Warner Bros. Slaps Midjourney with $150K-Per-Image Lawsuit Over AI Copies of Batman, Wonder Woman and Bugs Bunny
Warner Bros. Discovery sued Midjourney on Thursday, accusing the San Francisco-based AI image generator of “purposefully infringing” copyrighted works and asking a court to stop the alleged copying and award damages.
- Warner Bros. filed a federal complaint that includes screenshots comparing Midjourney images to original works.
- The company seeks either Midjourney’s related profits or $150,000 per infringed work.
- This follows a similar suit earlier this year from Disney and Universal, and could push discovery into how AI models are trained.
The lawsuit and key allegations
Warner Bros. Discovery filed the complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The 101-page filing includes dozens of side-by-side screenshots that the company says show Midjourney-generated images that are almost indistinguishable from copyrighted originals, featuring characters such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo, and Bugs Bunny.
In a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter, a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said, “Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.”
What Warner Bros. alleges the company knew and could do
The complaint argues that Midjourney “already possesses the technological means and measures that could prevent its distribution, public display, and public performance of infringing images and videos. But Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection to copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement.”
It also states, “Evidently, Midjourney will not stop stealing Warner Bros. Discovery’s intellectual property until a court orders it to stop. Midjourney’s large-scale infringement is systematic, ongoing, and willful, and Warner Bros. Discovery has been, and continues to be, substantially and irreparably harmed by it.”
The full complaint is available on Scribd, which includes the screenshots referenced in the filing.
Damages Warner Bros. is seeking
Warner Bros. Discovery is asking the court to recover all profits Midjourney made that relate to Warner Bros. intellectual property. Alternatively, the company seeks statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work. In practice, Warner Bros. notes that a single character could involve hundreds of TV episodes or comic images, which would multiply potential damages substantially.
Context and related lawsuits
This lawsuit follows a similar legal challenge filed in June by Disney and Universal; those companies teamed up to sue Midjourney as well. Midjourney is one of the most widely used AI image tools, with an estimated more than 20 million registered users, according to data insights company DemandSage.
Why discovery could matter
If the case reaches discovery, parties could obtain internal details about how Midjourney trains and operates its models. That information has been a grey area in the AI industry. For example, Midjourney founder David Holz told The Verge in 2022: “Pretty much every big AI model just pulls off all the data it can, all the text it can, all the images it can.”
Next steps
The case will proceed through the federal court system. For now, Warner Bros. Discovery has filed its complaint and stated its requested remedies; Midjourney will have an opportunity to respond in court filings and, if the case moves forward, during discovery.
