Warner Bros Discovery sued AI photo generation company Midjourney on Thursday, alleging the company brazenly stole the studio’s works to generate images of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and other copyrighted characters The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court, claims this theft enabled Midjourney to train its image and video service to offer subscribers high-quality, downloadable images of Warner’s characters in “every imaginable scene”
The complaint states that Midjourney knew its conduct was wrongful because it once blocked subscribers from generating videos from many infringing images, only to lift that protection last month while promoting the change as an “improvement”.
San Francisco-based Midjourney, launched in 2022, had nearly 21 million users as of September 2024 and an estimated $300 million revenue in 2024 lawsuit follows a similar case filed in June by Disney and Universal against Midjourney over characters including Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, and Shrek. Warner Bros seeks unspecified damages and a halt to further infringements. A Warner Bros Discovery spokesperson said: “The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences.
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