Disney sues Midjourney for copyright infringement — but Midjourney demands to see Disney's own AI us
midjourney asked a court to force disney, universal, and warner bros to disclose their internal generative ai usage. this countersuit alleges studios use similar tech while claiming damages, making their claims of market harm potentially hypocritical.
midjourney is escalating its legal defense against disney, universal, and warner bros by filing a motion to compel broader discovery, demanding access to internal ai tools, prompts, and outputs that the studios claim are exempt. the ai startup argues that limiting discovery to consumer-facing videos allows the studios to hide their own use of generative ai for internal storyboarding and content ideation, which midjourney asserts proves training on unlicensed copyrighted material is industry custom. midjourney contends that if the studios are developing models that perform the actions they sued over—downloading and training on copyrighted characters without licenses—it invalidates their claims of market harm. the studios' lead attorney has dismissed these requests as a 'fishing expedition,' insisting the case is simply about stopping unauthorized distribution of famous characters.