Midjourney—Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for 'massive and deliberate copyright infringement' of characters like Elsa, Shrek, Darth Vader
On June 11, 2025, Universal Pictures and The Walt Disney Company filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney in U.S. District Court for Central District of California, accusing the company of 'massive and deliberate copyright infringement' for allowing users to create highly realistic depictions of proprietary characters including Elsa, Shrek, Darth Vader, and Homer Simpson without license or authorization. The suit described Midjourney as 'a bottomless pit of plagiarism.' Both studios had served a cease-and-desist order which Midjourney reportedly ignored.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Safety | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Intellectual Property Ethics | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Disney and Universal filed copyright lawsuit accusing Midjourney of massive copyright infringement
On June 11, 2025, Universal Pictures and The Walt Disney Company filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accusing Midjourney of allowing users to create highly realistic depictions of proprietary characters such as Elsa, Shrek, Darth Vader, and Homer Simpson without authorization. The suit described Midjourney as 'a bottomless pit of plagiarism.'