and Universal, the company defended its use of copyrighted material during AI training as protected “fair use.” In that filing, Midjourney stated that its model was trained on billions of publicly available images to learn visual concepts and language associations, which it claims is a transformative and legally permissible process.

Midjourney CEO David Holz previously likened the platform to a search engine in a 2022 interview, suggesting that AI learning from copyrighted images mirrors how human artists are allowed to learn and draw inspiration from existing work.

The lawsuit comes as Midjourney expands its services, including a new video generation tool and a 24/7 streaming channel, which Warner Bros. argues could encroach on traditional TV and streaming markets.