Warner Bros Discovery has launched a major lawsuit against Midjourney, accusing the fast-growing AI photo generation company of unlawfully exploiting its vast library of characters to train its systems and produce images for paying users.
The complaint, filed Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, claims Midjourney “brazenly stole” works featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, and other icons to generate downloadable depictions of them “in every imaginable scene.”
The case, Warner Bros Entertainment Inc et al v Midjourney Inc (No. 25-08376), is the latest in a growing wave of legal battles over how AI firms are sourcing their training data—and who ultimately profits from it.
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 19 (Feb 9 – May 2, 2026): big discounts for early bird.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
Register for Tekedia AI Lab: From Technical Design to Deployment (next edition begins Jan 24 2026).
According to the complaint, Midjourney not only knew its conduct was wrongful but had previously blocked subscribers from generating videos from infringing images. The company later lifted that safeguard last month, promoting it as an “improvement.”
“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,” Warner Bros alleged.
The studio is seeking unspecified damages, disgorgement of profits, and a halt to further infringements.
A Warner Bros Discovery spokesperson framed the lawsuit as a defense of its creative foundation: “The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners. We filed this suit to protect our content, our partners and our investments.”
Warner Bros Discovery’s operations include Warner Bros Entertainment, Turner Entertainment, DC Comics, Hanna-Barbera, and The Cartoon Network.
Hollywood Studios Closing Ranks
This legal action follows a June lawsuit against Midjourney by Walt Disney and Comcast’s Universal, which accused the platform of enabling unauthorized depictions of Darth Vader, Bart Simpson, Shrek, and Ariel from The Little Mermaid.
Taken together, these lawsuits show Hollywood’s largest studios closing ranks against AI firms they see as siphoning off the value of decades-old franchises without permission or compensation.
Midjourney’s Growth and Defense
Founded in 2022 by David Holz, San Francisco-based Midjourney has become one of the most prominent generative AI startups. By September 2024, it had attracted nearly 21 million users and, according to Warner Bros’ complaint, generated around $300 million in annual revenue.
In an August 6 filing in the Disney-Universal case, Midjourney insisted that copyright law “does not confer absolute control” over how works are used. The company argued that training generative AI on copyrighted material qualifies as fair use, a legal doctrine it said ensures “the free flow of ideas and information.”
This defense mirrors the strategy adopted by other AI players under legal fire. OpenAI, Stability AI, and Anthropic are all facing lawsuits from authors, publishers, and record labels alleging that their works were ingested without consent to fuel AI systems. The outcomes of these cases could set precedents that determine how far AI firms can go in using copyrighted content.
The Warner Bros suit also lands just weeks after Meta struck a high-profile partnership with Midjourney, highlighting the company’s growing influence in Silicon Valley. That deal drew attention because it linked one of the world’s biggest social media companies to an AI platform now at the center of copyright battles with Hollywood’s most powerful studios.
With AI partnerships gaining mainstream legitimacy, studios fear their characters could be replicated endlessly in new forms with little regard for ownership rights.
Beyond Batman and Bugs Bunny
The lawsuit underscores the broader anxiety sweeping the creative industries. Characters such as Batman, Superman, and Bugs Bunny are not just beloved cultural figures—they are pillars of billion-dollar franchises that fuel films, merchandise, and television programming worldwide. Allowing unlicensed use, Warner Bros argues, undermines both its financial investments and its creative control.
The Warner Bros complaint now adds to a rising tide of copyright challenges that could reshape the AI industry. If courts reject the fair use claims of AI companies, firms like Midjourney may be forced to radically alter their business models—potentially paying massive licensing fees or rebuilding datasets from scratch.
As it stands, Warner Bros’ case against Midjourney will now proceed in California, where judges will weigh whether training and generating with copyrighted characters constitutes fair use or wholesale infringement.
Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against AI image-generation startup Midjourney, accusing the company of “blatantly and purposefully” infringing on its intellectual property. According to the complaint, Midjourney has generated “countless” images of WB-owned IP like Bugs Bunny, Wonder Woman and “Rick and Morty,” sometimes even in response to user prompts that don’t mention the characters by name. Midjourney now finds itself in the legal crosshairs of three media giants, after Disney and Universal sued the company for copyright infringement this summer.