What's The Real Story Behind Disney's Midjourney AI Lawsuit?
Image Source: Open Art
The Lawsuit.
Image Source: LinkedIn
Midjourney is a popular subscription software tool, that generates images and videos from prompts. It is used to make memes and art in the style of other artists and brands, such as Disney. GenAI works by piecing together ideas and concepts that it’s been inputted/trained on. So anything it produces is a result of someone else’s work. Midjourney made three-hundred million dollars in 2024 from the billions of images generated by subscribers.
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On June 11th, 2025, The House of Mouse and several of their affiliated companies filed a Federal lawsuit alleging calculated and wilful copyright infringement, and that their content was scraped without their consent.
Generative AI is only just beginning to be tested in court. So far, companies have not asked permission or been giving authors, actors and artists recompense for using their work, and there has been a hope that a large company will get behind them, with large resources, to turn the tide of opinion.
Is Disney playing the fairy god mother on behalf of all the creators that have passed through it’s doors?
Probably not.
Midjourney are not the only generative AI out there that breach Disney’s copyright. There are large numbers of engines specialising in video, image, as well as the language models that could be used to make scripts and novels based on their work. The leaders are Google and Microsoft, but Meta and Amazon also have popular engines. Disney has not filed against any of them.
But there’s one thing that makes Midjourney different. They’re a start-up. Founder David Holtz started Midjourney in 2021 with a core team of just ten engineers, using Discord to get the word out. Its mainstay is in image creation. You can create video content on it, but it’s nowhere near as good as some of the recent upgrades from the big three that have just been released, e.g. Open Ai’s Sora or Google’s Veo 3.
Disney are hitting on the little guy for a reason.
Disney and AI.
Image Source: Tracker Network
Disney has no qualms about using AI. In 2022, before he passed away, James Earl Jones signed over his voice rights to recreate Darth Vader for projects like Obi-Wan Kenobi and for video game voice overs. He was aware that A.I would be used for this. But Disney got in trouble with SAG-AFTRA when they introduced a Darth Vader bot (using Google’s Gemini) to Fortnite in March 2025. Players of the game had found a way of making the AI say hateful and unsavoury things. SAG-AFTRA argued that not only was it problematic to James Earl Jones, (who probably couldn’t have envisioned such a use when signing his rights away) but for other artists who have voiced Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker.
Also, during the NBA finals, ABC aired its first ever entirely AI generated advertisement. The GTA style ad for gambling brand Kalshi was made in just two days, by AI filmmaker PJ Ace. ABC sort permission from their owners, Disney to air it. PJ Ace wrote on his youtube channel, "I can't believe Disney approved my AI commercial to run during the NBA finals.”
The commercial ran during game 3, on June 12th, the day after Disney filed their lawsuit against Midjourney.
Disney also seem to be developing a close partnership with other large brands who also happened to have AI engines.
In March 2025 it was announced that Google DeepMind would be embedded into Disney’s new line of free-roaming park robots. In the same month, Google Gemini was added to Fortnite’s Darth Vader bot. Outside of AI, they’re also getting Google’s help to boost their ad sales platform.
And now reportedly, Disney are looking at partnering with Microsoft’s OpenAI, although there are no details about what this will look like.
Why Sue Midjourney?
Image Source: LinkedIn
For all Disney’s bluster, it’s clear they have no problem with the copyright issues of GenAI. If they did, they wouldn’t have approved PJ Ace’s commercial.
It could be that Disney is trying to get rid of an AI company they’re not likely to work with. Disney have gone after competitors before. Disney attempted to scupper Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time by releasing Oliver and Company on the same day.
However, Midjourney are not the only AI start-up out there, and there’s also DeepSeek. It’s unlikely that Disney are going to take all of them into the courtroom. But a couple of cases, aimed at companies without unlimited funds or the support of a large corporate structure will make waves in the industry, so that in the future AI engines might avoid scraping their content. Disney will make the lawsuit expensive for Midjourney, and there might be others further down the line. But if you’re in partnership with them, then GenAI is absolutely fine. Apparently, Disney has no concerns about infringing on other people’s copyright.
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