Create This Prompt: Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Lawyers Team Up to Sue AI Generator MiniMax in Second Joint Lawsuit of Its Kind

The suit calls the Shanghai-based company "willful and brazen" with the use of the studio's copyrighted characters "as their own."
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For the second time this year, Disney, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. Discovery have teamed up in a joint lawsuit against a major AI generator.

What’s Happening:

  • The Walt Disney Company has teamed up with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery to file a joint lawsuit against Chinese AI firm MiniMax, alleging large scale piracy of their copyrighted works.
  • This marks the second lawsuit of this type this year, after a similar lawsuit was filed against AI generator MidJourney, in June that saw Warner Bros join earlier this month.
  • In the suit, the studios argue that MiniMax has disregarded U.S. copyright law by treating the characters from the studios as their own, calling the infringement “willful and brazen."
  • The suit also argues that MiniMax has failed to act on Cease and Desist requests from the studios to avoid copyright infringement, even when they have presented reasonable measures that are used by other AI firms, or even their own - citing MiniMax’s technological restrictions on violence and nudity which are already in place and used by their services.
  • In the suit, the companies say “The Hailuo service offers its subscribers an endless supply of infringing images and videos featuring Plaintiffs’ famous copyrighted characters. MiniMax completely disregards U.S. copyright law and treats Plaintiffs’ valuable copyrighted characters like its own."
  • The suit also points out numerous examples of alleged infringement, saying “If a MiniMax subscriber submits a simple text prompt requesting the character Darth Vader in a particular setting or doing a particular action, MiniMax generates and displays high quality, downloadable images and videos featuring Disney’s copyrighted Darth Vader (along with MiniMax Hailuo branding no less)."
  • The image below was included as part of the lawsuit, complete with the aforementioned Minimax and Hailuo branding.

  • The full lawsuit (originally shared by Variety) also features numerous Star Wars examples, and other renderings featuring Marvel, The Simpsons, DC, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Minions, Looney Tunes, and Dreamworks characters.
  • The lawsuit points out that some of these characters were also used in marketing MiniMax services, a service that “pirates and plunders plaintiff’s copyrighted works on a massive scale" showing that “MiniMax markets Hailou AI as a ‘Hollywood studio in your pocket’ - an audacious self-anointed nickname given that MiniMax built its business from intellectual property stolen from Hollywood studios like Plaintiffs."
  • MiniMax was founded in early 2022 according to their website, and is reportedly valued at $4 billion as of press time. Based out of Shanghai, the company has millions of subscribers, as noted in the suit, which says that MiniMax “blatantly continues to infringe Plaintiff’s copyrights in favor of its own bottom line."
  • Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and NBCUniversal are seeking unspecified monetary damages, or “at plaintiff’s election," maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work.
  • The suit is also seeking an injunction barring MiniMax from infringing the studio’s copyrighted works.

What They’re Saying:

  • Disney, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery: “MiniMax’s bootlegging business model and defiance of U.S copyright law are not only an attack on Plaintiffs and the hard-working creative community that brings the magic of movies to life, but are also a broader threat to the American motion picture industry, which has created millions of jobs and contributed more than $260 billion to the nation’s economy."

A Lengthy List:

  • While this is the second time a major lawsuit has been filed by the studios against an AI firm, it's really the eyecatching list of plaintiffs in the suit that is driving the message home that no preexisting IP from these studios can be used by these platforms, regardless of what country they are based out of.
  • The full list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit against MiniMax are: Disney Enterprises Inc., Marvel Characters Inc., MVL Film Finance LLC, Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (collectively, “Disney"); Universal City Studios Productions LLLP and DreamWorks Animation LLC (collectively “Universal"); and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., DC Comics, The Cartoon Network Inc., Turner Entertainment Co. and Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc. (collectively “Warner Bros. Discovery").
  • Within all of these, you have basically every character churned out by these studios pre or post-acquisition covered.
  • Popular characters, like those from Star Wars, Frozen, Shrek, the Minions franchise, and more are obvious go-tos, but something more obscure like Johnny Bravo or Secret Squirrel are obviously also covered but just the mere listing of all of these really drives the point home to these AI generators - don’t try it.

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Tony Betti
Originally from California where he studied a dying artform (hand-drawn animation), Tony has spent most of his adult life in the theme parks of Orlando. When he’s not writing for LP, he’s usually watching and studying something animated or arguing about “the good ole’ days” at the parks.
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