The lawsuit is the first major legal battle between Hollywood studios and an AI firm, and follows other suits by independent artists who have sued Midjourney and other generative artificial intelligence makers for using their creative work.
The entertainment giants accused San Francisco-based Midjourney of pirating their libraries and making "innumerable" copies of beloved characters including Darth Vader from "Star Wars," Elsa from "Frozen," and the Minions from "Despicable Me" without permission.
The suit, filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, alleges Midjourney used the studios' works to train its image service and generate high-quality reproductions featuring the companies' iconic characters.
"By helping itself to Plaintiffs' copyrighted works, and then distributing images (and soon videos) that blatantly incorporate and copy Disney's and Universal's famous characters - without investing a penny in their creation -- Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism," the lawsuit states.
The studios said they approached Midjourney about their copyright concerns before filing the suit, requesting the company implement measures to prevent infringement that other AI companies have adopted.
But Midjourney "ignored" their concerns and is "strictly focused on its own bottom line," according to the filing.
Instead of stopping its infringement, the studios argued, Midjourney continued to release new and better versions of its AI image service.
The complaint noted the company generated $300 million in revenue last year through paid subscriptions.
The lawsuit provides ample visual evidence of alleged infringement, showing AI-generated images of characters including Yoda wielding a lightsaber, Bart Simpson riding a skateboard, Disney's Groot from "Guardians of the Galaxy," and Universal's Shrek.
Disney and Universal are seeking unspecified monetary damages and a preliminary injunction to prevent Midjourney from copying their works or offering its services without copyright protections.
Last year a California federal judge found that artists behind a copyright infringement suit against Midjourney, Stability AI and other companies had plausibly argued these AI companies had copied and stored their work on company servers, allowing the litigation to continue.
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