Warner Bros. Discovery is suing Midjourney for copyright infringement

Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against the AI image generator Midjourney, accusing it of unlawfully using the company's copyrighted intellectual properties, including popular fictional characters like Superman, Batman, and Scooby-Doo, to generate images and videos for its commercial subscription service. The lawsuit alleges that Midjourney has the technology to prevent users from generating images of the characters it owns but has recently removed those protections, allowing users to create and profit from these copyrighted works. Warner Bros. argues that this ability to generate its characters is a significant draw for Midjourney's subscription service, which costs between $10 and $120 per month. The media conglomerate is seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, claiming that Midjourney's infringement is "willful." This lawsuit comes on the heels of a similar copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Midjourney by Disney and Universal Studios in June.